Why My Home is a Vegan Zone
I've been thinking about this a lot in the last couple of weeks and really wanted to share my thoughts on it with all of you. The other day Jason was recording tracks for a friend of ours in our home studio. Our friend and those who were singing on the tracks got hungry and decided they wanted to order a pizza. They offered to order one to share with cheese, and to order a separate vegan one for Jason. He reluctantly agreed. When I got home and he told me about it I expressed that if I had been there I would have said no, point blank. He agreed with me saying that it made him very uncomfortable and he wished he'd said no. Why would we feel the need to keep our home a 100% vegan zone? Let me count the ways.
ONE Animal products have a strong smell that doesn't go away quickly. Not only do I find this smell middle nauseating, but it is also a constant reminder of the pain and suffering of countless millions of animals. Not really something I want to be thinking about every minute of the day, especially not in my own home.
TWO My house, my rules. Some people don't allow smoking. Some people don't allow drinking. I don't allow murder, of any species. Plain and simple. If you want to do it I won't stop you. But try to bring it into my home? That's a no go.
THREE I don't want to eat off of plates that have had dead animals on them, even if they've been scrubbed with bleach.
FOUR I'm not going to support the exploitation of animals, even second hand. If I don't allow animal products in my home friends and family may choose to eat vegan foods while they're here rather than going hungry, and every single vegan meal makes a big difference to the animals and our planet!
FIVE My home is my safe place. Animal products don't make me feel safe.
SIX I try not to say anything to people who eat animal products in front of me (They're living their lives according to them. I have no right to judge them for where they are currently in their journey. I ate animals at one point, too!) but it does make me very uncomfortable. Once you recognize meat for what it really is, the flesh of a slaughtered animal, and dairy, the products made from milk stolen from the babies who it was intended for (and who were brought into the world against the mother's wishes, then taken from her), it's not a pleasant experience to see them being consumed without a second thought. When you live your life surrounded by these countless actions of secondhand cruelty, having once place that is free from them can be the difference between being constantly stressed and agitated, and being able to find a semblance of balance in your life.
Living in my home with my fiance is the first time since I went vegan that I haven't lived with a non-vegan. Being able to say as a couple that our home is a 100% vegan zone feels good. And that won't change any time soon.
Until next time,
Did any of these points surprise you? Are there things you don't allow in your home? Tell me about them in the comments below!
Do you ever finish a book and wonder if you really understood it? Do you give 5 stars to pretty much every book you read? Do you watch reviews of a book you enjoyed and find yourself surprised that the reviewer picked up on so many things you didn’t?
If this sounds like you and you want to make a change, this video is for you:
I set out this year to read a book from every country in the world and created a spread in my reading journal to track my progress (see image below). When I mentioned my goal in a YouTube video the suggestions started flooding in, and I realized it was worth taking the time to put together a little resource for us all to share!
One of the most common questions I have received over the past 7 years as a vegan is “How do you get enough [insert macro- or micronutrient here]?” This is a question I have explored in great detail on this blog, with dedicated posts focusing on protein, iron, B12, and so much more. And while I will always believe that getting your nutrition from whole plant foods is the best first choice, it’s not always a possibility for every person. Whether you live in a food desert with little access to fresh foods or struggle with digestive complications that make eating large amounts of high fiber foods a painful experience, sometimes supplementation is the only answer.
Today I will be sharing with you my favourite vegan gummy vitamins for maintaining optimal health as a vegan of over 7 years!
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From January 5th to January 19th, $1 will be donated to the Australian Red Cross for every order placed to aid in emergency relief for those affected by the bushfires currently ravaging Australia.
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Hello again :) This video is incredibly special to me, as I’m setting up my husband‘s first ever bullet journal! I’m super excited about this one and I hope you enjoy this video as much as I enjoyed putting it together.
Hi all! I'm excited to share my completed Rhodia Webnotebook with you today as I flip through all of my bullet journal spreads from January to September 2018 :)
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Hi friends! Due to popular demand, here is my Watercolour Moon Tutorial/Watercolour Moon Painting Process!
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Plan with me for December with a winter pinecone and birch tree theme in my bullet journal!
Elizabeth Turnbull
Coined by Elizabeth Jean @xparmesanprincessx, the personal curriculum trend is about creating a self-directed learning plan focused on areas of personal interest, loosely based on a school curriculum structure, including things like assigned reading, goals, assignments, and final projects.
At its core, the personal curriculum movement is about celebrating lifelong learning and intellectual curiosity. It's about being more intentional about how we spend our time when we're not sleeping, or at work, or doing the basic maintenance or admin or chores to keep our lives going. It's about using our free time to enrich our lives in a way that is purposeful and intentional and joyful, indulging our curiosity as adults, even once we're outside of structured school environments, getting excited about learning and allowing ourselves the freedom to go down those rabbit holes in our special interests, to challenge our brains in ways that we maybe don't get the chance to in our day-to-day lives.