Before I finish writing about my travels, I thought I would throw in a plug for the mega awesome conference happening in my city this weekend, Vida Vegan Con!!
A whole weekend dedicated to the vegan blog world? Hell yes!! I couldn't afford a ticket and procrastinated on attempting to win a scholarship, but the awesome ladies putting on the conference are happily accepting sweat labor so I jumped right on it.
I'm incredibly excited about meeting the writers behind so many blogs that I read daily, going to different classes and swankin' it up at the Galarama! I feel so lucky to live in such a city that would afford the opportunity to put something like this on!
3 comments:
I'm posting in honest curiosity here. Hope this doesn't come off wrong, but I have a feeling it could so I feel like prefacing it with a "no offense, just wondering" clause might be appropriate.
I see you post a lot about vegan cuisine and the like and notice you're a part of a few blogs on here and the like and see you talk about it a lot. I may be ignorant to how things are different because I'm not exactly living outside of the box or the like, but I just kinda...don't understand.
I understand that being vegan is definitely a change when it comes to a different diet, but in seeing a lot of this stuff lately, I wonder is it also a way of life? I'm honestly curious. Are you attending and joining these groups to learn about how to cook or things to do so or is there more to it? Are they maybe a support group of sorts or maybe a place where one can feel less...segregated, I guess? I can see that as well (with the very negative things I hear here and there about it-for no reason other than it's different). I guess I'm just wondering...why, I guess? Hope I'm not coming off negatively here. Just wanting to understand more, not judge. I know very little about the life style (with the very little I know about the diet leading the way in the knowledge I have).
PS. Hope this is coherent enough...I'm a bit....faded.
It's most definitely a lifestyle! I first went vegan for my health, but animal rights is slowly becoming a bigger part of my life. By cutting out animal products out of my diet, I'm making a choice and taking a stand with my own life and my dollars. I don't buy leather, wool or silk anymore in addition to avoiding eating animal products, because it's a choice I made.
The way I see it, blogging about veganism is an activism approach. By blogging about veganism, whether it's about animal rights or tasty food, vegan bloggers are putting plenty of words out there about the way we choose to live our lives. The bloggers conference is full of topics regarding blogging such as getting more traffic, monetizing your blog, attacking writers block and bettering your photography. It also brings together a group of people that share the same compassion and interests and are proud of what they do. And why shouldn't I be proud of it? I don't see the diet as restrictive whatsoever (in fact, I put on weight when going vegan) and I just don't need animal products in my life.
People (not as in you, rather factory farm owners and animal abusers) do some pretty horrific things to animals, to beings that have done nothing to deserve it outside of being "tasty." And it sickens me.
There are plenty of books out there I can recommend that might explain the "whys" of what I do, if you're interested.
Also, it's very easy to feel left out when it comes to veganism. I love love love when people make an effort to accommodate me and I try to show it. There are times when I think people feel threatened, though. I'm not out to change anyone. In fact, I refuse to bring it up with people I've just met (outside of other vegans) because the first thing people say to me is, "I just can't give up cheese/bacon/chicken." Well, I really don't care, please stop trying to justify yourself to me.
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