Free Report: The Socially Well-Adjusted Vegetarian

Vegetarian Social Etiquette - Going Veg Gracefully in the Real World

This Savvy Vegetarian report is about advancing the vegetarian cause, and enjoying a harmonious vegetarian lifestyle, through good manners, diplomacy, and public relations.

When we first go vegetarian, we're bursting with zeal, and try to convert everyone we know to our new vegetarian religion. It's one thing to be right, but quite another to tell everybody else.

As Mark Twain said, "Few things are harder to put up with than a good example."

People Are Social Beings

Most of us want to be part of a group, and we gravitate toward people who are most like us. When we go vegetarian, we don't always have a group of other vegetarians to belong to. So, we try making our current group into vegetarians.

But people are fond of their own beliefs and habits, so pretty soon most of the non-vegetarians start running away when they see us coming, gossiping about us, laughing at us, or insulting us. That isn't what we want!

Integrate your vegetarian lifestyle with the non-vegetarian world and achieve harmonious co-existence. As you've probably discovered, that's not so easy, because you have to do all the work!

But don't be discouraged. Think about smokers. They're in the minority, everybody knows they're killing themselves, and soon they won't be able to smoke anywhere in public. When I grew up, in the fifties and sixties, most people chain-smoked everywhere, and you were considered a loser if you didn't smoke.

Soon, vegetarian diets will be considered normal

Most restaurants will offer a variety of vegetarian and vegan foods. Vegetarian restaurants will be common. Restaurants that cater to meat-eaters will be hard to find. Warnings from the surgeon general will be on all packages of meat in grocery stores.

Meat won’t be illegal, but it will be prohibitively expensive (as it is now, only the costs are hidden in our taxes). Think I’m dreaming? Talk to me in five years!

Meanwhile, back in the real world, the Savvy Vegetarian Social Report has a few ways to make your present vegetarian existence much easier.

Judith Kingsbury, Savvy Vegetarian