Vegetarian Summerfest - Friday
A panel of lifelong vegans, raised by vegan parents.
© Doris Lin 2009, licensed to About.com
I attended some great sessions at the Vegetarian Summerfest during the day today. First was the "Tweetup," led by Vance Lekmuhl of the "Earth to Philly" blog, where we talked about how we use Twitter and Facebook and found that a bunch of people were tweeting about the Vegetarian Summerfest. In the separate but related session, "Veggie Social Media," led by Vance Lekmuhl and Maynard Clark, we discussed how to use different social media for activism, for fun, and for networking.
A more serious session was “Why Raw Foods? Are You Sick and Tired of Being Sick and Tired?” by Dan Ladermann of Living Light. As with many things, raw foods is not all or nothing. The more raw veggies you eat, the better. I never thought about this before, but Ladermann pointed out that we are the only species that heats our food. Vitamins, enzymes and phytochemicals are changed when food is heated above 120F. Heating fats destroys the antioxidant qualities and are known to make them carcinogenic. I vow to eat more raw salad.
For me, the most interesting and entertaining session was the panel of lifelong vegans - adults and children raised vegan by vegan parents. They were very positive about being "different" from other kids, and found that the older they got, the more proud they became of their veganism. They also emphasized that vegan parents should allow their kids to choose whether to be vegan, or the kids will rebel. I asked whether any of them had ever eaten meat out of curiosity or rebellion. Several had eaten animal products accidentally, as occasionally happens to almost all vegans. One replied, “I’ve tried cheese and stuff. It wasn’t that exciting.” Another who had tasted cheese said that she found it unappealing, "like mucus."
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What a great panel.. I would’ve loved to have attended that. Thank you for reporting about this!
I wonder how all these lifelong vegans feel about being on display every year at the Annual NAVS Vegetarian Summerfest.
They seem to do OK with the conversations, and it’s a good time to compare notes with one another.
Surely it’s not a problem for any of them (if they’re still around), but throughout MY early years as a vegetarian and a vegan, I found folks who were ex-vegetarians or reared in vegetarian families but who left the diet somewhere around high school or college.
Socialization and meeting needs along the way surely is part of what we ‘conscious culture builders’ need to design.
I’d just like to clarify one thing. (My children were part of this panel.) With respect to the comment “….They also emphasized that vegan parents should allow their kids to choose whether to be vegan.” This needs to be put into context. No one at this panel suggested that very young children should be given this choice. We only gave our children “their food choices” AFTER they demonstrated an understanding of the ethical and health issues related to diet. For one of ours this was at the age of 7, for our other it was at the age of 10.