Vegan lifestyle articles that discuss ways of living in peace with humans, animals, and the environment.
Marla Rose,
VeganStreet.com
May 2017
Responses to Facebook posting: “I'm curious: for those who have been vegan for more than five years, what factors do you attribute to your longevity as a vegan? There are many things that tempt people away from veganism, from a desire to fit in better to simply missing some things you used to eat, and we know that the rate of defection from veganism is quite high. What have you done or what have you plugged into to make veganism work for you? In other words, what do you attribute to your success as a long-term vegan? Thank you!”
A couple of weeks ago, I posted a question to my Facebook friends and got
far more responses than I expected. Usually when a thread has more than 250
comments, it means that people are fussin’ and feudin’ with each other (why
did I suddenly turn into Yosemite Sam? I have no idea…) but it wasn’t like
that this time. People just had a lot of thoughts to share. Here was the
(slightly edited) question I posed:
“I'm curious: for those who have been vegan for more than five years, what
factors do you attribute to your longevity as a vegan? There are many things
that tempt people away from veganism, from a desire to fit in better to
simply missing some things you used to eat, and we know that the rate of
defection from veganism is quite high. What have you done or what have you
plugged into to make veganism work for you? In other words, what do you
attribute to your success as a long-term vegan? Thank you!”
Even though this is far from a scientifically rigorous survey and a fairly
small sample, I think the resulting responses offered a fascinating lens
into what makes a successful long-term vegan. I am used to being pretty
blown away by the depth and insight of my Facebook friends but this time, I
was almost overwhelmed by both the deluge of responses as well of the
generosity of spirit reflected in them. From this simple question, I got a
rich supply of answers about the qualities that are both common and unique
to long-term vegans. Curious about what may be part of the successful
long-term vegans composite? I have collated my most frequent responses in
order of how common the answer was below.
Fascinating stuff. Here’s how it broke down…
See PDF for detailed responses to the 10 topics!
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