4 Tips For Being Vegan In A Non-Vegan Household & Navigating Life In A Non-Vegan World

Being different from the people around you can be an intimidating and lonely experience. This can especially be true when you are a vegan or and aspiring vegan navigating the challenges of living in a non-vegan world. I know this firsthand from my own experiences.

My journey becoming a vegan in a non-vegan household is a big part of my inspiration for creating The Confident Vegan. You can read more about that here in a previous blog post.

It took me about two years to fully commit to being vegan. I knew my husband and our kids would not want to make that transition with me. I was afraid of navigating the challenges of making meals at home and social settings. How would I make meals at home that everyone would eat? What would people say? How would they judge me? How would I be able to respond to questions and comments?

As a recovering people-pleaser I realized this was that next phase in my life's journey to make a big decision for myself. Eating meat and other animal products didn't align with my values. I had started making diet changes for my health. Learning more about the animal agriculture industry made my heart hurt.

When I was finally ready to embrace being a vegan in 2017, I was ready to navigate those challenges what would come up. I told my husband and he was supportive of my choice. As the cook at home, I still prepared non-vegan meals for my family and made vegan ones for myself. I figured out a system with this, so it didn't take up too much extra time. (After becoming empty nesters in 2023, I have stopped preparing non-vegan meals for my family.) I also learned how to navigate social settings and address challenging questions and comments that come up sometimes.

Today I wanted to share some useful tips I have learned from my experiences, in case you are a vegan or an aspiring vegan grappling with these same challenges. If you are a non-vegan reading this, hopefully you will find it useful as well with supporting any non-vegans you have in your life.

Tip #1: Connect With Your Why

When we connect with why something is important to us, it can help us stay committed when times get tough.

Here are some journal prompts that can help you with your vegan why.

1. What first inspired me to explore or commit to veganism? Was it a moment, a person, a documentary, or a feeling?

   
   

2. How does living a vegan or plant-based lifestyle align with my values? Which values does it most support (e.g., compassion, health, sustainability, justice, authenticity)?

   
   

3. When I imagine a world where more people eat plants and fewer animals are harmed, what do I see? How does that vision make me feel?

   
   

4. What kind of example do I want to set for others—including family, friends, or future generations—through the way I eat and live?

   
   

5. What has been the most meaningful change I’ve experienced (or hope to experience) since beginning this journey? How has it impacted my body, mind, or spirit?

   
   

6. What challenges do I face in staying true to this path, and what helps me stay grounded when it feels hard?

   
   

7. How does being vegan (or moving toward it) help me feel more empowered, aligned, or connected to something bigger than myself?

   
   

8. What does “living in integrity” mean to me, and how does veganism support that?

   
   

Tip #2: Communicate Your Needs

Once you are clear about why being a vegan is important to you, the next step is communicating your needs. Getting clear on what your exact needs are and what you are willing to do and not do is an important first step with this. When I first became became vegan, our kids were younger. I was okay with preparing non-vegan meals for my family, because I wanted to be respectful of what my family needed. As time went on, handling meat and fish became increasingly difficult for me. Our kids were in college at this point and it was just me and my husband most of the time. My needs changed and I communicated them. My husband was respectful of this. If your friends and family genuinely care about you, they will be respectful of what's important to you. Some friendships have dwindled after I went vegan. That was hard at the time, but what I realized was what it said about that relationship.

Here are some journal prompts that can help you get clear on your needs, so you can communicate them effectively.

1. What specific support or understanding do I need from my family and friends as I move forward in my vegan journey?(Examples: respecting food choices, avoiding judgment, help with meal planning, not making jokes about it, etc.)

2. What parts of this lifestyle are non-negotiable for me, and where am I open to flexibility or compromise (if at all)?(This helps clarify boundaries and avoid overexplaining or people-pleasing.

   
   

3. What emotions come up when I think about sharing my choices with others? What past experiences might be influencing these feelings?

   
   

4. What would an ideal conversation about my vegan lifestyle look like? How do I want to feel—and help others feel—during that exchange?

   
   

5. How can I lovingly stand in my truth without trying to convince or change anyone else? What words or phrases can help me express my needs clearly and calmly?

Tip #3: Preparation

There are two categories of preparation to consider:

• What do you need to be prepared at home?

• What do you need to be prepared in social settings?

Home

• How will you prepare meals at home?

• What are you willing to do and not do?

• How will you communicate this ahead of time?

When I first went vegan, I would make two different main dishes (one vegan and one not-vegan) and then all the side dishes were vegan. This simplified meal prep-for me. Now I just make a vegan main and vegan sides. If my husband or our kids want a non-vegan main, they can cook it themselves.

Social Settings

Social settings can be a bit more trickier to navigate, but get easier over time the more you do it. If my immediate family or close friends invite me over, they will make sure to have vegan options available. I also offer to bring something over to share. If I am invited someplace where my veganism is not common knowledge, then I let the host know in advance and offer to bring a main and a dessert to share. This gives me food I can enjoy and allows me to show others how yummy vegan food can be.

When going to restaurants, if it's with family or friends who are not familiar with my veganism, I communicate my needs. Then a restaurant with vegan options is discussed and chosen. It's always a great feeling when someone is willing to try an all vegan restaurant! Then I have unlimited options and they get to have a new experience.

A great resource for researching dining options is the Happy Cow App.

Another aspect of social challenges is questions and comments from others. Most people ask from a place of curiosity and understanding. Others can ask challenging questions and make comments that can be hurtful and frustrating to deal with.

This is when boundaries need to be set. If someone is being belligerent with me. Then I will say something along the lines of "I am not telling you how to eat. I would like to change the conversation now."

Watching videos and reading books has helped get better at answering some of the tougher questions that come up, such as "Don't plants feel pain too?" A great book to read is "How To Argue With A Meat Eater" by Ed Winters. He goes through all the arguments used against veganism and gives thoughtful responses with evident to back him up. His YouTube channel is a favorite resource of mine as well.

For health related questions, I like to direct people to check out the Forks Over Knives website.

By educating yourself on all the arguments against veganism and having links to resources on hand to direct people to, you will feel more empowered with responding to these situations.

Tip #4 Finding Support

Support is so very important! It can feel lonely not being understood and living differently from the people around you. This is even true when you have family and friends who are supportive.

Podcasts, YouTube channels, online communities, and local meetups have all been very important to me.

MeetUp is a great place to find vegan meetups in your area as well as online.

Hearing about the vegan journeys of others has been an empowering experience for me. This is why I share these on my channel The Confident Vegan. You can find a variety of other useful content on there as well. Another great place to listen to vegan stories is on my friend Kimberly Winter's podcast Did You Bring The Hummus. We also have a joint project together called That Vegan Morning Show. You can be a part of the conversation and join us live on YouTube every Monday at 7am Eastern Time. We will also respond to questions and comments on the replays.

For more support with eliminating people-pleasing and setting more boundaries, I offer my 1:1 coaching program called Confidently Be You. You can learn more about that here.

Wherever you are on your vegan journey, I hope you found this post useful. If you are a non-vegan who took time to read this, thank you! I hope it offered some valuable tips on how to support the vegans in your life.