Every Thanksgiving, freshman Dyani Frye spends the day in the kitchen with her mother. She cooks many of her favorite foods. She helps with the rosemary-seasoned sweet potatoes and her favorite vegetable medley dish. There are mushrooms and asparagus. She also helps cook the tofurkey.
For some vegans, Thanksgiving is still just a time to cook delicious food and spend time with family. For others, it can be a yearly struggle.
“My first Thanksgiving [as a] vegetarian, even that caught my family off-guard,” said Sam Francis, a sophomore environmental science and technology major. “Not thinking, they put bacon in everything, so really my only options were food that I brought myself … and potatoes. I ate cheesy potatoes.”
Making your own food as a vegan is one of the best ways to make sure you have something to eat for Thanksgiving. This is especially important because non-vegan ingredients can hide in food that sounds safe.
“It can be as simple as using vegan butter, like Earth Balance, instead of regular butter, and bam, the dish is vegan now,” said Frye, a plant sciences major with a concentration in crop production and horticulture.
Frye also has faced minor conflicts when it comes to being vegan during the Thanksgiving holiday.
“You want to appease everyone … but you also want to stick to your own morals,” she said.
Any family can be difficult to deal with.
“[My grandma] is very opinionated,” Francis said. “She’ll give me a fact every time I see her. So the last one was, ‘you know, vegetarians don’t get enough vitamins.’”
The best way to combat criticism from family members and table guest, is research. Many critics’ first statement is that vegans don’t get enough nutrients through what they eat. By doing research and knowing exactly how you’re going to get all your vitamins and nutrients, you can placate these people and continue to live a healthy vegan lifestyle. It’s not all vegetables and beans for every meal.
“Be confident that what you’re doing is exactly what you should be doing,” said Monica Argon, a psychology major, concerning others’ criticisms.
Many people are supportive of the life choice, as Francis, Frye, and Argon have all found.
Simple substitutions can make a Thanksgiving dinner vegan without anyone else noticing, so that everyone can be happy. Whether you are cooking turkey, turducken, or tofurkey this November, Thanksgiving is about spending time with family for the holidays.