Cleansing and (separately) activism excitement!

Cleansing = chucking all my non-vegan crap. Seriously, the dietary change is probably the easiest change to make. Then you look around your house and realize all the non-vegan things you have accumulated, and its appalling. For me, my single largest offense was shoes. Unfortunately, when you are financially challenged you cannot toss ALL (and I did have to lose them all) your shoes until you can afford new ones! So - 4 months in I finally have 4 pairs of vegan shoes and can get rid of all my non-vegan shoes. It feels great!!

Some other things for me to consider have been things like shampoo, body wash, lotion, etc. - but luckily I was already buying those things cruelty-free, so no major changes there. Just being extra careful to check because some products advertise "no testing on animals" and then have honey or other animal products IN them. My advice: read the labels and do your research to make sure you are fully informed.

Found great vegan shoe choices at:
www.mooshoes.com
www.alternativeoutfitters.com
www.ragazzivegan.com

Also, a brand called Earth Therapeutics has some great cruelty-free products (body wash, etc.).

If you have any questions about finding vegan-friendly products, feel free to shoot us an email at whatitmeanstobevegan@gmail.com

In addition to my cleansing, Brian and I have been researching animal activism, wanting to do our part. At someone's suggestion I researched potential vegan activist groups in our area (Rhode Island) - and to my great surprise I actually found one! It's called Rhode Island Vegan Awareness and from the website (www.veganawareness.org) it really looks great. They take an abolitionist approach and seem to recognize that "humane killing" is still killing, and therefore NOT humane, which is important to me. There are too many animal rights groups out there that support "humane killing." They are having a meeting this Thursday to brainstorm new ideas for activism in our community. Brian is working, but I'm definitely going and SO excited... I'll keep you posted on how it goes...




✰Kristen✰

Getting Started

Hello! Our names are Brian and Kristen, and in January of this year we realized the importance of making the choice to become vegan. Brian was the one to originally bring the notion of vegetarianism to the marriage, and the choice to take a stand against innocent animal suffering was something we could both get behind. However, as we continued to educate ourselves on the issues, we realized that being a vegetarian was not enough. The amount of suffering that factory farm animals are subjected to in the name of dairy and egg products is unimaginable. In fact, the meat and dairy industries survive through the ignorance of the masses. We certainly would never have known the details of what goes on had we not made a distinct effort to learn.

So this blog is about our journey as new vegans. Making dietary changes, looking at the products we use, the clothing we wear and the choices we make. Perhaps most importantly, we will discuss our recent enlightenment on the need for advocacy and activism for animal rights. We are still making our way and trying to figure out how to stand up for something that we believe so strongly.

We will each be posting to this blog intermittently as we experience different things, and occasionally we will post together, like now. We hope that you enjoy reading our story and are excited to have you join us on our journey!

If you are interested in learning more about being vegan, or the injustices done to animals, here are a few resources we have used/liked:

Book: Becoming Vegan by Brenda Davis, R.D. & Vesanto Melina, M.S., R.D.
Book & Podcast: Vegan Freak, Being Vegan in a Non-Vegan World by Bob & Jenna Torres (we downloaded the podcast on iTunes, you can also find them on facebook)
Book: Introduction to Animal Rights: Your Child or the Dog by Gary Francione

~ Brian & Kristen