Welcome to Gaia! ::

*warning: mini-rant*

My best friend, a current pescetarian and aspiring vegan, has very non-supportive family members. I've been friends with her at school for a few years, but have only known her family for the past few months.

Evidently, her parents think I am a "bad influence" and that if she tries to become vegan, her parents will not let her see me any more. Since when is eating healthfully a bad influence? I'm not trying to sell her drugs or something. In my opinion, my eating habits should not be a factor in deciding whether or not we should be friends. If I ate only fast food would this still be a deciding factor in whether or not she could be friends with me?

Even my family, all omnivorous, have a problem with this and think it is quite outrageous.

Has anyone else had a problem like this? I've never run into something like this before. Until now, I thought her family was very kind and understanding; I've made vegan meals at their house a few times and they liked it (or at least said they did). I just don't want them to end our friendship for something because of something as simple as a healthy lifestyle choice.

Well, I think a lot of it has to do with the way she may be presenting this to her parents. Since I don't know her, or what you two talk about, it could be a problem if she's going home to staunch omnivores and saying things like "Well, maybe YOU like meat, but I think it's disgusting and Miss Charlaine says that we're not meant to eat meat and eating meat makes you fat!!!"

Of course, I'm not suggesting this is what you've said or what she's said. It's just an example. If she's going to her parents with extreme vegan viewpoints to the point that she's beating them to death with her non-vegan family, they may be very annoyed that you may be putting these ideas "in her head." Ask her how her vegan confrontations go with her parents. Not just her side- what actually happens, without exaggerations on how they react to her points on why she wants to become vegan. If she's arguing with them, refusing to eat anything for possibly silly reasons, or generally acting like a spoiled rebel child, then this may be the problem. If she's serious about becoming vegan, she needs to sit down with them and discuss the situation and her feelings like an adult, even if she is still a teenager. Like Lorien suggested, having them speak to a nutritionist or bringing in non-biased articles on the benefits of becoming vegan, and actually showing a real willingness to change her diet because she wants to be healthy and not because she wants to be "different" or "rebellious" may have her parents thinking differently of her and hopefully you as well. smile