Finding a Vegan Community

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 0:00

Welcome to the Deficient Vegans podcast. This is episode 56. I'm the muscle deficient vegan here with a protein deficient vegan. Do you want to say hi? Hello. Hello. We'll be talking about finding community as a vegan. But first up, new news.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 0:12

New news.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 0:13

First piece of news we have is that a new report from ProVeg International and Planetary Alliance found that UK supermarkets have basically figured out plant-based distribution, but still aren't selling enough plant-based products.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 0:25

That's interesting. Yeah.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 0:27

Some of this is due to the stores lacking the supporting infrastructure, like signposting, shopper communication, meal inspiration, like how to use these ingredients, and category navigation. Category navigation is definitely one I've noticed in U.S. supermarkets for plant-based things. Like the signs are kind of inconsistent. Sometimes it's like, sometimes it'll say vegan. Sometimes it's non-dairy. Sometimes it's plant-based. And then even when you go to those sections, it'll kind of be like half plant-based stuff and half normal stuff.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 0:53

Yeah.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 0:54

So I've definitely seen that over here. I imagine there's some of the same issues over there.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 0:58

Yeah. In the U.S., they'll put tofu, like, next to the lettuce, which is kind of confusing.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:02

Right. Or the wheat gluten next to the flour.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:05

Yeah. Putting some of the main protein sources of a vegan diet, TVP, and vital wheat gluten next to, like, gluten-free flour alternatives is truly bizarre. And I feel like, unless you know, you would have no idea, like, what those would be used for.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:19

Where do you think it should go? How do you think they should organize it?

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:21

I kind of feel like they just need a plant-based section, and then they need to split up by, like, plant-based, like, meat. Yeah. Or, like, maybe not plant-based meat, plant-based proteins, maybe.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:30

Yeah, plant-protein section or something.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:31

Yeah, and have, like, the shelf-stable ones, and then maybe you have, like, a little fridge section.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:35

Yeah, that would make sense to me. It'd be way easier to just go in and be like, oh, here's my tofu, here's my wheat gluten, here's all my TVPs. Yeah. Stuff like that, all in one spot, because it's all protein.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:44

And I think, you know, for me, if the stores are shelving it, surely they want to sell it. so maybe they should even have, like... QR codes where you can, like, scan and find a recipe for something like TVP or Vital Wheat Gluten, since they're kind of odd ingredients that most people don't know. Yeah, uncommon. Uncommon.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 2:03

For sure. I think that'd be helpful. So, I mean, I think the stores basically need to help shoppers find the new products and also understand how to use them, so they'll come back and buy them again and be able to find them in the store.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 2:12

Yeah, I mean, I've had many, many, many people who are vegan ask me, like, where do I find silken tofu at my grocery store? where do i find tvp you can find tvp at the grocery store where would that be where's nutritional yeast yeah and i'm like having to help like navigate where i assume it is in the grocery store because that's where it's been in all the other ones i've been in but

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 2:33

Even if i have to go to a grocery store that's not like one of the normal ones i go to around here i have like i basically have to look in the app like where is this maybe go look in the flowers right i don't know.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 2:43

I just feel like at this point there should be a vegan aisle like plant-based you know shelf basics or something. Yeah.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 2:51

Yeah, they really only need like one small refrigerator section for some of the tofus and milks maybe.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 2:56

Like kind of how they have like a pet section and then they'll have like a little, a smaller refrigerator for like pet food that's cold.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 3:03

Yeah, the pet food gets a more dedicated section than we do.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 3:06

So if you're a grocery store listening and you want help organizing your grocery store, I have ideas.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 3:12

Yeah, there you go. Reach out. The next piece of news we have is polmolone. I believe that's how you say it. Yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 3:19

Best guess I would have.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 3:20

Anyway, it's the brand that owns tofu brands like Nasoya and Wildwood. But they've recorded 17% year-on-year growth in tofu sales.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 3:30

That's pretty exciting. It's pretty good. Those are like, I'd say the top brands I buy. Sometimes I'll buy like the store brand tofu. But like the Wildwood super firm high-protein tofu is like one of my go-tos because it's already pressed.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 3:41

Yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 3:42

The article was saying that tofu sales across the U.S. hadn't, like, increased by that much. Like, this is kind of an outlying product.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 3:51

Yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 3:52

But, yeah, kind of interesting.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 3:54

It is interesting. It might be partially attributed to 79% of Americans finding ultra-processed foods a significant threat to public health.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 4:03

They should stop eating them.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 4:06

Yeah. 57% of Americans say that they plan to prioritize protein this year. Hmm. So, that's interesting. I think there's a lot of talk around protein in general with, like, the GLP-1 drugs and stuff like that going on. A lot of these people are also looking for higher fiber options. And tofu is minimally processed, high in protein, and high in fiber. So, triple threat.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 4:26

Yeah. Eat more tofu. You didn't hear it here first. All right.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 4:31

The last piece of news we have is that a new study by Leaps by Bayer, with a Boston consulting group, and Ipsos UK dives into public optimism and caution around breakthrough science.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 4:43

Yeah, this was really interesting. It covered a lot of things. We're mostly going to talk about the part that covered cultivated meat. But first, some of the findings are that 82% of the people that were surveyed, and this is actually across multiple countries, but this was 82%, and it didn't really vary country to country, this statistic. Yeah. So 82% of people surveyed reported that they were concerned about climate change.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 5:08

That makes sense. Yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 5:10

69% were optimistic that scientific breakthroughs could improve access to nutritious foods, and 58% are optimistic that it can help solve the environmental challenges.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 5:21

On the idea of cultivated meat specifically, 39% were positive, basically, to the idea, receptive to it. 19% were negative, which is pretty low for something like that. Lower than I would have expected, honestly. And the majority were neutral. Yeah. That makes sense. That's probably just because they don't know much about it yet. I need to know more is probably what they were thinking.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 5:37

Yeah. I think that's fair. I think there's also like a lot of misinformation, but then the opposite. There's a lot of like positive information. So it's like you probably are left with, I don't know what to make of this. So maybe that's why you're getting some neutrals.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 5:49

So the conclusion of the study, and this is a direct quote, so I'm just going to read it here, is that, quote, cultivated meat stands out as the most emotionally charged food innovation examined in this study, provoking reactions ranging from ethical enthusiasm and curiosity to an immediate gut level no. The technology creates a distinctive tension. Intellectually, many recognize its potential to reduce animal suffering and environmental harm. Yet emotionally, something about meat grown through cell cultivation rather than traditional animal rearing creates deep unease. End quote.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 6:21

I think it would create deep unease if people realized how animals were being slaughtered. raised in the first place.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 6:27

Yeah. I think there's just a general stigma with things growing in a lab for some reason. I don't understand, but I don't think it'll last very long.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 6:34

Yeah, hopefully not.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 6:35

And by that, I mean like 100 years from now, it probably won't be an issue. We'll see.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 6:39

So some more data that was kind of interesting. 35% of people surveyed from Germany in the U.S. specifically were reluctant to try cultivated meat compared to the global average of 26%. So almost 10% higher reluctancy from Germany in the U.S. Those were the countries that stood out as like most resistance.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 6:57

That's really interesting.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 6:58

Yeah. And then 17% had reluctance in China.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 7:03

That's pretty low.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 7:03

So it was like almost 10% lower in China.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 7:06

Yeah. I wonder what causes that difference. It's interesting. They didn't get into that, I don't think, in the study.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 7:11

Unfortunately. Yeah. I almost wonder if it's because there's probably more plant-based eaters in China, maybe?

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 7:18

Just lower meat consumption in general.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 7:20

So there's kind of like whatever.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 7:21

That would probably make the most sense to me.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 7:24

So they broke down the positivity to cultivated meat by generation, which was pretty interesting. So 27% positivity from boomers.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 7:33

Okay, boomer.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 7:34

Okay. 35% positivity from Gen X. Okay. 48% positivity from millennials.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 7:41

Okay.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 7:41

And 46% positivity from Gen Z.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 7:44

Yeah, this kind of continues the overall trend of Gen Z being less progressive in a lot of ways than millennials, just slightly in this.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 7:50

Just, like, slightly less progressive from the millennials, but, like, still more progressive than Gen X and boomers. Yeah. But, yeah, I do—I was a little surprised that Gen Z wasn't the highest.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 7:59

Yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 8:00

I kind of felt like it would be the highest,

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 8:01

But— It seems like that's coming to fruition across a lot of different, like, segments of society.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 8:06

Yeah, you see it with, like, I don't know, politics in general. I'm starting to see, like, younger groups are going, like, harder conservative than, like, millennials, and I'm not really sure what's causing that.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 8:16

Or at least, at the very least, less progressive.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 8:19

Yeah, absolutely.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 8:20

We'll have links to this study specifically and all these news articles in the show notes if you want to read more about them. They're pretty interesting. All right. So that's the news. Let's get into the main topic. So whether you've been vegan for a couple of weeks or a couple of decades, you probably noticed how veganism can sometimes feel a little lonely if you don't have vegan friends.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 8:35

Yeah. I mean, existing as a vegan in a world that's literally made for omnivores, it's going to make you feel like an outsider and can actually lead to burnout, it's been proven. Which isn't good because all of us vegans really want all the other vegans to stay vegan for life. Yeah.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 8:51

I mean, even if you have an ethical belief in something, it still has to be, you know, something that you can kind of mentally support. Yeah, yeah. So, I mean, there is a line for a lot of people. And if they feel like they're just constantly, like, isolated and berated and it's just way too difficult, then maybe even if they have ethical beliefs, they'll choose not to practice those beliefs.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 9:11

Right. And maybe it leads to, you know, you practicing them in private. Right. But maybe you become, like, a little more loose in public so that you just don't have to deal with, like, societal pressure anymore. Yeah. Do you have any examples of when you've, like, kind of felt a little lonely or like an outsider around omnivores or in general?

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 9:31

Yeah. I mean, I think it happens a little bit, at least every time you try to go out to eat with other people. Like, I have to go to work things every once in a while. And it's always like, you know, the place that's for dinner or lunch or whatever is kind of pre-selected. And I'm like, well, okay, I'm going to have to go look up this menu. There's probably not going to be anything. And then, you know, if you do get a chance to bring it up, it's, they don't really like understand and you have to have a whole conversation. So that definitely makes me feel a little isolated. And then I think so mostly just social situations. Other than that, I mean, it's still actually, even without social situations, it feels a little isolated, even when you're like looking for restaurants or like going to the grocery store and stuff. Because it's just like this constant reminder that it's not really set up for you and your beliefs, which, you know, it's fine. It's the minority. But it is something that kind of constantly reminds you like, oh, it's different.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 10:21

It's probably like it would be if you were left-handed and you were shopping in like, I don't know, what is like right-hand specific? Scissors?

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 10:31

Baseball gloves.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 10:31

Baseball gloves, yeah.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 10:33

Yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 10:33

Probably get to you after a while. It's like, Jesus Christ. Yeah. I just want a baseball glove. Yeah. I guess for me, when I've noticed it most, it's been at like work events that involve food, kind of like you said. But it's like I've been forgotten about and there isn't vegan food. Now I'm like sitting there awkwardly, like physically doing something different than everyone else, whether that's like not eating because someone said there was going to be an option and then there wasn't an option or I'm getting out my little lunchbox and like everyone's staring at what I'm doing. And then also, like, they're all eating animals, which I obviously have a moral objection to. So that's awkward in general. But then, like, beyond that, there's also this, like, I think everyone feels awkward that I'm doing something different. So then some people will make jokes about veganism or say stupid shit like, oh, there's some, like, lettuce over there I use for my burger you can eat. As if that was, like, a suitable option for anyone to have for lunch.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 11:27

Yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 11:27

But, like, I don't know. You feel, like, physically left out because you're doing something different than everyone. but then you also feel like nobody understands you and also nobody gives a shit about you like they didn't even bother to check and see i guess so like you're dodging jokes about veganism which is something you believe really strongly in and then you're watching your friends and co-workers eat dead animals which sucks and then i think like for me that's when i feel most alone yeah and honestly it can be pretty exhausting especially like it work situations where you have to be polite and like not become unprofessional you know so like you kind of have to like just i don't know it feels like you're kind of placating people and not like being like that's a stupid fucking joke don't say it again you just have to be like good one yeah you know

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 12:17

I think there are a lot of things in an environment like that where you clash with other people's beliefs so you just kind of have to bite your tongue for, just because it's not even worth the argument in some cases.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 12:26

So i just think it's interesting because like if someone has religious convictions around eating pork yeah they're not getting the same treatment as like a vegan's getting because it's like viewed as like more of a choice yeah but yeah for me those are those are like my biggest pain points that i've experienced

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 12:41

Yeah definitely isn't it interesting how when you talk to people about veganism they're very concerned nutrition experts but then those same people also think that lettuce is a fine lunch.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 12:50

I know i think that's why they're concerned because they literally don't know what they're talking about

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 12:55

So some other common examples that probably everybody has experienced at least once Like we were talking about being the only vegan at work or like in the family or in a friend group. A social situation is really where it tends to highlight itself the most.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 13:08

Yeah, or family dinners. Unless you're lucky enough to have a vegan family or like an incredibly supportive family, you're either going to run into like... your parents being like well we don't really know what to cook for you or you almost feel like you're imposing a bit yeah

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 13:23

Even if you do have a supportive family you still feel a little bit of like a little bit of guilt because you made people do things differently i don't.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 13:29

Know yeah they had to buy like specialty products to make whatever food they made that they don't normally have in the fridge yeah

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 13:35

Also birthday parties uh most of the time there's not going to be a vegan cake or ice.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 13:38

Cream yeah you're going to be kind of like left out

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 13:40

Or vegan pizza pizza parties there's probably not going to be a vegan pizza.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 13:43

Yeah i would say cookouts for me are one of the big ones even if there are vegan options me personally i feel uncomfortable in any situation that is like literally revolving around meat like the whole reason we're here is for you guys to eat meat and like a cookout's like one of the obvious options but also i don't know like holidays like thanksgiving specifically it's like yeah the whole occasion is around the turkey yeah and for me as a vegan i just find that really uncomfortable yeah we're not

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 14:10

Typically going to cookouts that are entirely centered around the grilled corn on the cob.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 14:14

Yeah. Even if there are options, it still feels uncomfortable. Yeah.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 14:19

Also, dating. This might be where you realize just how much of a minority vegans are.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 14:23

Yeah.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 14:24

You might want to date a vegan, but it can be hard to find many vegans, especially near you.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 14:29

Right. Yeah. I feel like in some cases, especially if the pool is very limited, you're either having to sacrifice some other stuff If you maybe don't like is not ideal about a partner to find a vegan one or, you know, maybe you're dating an omnivore in hopes that you can turn them vegan, which is what I did. Found my perfect omnivore, made him become a vegan. Doesn't work on all of them, guys.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 14:52

Yeah. I mean, yeah, even if you do manage to date an omnivore, they could just kind of be an asshole about the whole thing. We see that on Reddit all the time and in other community conversations.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 14:59

Especially if you were dating them before you went vegan. You don't really know how they're if they're going to support that. Yeah.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 15:05

You have to think there's probably, I don't know, wherever you live, unless you're in the middle of a big city, there might be like 100 vegans around within 20 miles of you if you're lucky, maybe. I don't know what the numbers are. Right. But like now that's suddenly your dating pool. It's like the person I like most out of these people within 20 miles.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 15:21

Seven people. And, you know, obviously I haven't been on the dating app, but there's like Vegly, but I haven't actually really heard anything good about it.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 15:31

Yeah. If any of you have used that app, we'd love to hear how successful that has been.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 15:35

I'll tell you what I would do if you left me.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 15:37

Oh, my God. How about if I died?

Protein Deficient Vegan: 15:39

Okay, if you died.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 15:40

Because that's the only way I'm living.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 15:42

That'd be really sad, actually. Okay, if you magically just disappeared and I forgot your existence. Thanos snapped. You'd have to be a, yeah, Thanos snapped out of existence. I think I'd use Happy Cow. Yeah? Yeah, because you can find people within, like, a certain distance of you. Which is how I found somebody that I stalk on and see where she's eating. You know who you are. She has the best restaurant recommendations in Chicago. That's how I do it. Yeah. I would like set my perimeter and be like, where are these people eating?

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 16:16

Leave it to a recipe creator to stalk out potential future prospects on Happy Cow.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 16:21

That's how I do it for real.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 16:24

Oh, there you go. There's a tip.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 16:25

How would you do if I got Thanos snapped? Would you be leaving posts on vegan? Because I've been seeing those too.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 16:31

Oh, I don't know. I think I'd just not bother. It sounds like way too much effort. Well, another one is maybe holidays. So just like the barbecue situation, the holidays typically revolve around animal products. Like you were talking about turkey for Thanksgiving. But most of the holidays. Easter even. Yeah, Easter is like ham.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 16:54

Eggs everywhere and ham.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 16:56

Anyway, most of them revolve around some sort of meat. There are usually a lot of different dishes at holidays, but maybe only a few you can actually eat.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 17:02

Yeah. And then you're kind of like asking people to remake dishes. Like classics that they've been making for decades.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 17:09

Yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 17:10

That can be kind of awkward.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 17:11

Yeah, definitely. And then even if you're not asking them to make it, you make a vegan version of something that they're like very emotionally attached to. Yeah. That can be pretty risky too.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 17:19

Yeah. High stakes. Traveling's another one. Depending on where you're traveling to, the options might be like significantly worse than where you currently live and like the restaurants that you know. And you also wouldn't have access to like the same cooking equipment or even a kitchen like you would at home.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 17:35

Unless you pack it all in the car.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 17:37

Which sometimes we do that. That's what we were doing to Gatlinburg, which is why we decided to switch to traveling in Wisconsin because like... The last time we went to Gatlinburg, we packed the blender and a bunch of other shit.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 17:50

Not only Gatlinburg, we went to Canada one time. And we basically had like a whole kitchen set up strapped to the top of the car. And we got the whole border patrol inspection and stuff. And they're like, what's in there? We're like, kitchen equipment. And they give us this side eye like, is it actually drugs? Like, what are you talking about?

Protein Deficient Vegan: 18:08

I was like, there's a blender up there.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 18:11

They didn't end up searching it.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 18:12

No, they didn't.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 18:13

But yeah, a whole bunch of kitchen equipment.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 18:18

You just don't know what your options are going to be you

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 18:20

Know yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 18:21

I need a blender for

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 18:21

Stuff we did make good use of it in canada.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 18:23

We did yeah and in gatlinburg

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 18:25

At work so sometimes just in general you can feel a little isolated by like your co-workers just making comments even if you're not necessarily eating with them uh, they still if it comes up you know there's this whole thing about like if somebody's vegan wait five minutes and they'll tell you that i really only mention it if we're going to be eating together personally or we're talking about food specifically And like people are asking my opinion. I try not to just like randomly bring it up out of ether. But if it does come up, people usually have something to say about it. And it's usually like a little snipe, even if it's in good fun. And I get plenty of that. I'm cool with it. But there's always something there.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 19:00

Oh, there's never not something. Yeah. It's like, oh, do you drink water? Because that's a fish's home. I got that one at work once.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 19:07

That's interesting. Yeah. But yeah, this is actually like, you know, contrary to the wait five minutes of a vegan don't tell you you're a vegan, most vegans really actually hate talking about their veganism with people because it's never like very smooth conversation.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 19:21

Like especially at work where it's like I can't get shitty at work, you know, like they're going to be so rude to me and I'm just going to have to sit here and like take it and fake a smile. I just don't want to have those.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 19:32

Yeah. It's a lot like people bringing up politics at work.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 19:34

It is. Yeah. I'd say another one is like going to a restaurant where you can't eat anything. I mean, a lot of this happens if you're in a group and you don't get to pick the restaurant, but sometimes you end up somewhere where there's like truly not a vegan option and it can be really frustrating to watch everyone else has like a whole menu with four different sheets worth of choices and basically you're like okay let me find a salad okay uh let me get the cheese removed the croutons removed the dressing removed i will definitely just be eating a bowl of lettuce and some tomatoes right

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 20:05

Yeah trying to find the one thing on the menu with a little v next to it you're just like it's probably in the salad section.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 20:11

And maybe there isn't even a v and you have to like make your own right really really shitty thing and you're like oh do you know if the potatoes or cooked in anything I can't eat? And they're like, we're not sure. Let me go check. And it's like, we do use butter for that.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 20:25

Yeah. Excellent. I'll just take ice cube on a plate. Thank you.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 20:29

But the fish and their home, babe.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 20:32

Yeah, right. Yeah, I forgot about that. Coca-Cola on a plate. And then people asking you kind of the same questions over and over again, especially in large groups. Sometimes you feel like an alien that everybody's staring at. It's especially stressful when it's like you haven't really talked about veganism with a large group of people. And then one person that knows, like, asked you a question about it. And you're suddenly like, everybody's like, oh, you're a vegan? Oh, yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 20:54

They're locked in on you.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 20:55

There's a lot.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 20:56

It's always at lunches where you don't have choices. And they're like, so you're vegan. Tell me about that.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 21:02

Yeah, now you're giving a presentation.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 21:03

You're eating meat, and you're like, hmm, is this the time to give a presentation on factory farming?

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 21:09

I'm going to have to start keeping a PowerPoint slide deck on my phone to break out in those situations.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 21:13

Let me hook up to the projector for a second.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 21:15

They actually have some fancy phones that have a projector on them. I don't know if they make them anymore, but I've seen them in the past. So you can just, like, point it at the wall. Perfect. What did I tell you about my veganism?

Protein Deficient Vegan: 21:23

Give me a second. Yeah.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 21:26

Yeah. So over time, all these things are things you might experience on a regular basis, and they can really kind of take an emotional toll on you. Yeah. So for some people, that feeling of like social isolation and that emotional toll can actually be too much, and they'll start adding animal products back just to fit in better, basically.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 21:42

So there's actually some data on this, but before we dig into the data, I want to throw out that when I read through the data, it seemed like the term vegan might be used a little too broadly, maybe to mean plant-based or just mostly vegan, vegan for the environment. environment etc so i do think some of this data could be skewed as far as like when they're saying vegan they don't necessarily mean vegan for animal ethics but that's just my opinion

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 22:06

Yeah that makes sense so these findings specifically are from the faunalytics study of current and former vegetarians and vegans the data for this study was collected in 2014 so it's a little outdated uh but it's pretty much the only study covering this topic so let's talk about the.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 22:20

Numbers and we will list the studies in the show notes if you want to go poke around in them yeah definitely here's some of the data. From this study, 84% of vegetarians and vegans abandon their diet. So vegetarian and vegan are lumped in together on a lot of these statistics, but 84% is a big number. 34% of lapsed vegans, vegetarians maintain their diets for three months or less. So that was one of the statistics that made me think like, these probably aren't like legitimate vegans. Because could you, would you say you were vegan or vegetarian if you only did it for like two weeks?

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 22:54

Right. And lapsed meaning they gave up the diet.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 22:56

Yeah, within three months or less.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 22:58

In this case, we're like, I was vegan for two weeks and then I stopped being vegan. And now they get counted in the statistics of vegans that abandoned their diet and lapsed vegans, which is like you said.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 23:06

Yeah, I just don't think it's fair. I think especially when you think veganism moral belief, right? Right. So I like to think of it as like, okay... Would you say you were a Christian for two weeks if you just happened to go to church two Sundays in a row and then never thought about God for the rest of your life? Yeah. I don't think anyone would say, oh, yeah, I was a Christian for a couple weeks. You know what I mean? And that's how it sounds to me when you say I was a vegan for two weeks.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 23:31

Yeah, I'd be more interested to see a study like this. And maybe there never would be one. But I think the numbers would be a lot easier to make determinations based off of. If there was a minimum threshold, like you had to be vegan or vegetarian for a year before these things count.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 23:44

Exactly. So, yeah, 34% of this number that lapsed said they maintained the diet for three months or less. So, out of the people that did lapse, abandoned their diets, 58% of former vegans and vegetarians cited health as their motivation for the diets. So, there we go. It's probably more around, like, along the lines of plant-based.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 24:06

Yeah, not necessarily an ethical motivation in the beginning.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 24:09

Yeah. As a side note, these are the motivations cited by the current vegetarian and vegans that they did survey. So of the ones that kept with their diet, 69% cited health, 68% cited animal protection. These are the ones that stuck with it. So that kind of makes sense. 63% cited feelings of disgust around meat and animal products. 59% said concern for environment. 52% said taste preferences.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 24:37

Yeah. And keep in mind, a lot of those stats are combining vegans and vegetarians.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 24:41

So 84% of the former vegetarians and vegans said that they were not actively involved in a vegetarian or vegan group, either online or in person. So they didn't really find their community.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 24:53

Yeah, that's interesting. It's a high number. And like we were talking about, if you're the only one in your town or the only one you know, it's going to feel pretty isolating.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 24:59

Especially if you're not that committed in the beginning. I think it can be really easy to fall off.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 25:04

Definitely, yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 25:05

So 63% of former vegetarians and vegans said that they disliked that their diet made them stick out from the crowd.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 25:10

Yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 25:11

So another thing with like isolation, like you just feel like the only person. Yeah.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 25:16

And then 58% of former vegetarians and vegans said they did not see a vegetarian or veganism as part of their identity.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 25:24

I thought it was pretty interesting. Yeah. I feel like that leads me to believe some of them are more plant-based. Because I feel like if you're morals-based, I think that kind of is part of your personality. Yeah. You know, just like it's part of your core beliefs.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 25:36

Yeah, I agree. And then 37% of former vegetarians and vegans are interested in readopting their diet. 59% of those said they are very likely to do so with health being the main motivation.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 25:48

I thought that one was really interesting. So like more than a third of former vegans and vegetarians are willing to re-adopt a plant-based diet.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 25:57

Yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 25:58

I mean, it sounds like a lot of these former vegetarians or vegans felt like outcast. They didn't try to join communities or couldn't find communities. So they didn't really end up feeling seen and they didn't even feel like it was part of their identity.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 26:10

Right. Which makes it a lot harder to stick to, like you were saying. There's going to be a lack of options around you, so you've got to get over that friction. And there's going to be kind of a lot of peer pressure from people just, like, questioning what you're doing. Right. Another interesting piece is how many of the ex-vegans and vegetarians said they would do it again, which shows that you can win people over. So, or you can win people back. So, be nice to them.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 26:32

Yeah. I think that is key. I was surprised it was 37%. Yeah, it's pretty high. I feel like, yeah, don't berate people, probably.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 26:39

Right, because they're not going to come back for sure. Yeah. They're like, oh, I've made the best decision ever. I'm done with this stuff.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 26:44

I don't want to be around those people. Yeah. So Faunalytics published a qualitative study in 2023, bringing back former vegans and vegetarians, an obstacle analysis. So here's what that showed. Helping lapsed vegans or vegetarians resume their diet means making the diet as accessible as possible, providing them with motivational boosts and providing practical support, which all can be done within some kind of a community. Yeah, definitely.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 27:10

Dissatisfaction with vegan food is the most common struggle, so we have to share tasty recipes with them.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 27:15

Yeah. That one for me is like, if you found your people, this wouldn't be a problem. Like... You might have dissatisfaction with, like, the vegan or vegetarian options at a restaurant, but, like, if you found your people and you found good recipes, you could definitely make good food at home.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 27:29

Yeah, definitely. And I think, you know, I think food options are really the thing that everything hinges on when trying to get people to adopt even this, like, the vegan lifestyle in general and, like, the ethical belief and stuff because it's the biggest friction point and it's something people interact with, like, three times a day, basically, on average, a lot of people.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 27:47

Nobody wants to be miserable, right? Right. So access to to vegan and vegetarian food options was still limited in 2020. And, you know, this is still a problem, mostly when you go to restaurants or maybe if you're in smaller towns and communities where you just don't have good options in your grocery stores.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 28:04

The cost of vegan food also often poses an obstacle to people's ability to pursue a vegan diet. This feels like a hurdle that we can overcome, though, by putting out better information and showing how cheap it can be to be vegan. I think a lot of people who are starting to go vegan go towards like the meat alternatives and the processed products and the pre-made, pre-packaged things, which are more expensive, but that's not necessarily something you have to eat to be vegan.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 28:26

Right. Yeah. And I think finding a community or finding, I don't know, like really recipe accounts you can follow would help you figure that out too.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 28:36

Yeah. Some of the obstacles like the social struggles and accessibility challenges tend to co-occur. So overcoming one obstacle may improve other related issues.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 28:45

Yeah.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 28:46

And again, I think, you know, figuring out the food thing makes a lot of other things fall into place much easier.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 28:50

Oh, absolutely. The older you are when you go vegan or vegetarian, the better your experience tends to be. That makes sense. That makes sense because you can find people that support you versus like hoping that your family will support you.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 29:01

I also feel like the older you get, the less you care about what other people think of you.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 29:05

Oh, yeah, I definitely think that's true.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 29:06

You know, at this point, I'm like, maybe when I was 20, I would have been feeling bummed about people like saying things about me being a vegan. But now I'm just like, I don't care.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 29:18

Yeah, I remember it was pretty weird when I went vegetarian as a kid because I had actually just so I basically moved from Ohio to Kentucky and like. When I was in Ohio, I was eating like animal products, you know, and then like within maybe a year of moving to Kentucky, I went vegetarian. So like I remember writing to my Ohio friends and being like, I'm a vegetarian. And they were like, what the fuck? You know, but like just I don't know. The reactions felt a lot bigger when you're like a kid and you're like trying to explain to people that you don't eat stuff. And it's just definitely more awkward. And you just don't have as much like control of situations.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 29:56

Yeah, for sure. Also, lapsed vegans eat fewer animal products overall, but those who eat the least tend to be older, have financial difficulties, and have been vegan rather than vegetarian. I think this is a good sign in general and why it's important to encourage imperfect plant-based eaters and support them however we can.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 30:11

Yeah. There's definitely a difference between saying, like, I don't want you to call yourself a vegan if you're going to be eating animal products.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 30:16

Right.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 30:17

But I am grateful that you have reduced how many animal products you're eating. Let me support you any way I can. Let me share recipes. Let me like bring you into a community where we can like help you out and answer questions.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 30:30

Yeah. And again, you know, we talked about it before, but kind of the reason for that is like if somebody calls themselves a vegan, but they're eating animal products, then those people are like, OK, vegans sometimes eat animal products. So then when vegans who obviously actual strict vegans who never eat animal products interact with those same people, they're like, oh, well, vegans sometimes eat animal products. I don't really have to make any accommodation for you or ask, I don't even have to ask your opinion on where we're going to eat because you'll figure something out or maybe you'll just eat animal products today.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 30:55

Yeah. And I also think it takes visibility away from the actual reason vegans are vegan, which is animals. Yeah. It turns it more into like, oh, they're probably like vegan for their health.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 31:03

Yeah, no, that's true. Like, because if you're occasionally willing to eat animals, you clearly don't have an ethical concern with animals. So it makes it very muddled.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 31:11

So expecting people to use the right language isn't gatekeeping so much as it is making sure animals remain the focus. Yeah. Moving on from that. So there was another study from the same people, Faunalytics. This is called the Study of Former Vegetarians and Vegans. It was Qualitative Findings from 2015.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 31:30

They do a lot of studies around this.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 31:32

They do. And we've linked them all.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 31:34

So in this study, former vegans and vegetarians were asked to give their primary reason that they stopped the diet. So this one's pretty specific. 32% of those were unsatisfied with the food. So this was by far the most common reason that people stopped the diet. They were unsatisfied with the food.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 31:49

We can help that. Yeah.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 31:51

26% were for health reasons.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 31:53

I think we can help with that a lot, too. Just, like, having a community can support you figuring out, like, how to find foods that meet your nutrition needs.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 32:01

Yeah. Most of this is just learning how to eat a balanced diet as a vegan or vegetarian, which is tricky if you've never done it before.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 32:09

Yeah. If you're operating in a vacuum, it can be hard to figure this stuff out. Yeah.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 32:13

Um, and we talked about it a little bit before just to opine on this a little bit, but a lot of that comes from like you make swaps as a vegan or vegetarian, but if you weren't really aware of nutrition, you don't actually know what the food you were eating before was giving you. Right. So then you swap it into something that's like a totally different set of nutritional benefits and you end up with gaps and you're missing things. Yeah, exactly. That you didn't really expect. Like going from dairy cheese to vegan cheese is a big one because dairy cheese has a lot of nutrients and proteins and stuff like that in it, whereas vegan cheese is mostly just oil a lot of the time.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 32:44

Yeah, or dairy milk to almond milk or like dairy yogurt to vegan yogurt.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 32:50

Yeah, you obviously can still get all those nutrients on a vegan diet. You just have to incorporate more variety of foods.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 32:57

Yeah, and it's a lot easier when you have people you can ask questions.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 33:00

Yeah, definitely. So, back to the primary reasons that the Vegans and Vegetarians stopped their diet. 13% is social issues, which, you know, some of the isolation stuff we were talking about already. 13% inconvenience, which I totally get. Yeah. I wouldn't stop my diet over it, but I understand the frustration.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 33:17

6% was cost. Yeah. Which I think some of that's a little education. Yeah. Would go a long way for that.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 33:23

Yeah. Another 6% was lack of motivation, which, you know. Yeah. Is what it is.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 33:29

Having a community might help you with that. Yeah.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 33:31

And then 25% other. So a lot of other various reasons.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 33:34

Yeah. And some people gave more than one reason. So that's why the numbers don't add up to 100. Yeah. A lot of these reasons actually could be solved with Better Community, which is why we're doing this podcast. We can help people find food they like better. We can help them figure out how to eat a vegan diet healthily. We can help with the social issues, give them a place to vent, give them ideas on how to reduce their grocery bill, help them find motivation and stay accountable.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 33:55

Yeah, our community helps with all of those things. Yep. Former vegans and vegetarians who said that they were interested in returning to their former diet were asked what they would need to do it. 45% of those said better, tastier, and more convenient food. Almost half. That's all they would need to go back to the diet.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 34:11

Fucking easy. We just need to teach them. Yeah.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 34:14

21% said motivation slash incentive slash dedication. So just like figuring out how to make themselves do it. Yeah. 17% said cost, which animal products are pretty expensive now. So maybe since this survey was taken, they feel a little differently about this. And then 13% health.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 34:31

Yeah. Which a lot of these really come down to, which we need better information out there so that people can... stay not eating animals.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 34:39

Yeah. There is actually some research when it comes to maintaining habits when you surround yourself with people who are doing the same thing. So this is where the concept of like accountability buddies comes in. And this is pretty common in like the fitness crowd in general. You know, you have like an accountability partner, you're like telling each other what you eat for the day or you did your workout today or whatever. But this can also apply in, you know, any kind of community where you're trying to stick to some idea that kind of goes against the grain.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 35:06

Yeah. Like, recovery programs like AA. That's a really good example of like where having that network can really help you stick to what you want to do or even like religious groups, you know?

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 35:18

Yeah. I think the most common example of this is church, right? Yeah. Right. Right.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 35:22

Yeah. You're having like reinforcement activities every Sunday.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 35:25

Also gaming communities are kind of like this, you know, we'll have communities. It's mostly for like information and connecting to find people to play the game with, but it's still the same kind of thing. Like you're just more involved and committed and interested in something when you have a community of people that even you can just talk to about it you don't even have to like participate in things just to like bounce ideas off of people or get questions answered things like that all those things are really helpful.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 35:47

Yeah like you go to Friday Night Magic yeah exactly time for you to bond

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 35:50

Yeah we're all in like a chat group throughout the week and then we're all like talking about what we're going to do Friday night.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 35:55

This is how he's made friends

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 35:58

Yeah yeah so a community can mean a lot of different things for different people depending on what they need some people will get like you know even in like the discord groups or whatever I've seen. Like, there are some communities where it's, like, people are sitting in calls all day, like, talking to each other and, like, watching TV together or whatever. Like, they're constantly, like, very integrated. And then for some other people, it's just, like, I just need a place where I can ask questions from time to time. Right. And both those are totally reasonable. And I think, you know, a community can serve all those different needs.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 36:23

Yeah. Or even someone who just wants to be in a community, like a Discord server or something, and just be able to, like, maybe not even really participate, but, like, just... watch the conversation maybe like a couple things yeah i think that's like totally reasonable

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 36:38

Yeah you just like see the chat light up every once around you're like oh right i'm part of this community.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 36:42

Yeah i'm pretty introverted so in most places that's how i act

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 36:46

Yeah yeah me too but it is nice to be part of them yeah um some people maybe just need like one close vegan friend or family member although that can be pretty hard to find a lot of the time.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 36:58

Yeah i don't know Basically just someone that you could call and text when something like shitty happens. Someone who just at a base level understands you. And I think this person for some people could be like... in real life or virtual.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 37:11

I think another benefit of kind of the online communities is that a lot of the times through the online community, you can find this like one or two people that you form like a direct connection with. I mean, I mean, a lot of these communities over the years have spawned like, you know, marriages and all kinds of stuff.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 37:25

Oh, yeah, that's totally true.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 37:26

People meet in communities like this and they get a closer connection between them. That's more kind of aside and apart from that community connection in general.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 37:34

Yeah, I think that's true. I even see it in our discord. They're, like, some people that seem to, like, interact with one another back and forth a little bit more than others. Yeah.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 37:41

Which, you know, that's just how it works. Yeah. Other people prefer to just use social media as a way to connect with other vegans. So maybe it's not part of a dedicated community, but you're just, like, following vegans on threads or Instagram or something like that.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 37:53

Just feeling like you're staying part of the community.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 37:56

Right. Instagram and TikTok both have a pretty large vegan presence. So if you create a vegan account, you can seek people out over time. The algorithm will eventually tweak to show you all the cool vegan things going on.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 38:08

Yeah, I will say. So we're just going to give you some ideas on how you can use social media to connect with other vegans. So for Instagram and TikTok. Now, when we first created our account, I was trying to kind of meet other vegans, you know. And it was actually like a little bit hard because you kind of have to go out of your comfort zone and like post a bunch to even like find other people. Or like you have to be commenting a lot to find other people.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 38:31

It is kind of hard at the beginning to get it, like, set up to show you the stuff you're interested in.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 38:36

Or even, like, connect one-on-one is, like, pretty challenging, I would say.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 38:39

Yeah, that's very tricky.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 38:41

There are some, like, vegan follow-back posts that people will comment on and be like, I'm open to, like... following other vegans back so they can build friendships and stuff. So, like, that might be a good way to do it. But, yeah, I just think in general, like, if you're looking for, like, a specific person who you can build a back and forth with, I think Instagram and TikTok can be a little tricky. Unless you're, like, posting regularly and interacting in a lot of comment sections. Yeah.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 39:05

I think it's a good place to have access to, like, vegan recipes and vegan news and stuff like that. But not a great place for, like, one-on-one connection.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 39:12

Yeah. And then what I will say about Instagram and TikTok... Actually, just like Facebook as a general thing is there are a lot of trolls and there are a lot of trolls in vegan spaces. So like if that's something that's going to stress you out, maybe that's not like the right place you want to be hanging out because it can be a little annoying.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 39:30

That is one of the benefits to like a dedicated community, like maybe a subreddit or a discord, is that the trolls can be dealt with a lot more easily than they can on like a public Instagram post. Right. There are also Facebook groups, which are really one of the more common forms of a community. And I think people move away from it a little more now since Facebook doesn't get used as much in the same ways. But there are still huge Facebook groups out there.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 39:53

Yeah. And there are a lot of vegan ones. Yeah. They're usually private, which means that they do a pretty good job of keeping trolls out. And sometimes they'll even have like questions you have to answer, like answer my questions three before you can come in.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 40:06

Yeah. Good places to share recipes and stuff. You're still just kind of commenting on posts or making posts. So it's a little more challenging to have conversations. But this is a good option if you already have a Facebook and you just want recipes to be in a community that reminds you that being vegan isn't a weird thing. The one caveat with Facebook is you do have to use your real name and your real face. So a lot of people don't really like that.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 40:27

I agree with that. Yeah. Like Instagram, there's a bit more anonymity. Yeah. And so same with TikTok. But yeah, Facebook's, yeah, kind of weird. Yeah. Reddit is another good place. I think especially to, like, ask questions, get good information. There's a ton of vegan subreddits, and there are lots of people there all the time, so you get answers pretty quickly. Oh, yeah, all the time.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 40:45

The downside is some of the vegans on Reddit can be pretty, like, stern or off-putting or very, like, absolutist about veganism. May not be the best place for a new vegan or someone who doesn't want to be around negativity.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 40:57

Yeah, I think that's fair. Yeah.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 40:59

Just because, you know, we've seen a couple where you, like, come in and ask a question. You're kind of like, I don't—what do I do? and then you just get blasted, which isn't super helpful.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 41:07

And, you know, I will like say for vegans in general, I think we're a little, uh, maybe sensitive because there's so there's just so many trolls

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 41:17

Very defensive and on guard.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 41:19

Yeah i mean it's hard not to be because it's like you can't really tell an earnest question from like a baiting question but yeah

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 41:25

For sure until you answer.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 41:26

It and then and then you find out in general though there are a lot of very kind and helpful vegans on reddit we use it a ton yeah i've interacted with like a ton of super super super nice people and i think coming across people that are like a little less nice is a lot more rare than coming across helpful and kind people. Yeah.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 41:45

Some of our favorite subreddits on Reddit are vegan fitness. That's one we're in quite a bit. Eat cheap and vegan. Yeah. There's also vegan recipes.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 41:54

Shitty vegan food porn has a lot of nice people. Yeah. They're like a lot more relaxed. Vegan chill is pretty nice, but there's a lot of trolls in there.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 42:02

Like a lot. So if you're not familiar with Reddit, the way it works is like each subreddit is its own community and it has its own rules based off of like, normal users who are promoted to be the moderators and they run the community. Yeah. So there's no like, there are some platform wide rules around like really bad stuff, but just general trolling and discourse is mostly managed per community. So vegan chill doesn't actually have any rules.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 42:26

Yeah. So you get a lot of, you get a lot of trolls. Vegan for beginners is another good one. People share like simple recipes. I actually mod that one. Yeah. Co-mod that one. Like a secondary mod.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 42:37

And then we actually have two subreddits of our own, the Protein Deficient Vegan subreddit and the Deficient Vegan subreddit. Yeah. And we'll put links to all these subreddits in the show notes as well.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 42:45

Yeah. We don't really get a lot of posts in our Deficient Vegans one or the Protein Deficient Vegan one, but just so anyone listening knows, you can post in there. Yeah, for sure. We would like you to post in there. Once again, though, this is more of like a comment and post format. So it's not super conducive to making like actual one-on-one friends or like a place where you could have random conversations. Yeah.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 43:05

There's also YouTube. Great place to learn a lot about veganism and vegan recipes in general. Probably the worst place to socialize. Although they did just add, I guess we're in the process of adding direct messages, which still feels super weird on YouTube. Yeah. But yeah, it's more of definitely like I'm watching TV, but I can also comment and like.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 43:23

Yeah. And I will say because For me, because, like, YouTube is so not social, I check my comments, like, a lot less. So, like, sorry about that. If you comment on a video, I probably see it, like, four days later.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 43:37

The big one, and we have, you know, a community here, is Discord. So, Discord is basically a platform that you can build communities on that are focused around chat and, like, voice calls and stuff like that. But mainly chat. So, we have a vegan Discord called the Deficient Vegans Discord. It's down in the show notes. So we're a little partial to this option, but I feel like it's the best format to actually talk to other vegans, share struggles and just connect in general. Yeah. Like we have a bunch of different channels for different topics. You can like break those off into threads and have conversations about some specific thing. You can direct message people. You can like, if you are really social, you can jump in a voice call with a couple of people. You can do a lot.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 44:15

I've seen people like even in discords that aren't specifically for gaming, they'll like create a little side channel for people that play the same game. And yeah, if you're in our discord and you want us to do that, we're happy to do that. Yeah. Also happy to add other channels. Like right now we kind of have recipes and food, fitness and nutrition. We have an accountability channel, struggles, wins, uh, books, books, hobbies and crafts. Or, uh, we also have like a music movies, TV channel. Um, and then we are running a book club right now, which is kind of fun. Cause there's a lot, I think more interaction in that one. Yeah. And we're all working through the same book, which feels like really good community building. Yeah. And we'll probably add some more stuff. If you are in our Discord or want to be in our Discord and have ideas for ways we can make it, feel more like a community and a space you want to be in, let us know.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 45:03

Yeah, definitely. Also, it's free, which is a big one. There are several vegan communities out there that you have to pay to have access to.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 45:09

Yeah, I've been seeing that a lot more and more. It's like, I don't know. I'm not going to comment on like how anyone wants to make money, but I just, for me, I'd feel kind of bad trying to make money off of people that just really want like a place to interact with other vegans.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 45:22

Yeah, I mean, especially if it's not linked to like a specific thing that you're buying, like a course or like some coaching or something like that. Yeah. It's a little awkward to just pay to be in a community.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 45:34

Yeah. Yeah.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 45:35

Like a fraternity or something.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 45:36

Right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You don't have to pay for ours.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 45:40

Another thing with discord is you might be able to find one that's like a local vegan community to you so like around here there's actually a chicago vegan discord but i think a lot of you know the bigger cities with like bigger vegan you know populations in the country or maybe even across the world have like a, vegan server that is specific to that region so maybe you can make some friends in your life.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 46:01

Yeah the thing i like about discord is like you're not you're not like posting like you would on like other social medias you're just kind of like saying a random thought or like people are having multiple conversations on the same channel about different things it's

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 46:14

Kind of a big group chat.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 46:15

Yeah yeah but like i think kind of the cool thing is you can kind of pick out people that you vibe with like in another discord we were in like i found a girl that i vibed with really well and like we ended up dming each other yeah you know like we had other stuff in common so like we like the same books and stuff so yeah

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 46:29

That happens all.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 46:30

Time yeah it's like a good place to actually make like real friends you kind of get to like test the waters by like a group chat and you're like oh that person's my vibe and then you can go dm them privately if you want yeah there you go and have like a little person that you're just friends with

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 46:43

Yeah other people might do better with like in-person local vegan communities uh this can be kind of challenging though if you live in a small town or like a not very vegan friendly town it can be pretty hard to find other vegans, um some cities do have the vegan discord like we were talking about maybe you could do like you were talking about like stalk people on happy cow in your town that might be i think.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 47:03

That's a great way to do it honestly message

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 47:04

People on happy cow yeah yeah so there you go maybe you find somebody who's like going to all the vegan restaurants around you and you're like hey.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 47:10

No you know i don't know any of these people but i know who eats around us that's funny i like recognize their name i'm like oh yeah rosie i don't know who rosie is but i know she eats she eats near us yeah

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 47:21

Yeah and not just uh discord there are a lot are like Facebook groups and subreddits and stuff like this for like regional, local vegan communities. Yeah. I could check those out. I would probably start there. Even if you do want to make friends in person, that's probably the way to find them.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 47:33

And then probably the easiest way to go find them.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 47:35

Yeah. If you can't find your people, you might go check with like vegan businesses near you to see if they know of any community groups or maybe just make friends with the business owners. Yeah. I think a lot of them, if there is a vegan group around you, they're probably familiar with them like coming in as a group. Yeah, I think so too. They'll probably be able to point you in the right direction or something. or like tell you their name next time they see them. I don't know, something like that.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 47:55

Give them my business card, please.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 47:58

You can also check- A friend card.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 48:00

Will you be my friend? We need to make those.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 48:03

You can also check out nearby animal sanctuaries or volunteer at pet shelters. Maybe you'll find some vegans there. Yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 48:10

And then once you have found your local vegan community, if you want an in-person one, you can have, like, meetups and potlucks, do group visits to an animal shelter. You could host volunteer events like a vegan food kitchen.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 48:22

Yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 48:23

Participate in activism together. Check out vegan restaurants together. Maybe have, like, an in-person book club, cooking club, movie nights, whatever. Knitting club. Knitting club.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 48:32

Some people may not need any of this actively talking to other vegans, but it can still feel good to exist. Yeah. Even passively in the vegan spaces like you're going to talk about. Maybe we just like monitor. Like watch all the people be vegan.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 48:43

You just want to be in the presence of a vegan. Yeah.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 48:48

You don't necessarily need to interact to feel like you're part of a community.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 48:50

Yeah. I mean, I feel like I'm kind of one of those people.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 48:54

A lurker. We call it a lurker in internet terms.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 48:57

I kind of feel like I am like a bit of a lurker. Yeah. I mean, I know we have ours and I participate in it, but like in general, like I am a bit of a lurker. Yeah.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 49:06

If you are a lurker, some of the things you could do is listen to vegan podcasts, watch vegan YouTube videos, follow vegan creators, make sure you're seeing vegan content when you're scrolling on social media and not whatever else. And reading vegan books is a good way too.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 49:19

If you want, like, real-life vegan friends, I actually think that can be a lot harder to do, especially if, like, you're not in school anymore.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 49:25

Yeah, I think, honestly, just making friends as an adult is kind of hard in general, especially if you're introverted.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 49:30

I did find some ideas. So, like, aside from the other ideas we found about, like, finding, like, a community, if you're just looking for, like, one person. Yeah. Maybe you don't want to be part of, like, a large community of 20 people or something. Yeah. But you could do some volunteering. um there's like a vegan work.com slash volunteer and they had volunteer opportunities you'd probably find vegans

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 49:51

There yeah you can attend like vegan festivals like uh if you go to americanvegan.org slash veg fest there's that there's also a happy cow on their website they have an event section that has vegan.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 50:01

Events and they have a ton of events so you should probably maybe find one in your area or maybe even like a couple hours away it wouldn't be a bad thing to find a friend that was like a couple hours away

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 50:10

You could maybe go to a Vegandale and find a friend while you're standing in line for four.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 50:13

Hours. Wondering what the fuck Elwood's dog food is. Having to Google it to see if they're actually using dog. They're not, by the way.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 50:22

Don't give up. Spoiler. That's a spoiler.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 50:24

Sorry. Spoiler alert.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 50:25

You got to dig for that information. It's part of the experience.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 50:30

The shock.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 50:32

All right. You can also take a vegan or plant-based cooking class if you can find one. And sometimes the vegan restaurants around you will know information about this or maybe even they'll be hosting them.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 50:40

Yeah. You go to local vegan restaurants. Yeah. I don't know how you're going to approach people. I'm really awkward, so I probably never would.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 50:47

I would recommend you just sit in there all day, open to close, every day until you find somebody that comes in and eats alone, and then you go sit with them.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 50:52

Go sit with them? Yeah. Sometimes I'll just randomly poke people and be like, I like your tattoos. And then they'll be like, um, thanks. And then I'll walk away.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 51:01

You're doing great.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 51:02

It doesn't work. I don't know how to make friends as a grown-up.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 51:10

Also, like we said, you can join like vegan Discord servers, vegan Facebook groups, pick your one friend that you vibe with and then get the hell out of the group. You can do that if you want.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 51:18

You can do that. You can attend vegan conferences. Yeah. And then sometimes you might get lucky and find a vegan follow back post on Instagram and maybe you find like a person that you connect with. Option number 12 or whatever number we're on, you can convert all your existing friends to vegans.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 51:33

You might lose some along the way.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 51:36

Whatever. For the greater good.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 51:39

I do think it's worth mentioning that if you surround yourself only with vegans, it can become kind of an echo chamber and you might lose touch with how you thought about things before you were vegan or challenges that you faced when you were going vegan. So if you're interested in outreach, helping others move towards veganism, it's kind of important to stay grounded and kind so you don't scare them away from veganism. Yeah. I feel like there are a lot of vegans that talk like they were vegan since the day they were born. Yeah. And maybe they've only been vegan for like a year or two. And, you know, it's just... You have to remember that, like, you used to think a lot of those same things before you were vegan. Yeah. So why are you being so hard on these people?

Protein Deficient Vegan: 52:15

I see a lot of that in, like, vegan spaces about vegetarians. And as someone who was a vegetarian for a stupidly long time. Yeah. I have, like, a very big soft spot for vegetarians just because, like, I know from personal experience, like, you can convert them. Yeah. So, like, be nice to them.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 52:30

Yeah, definitely. Similarly, it's worth mentioning that especially when you're in a larger vegan community, it's important to avoid, like, perfectionism and gatekeeping culture. It's not to say that you like let people post their chicken dinner in the community because they only eat chicken once a week or something. But it should be a safe space for vegans to exist in a vegan space. But it's also worth remembering that everyone is at different parts of their vegan journey. And people who are newer into veganism are often the ones who need the community the most.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 52:56

Yeah, exactly.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 52:56

And they're still like making mistakes and trying to figure it out.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 52:59

Right. If someone's like, oh, shit, like I accidentally bought this thing with dairy. Like definitely don't browbeat them and be like, you should have read the ingredients. Be like, oh, my God, I, you know, I did that when I first went vegan and I felt so bad. Like, don't, you know, just like try to look better next time.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 53:14

Yeah. I mean, making them feel like they're not good enough can be really demoralizing when they're actually trying and it can make them feel unwelcome.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 53:20

Right. I think that's like a big one in general. It's like we all want to do the very best we can, but we should give people grace if they're trying.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 53:28

Yeah. I think a lot of this comes down to, do you need an in-person friendship or is an online community enough for you?

Protein Deficient Vegan: 53:35

How about you? How do you personally feel?

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 53:38

So for me, I've been in online communities since like the dial-up internet days because I'm a little computer nerd. So I find those very natural and comfortable personally. It's also a little easier to stay in contact with an online community because it's more asynchronous. like you don't have to like find time in each other's calendars or like figure out when you're both available to go do a thing or like we'll travel together out of town or something like that, um you just like say something and then the person replies back or the community replies back at some point yeah so for me that's like much more natural than trying to make in-person friends i've never been like super good at that i mean i do have some yeah yeah but i've just it's been a lot easier for me to be involved in online communities, And that's really, I don't need a lot of in-person friends. I have a couple of in-person friends who I've had, you know, a long time. And, you know, I'm good. But I do like meeting new people online.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 54:29

Yeah. No, I think I'm kind of the same. I think it's like because I moved when I was young and like had to keep in touch, like emailing and writing people like that were my friends in my other state that I lived in. And then like I moved away for college and then I left college and went to different co-ops. And then I like went to a different state for a job and went to another state for a job. And it's just like any friends that I've made in any of those various places end up kind of being like we're texting friends and maybe I'll see you once every two or three years. Yeah. You know, and I don't know. That's enough for me. I'm pretty introverted. So, yeah, online stuff's pretty much fine for me. Yeah. Plus, like, I have you in person. Like, you're vegan and I have you so I can, like, kind of rant to you. I think if I didn't have you, that would kind of suck.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 55:13

Yeah, we get to rant to each other a lot. It helps.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 55:15

Yeah. Though I will say, you know, I was a vegetarian for a really long time without, like, any community. And, I mean, I stuck to it. So, I guess I was fine. Yeah. But I will say, like, now I didn't really feel like this until our Discord, just because I think all the other places online, I kind of feel a little guarded of, like, trying to say just the right thing so I don't make people pissed or something. But, like, I feel like in our Discord, it's, like, the first time I can just kind of, like, say whatever stupid things on my brain without, like, a filter kind of. Yeah. And it's, like, a nice place because, like, I know there aren't trolls there. So I'm just, like, I don't have to worry about being attacked by, like, random anti-vegans and stuff.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 55:49

Yeah, it is a troll-free zone.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 55:51

Yeah, which is honestly nice because I post on a lot of different platforms and I get a lot of trolls and it's honestly like really exhausting.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 55:57

It's so far anyway. I mean, we plan to aggressively deal with any trolls that happen to show up. We'll, see.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 56:05

Yeah. So I guess for me, online friendships is totally my vibe.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 56:10

So maybe you don't feel like you're missing out on any community or you don't feel like regular vegan community is something that you even need. It could be still helpful when you're struggling. And I think it's just worth keeping in mind. Yeah. Vegans in general are like really caring and supportive and they want people to join the cause. So most of them are going to do everything they can to help you, you know, make that transition or figure out, you know, how to make it fit into your life. And we just want to see each other succeed. So if you're struggling or like doubting yourself or maybe you're getting a lot of pressure or guilt trips from your family, it can be really nice to have a place to vent, even if it is just an online community.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 56:43

Yeah. Or even if you're just doing a Reddit post and you want a few people to tell you that they get it or they've had a similar experience and it's going to be OK. Yeah. I think that's important. If you're struggling as a vegan or even a vegetarian, I think, you know, finding people that you can at least vent to that will understand is helpful.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 56:59

Yeah. Some things I've actually seen on Reddit a lot are vegans having like a health scare or like a new allergy and trying to work through what they can eat. Obviously, you should go to your doctor for a lot of those things. And people will recommend most of the time that you go to a doctor. But it is a great thing about having a large community like Reddit or Discord, even like Facebook groups, is that somebody will probably be able to offer some advice. Like, hey, I also went through that. Go to your doctor, but here's like probably what they're going to say. Here's probably like what you might need to think about.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 57:24

Or I see people like, oh, shit, I developed a soy allergy. Like, I have no idea what to eat.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 57:28

Yeah, kind of easy. We just say, here's all the stuff you can eat without soy. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. So there's definitely a lot of advice for that kind of thing. Just like navigating tricky situations.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 57:36

Yeah. I've also seen a lot of posts where someone accidentally will eat an animal product and then they feel really, really bad about it. Or like maybe they accidentally hit an animal while they were driving and they feel really horrible about it. And it's like, you know, just having that like incredible guilty feeling, having a vegan community that can help you through that is is helpful.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 57:53

There are actually a lot of posts like that in the vegan subreddit where it's like for one reason or another, like I accidentally ate some food and now I feel really bad. And that's it seems like they get a lot of support. Another big one is just general fatigue. Like you can have burnout just like you do at a job because a lot of us spend time trying to educate or honestly, it's like answering the same random questions over and over again. And just like we do at work, which can cause a little bit of burnout. there's also activism fatigue and depending on what kind of activism you're doing it can feel pretty draining emotionally and.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 58:23

Mentally yeah and compassion fatigue is actually a real one too if you're so like most of us are people who care very deeply about animals and you're living in a world that like exploits them constantly in all kinds of horrible ways so it can be very overwhelming like just even going to the grocery store and having to walk through the meat section to get where you're going can be like a little sucky you know what i mean yeah so it's helpful to have other vegans that can help you work through some of those feelings maybe have like some tips on how to work through that

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 58:52

Yeah having support systems in general can really help change your experience of being a vegan yeah i think community is also super important for new vegans because you're still trying to figure everything out there are a lot of little things that maybe you have questions about or you're like you're not understand like how where do i find shoes or like right how do i get clothes like Like, oh, these things have animal products? Who knew? Like, the toilet paper has gelatin, which I guess toilet paper vegan? I don't know.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 59:16

Yeah, there's just a lot of stuff you have to learn. Yeah. But you don't need to do it alone. And you should be relying on people that have already done it before you.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 59:23

Yeah. And ask questions. You should be able to find at least one community where you can feel pretty free to ask questions and not get harassed about it.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 59:31

Yeah, absolutely.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 59:33

Sometimes when you've been vegan for a while, it's not as obvious why you would need a community because you figured out the diet. that you already know what to buy, what not to buy. And your personal reason for being vegan is already very solid. And you just don't really need information anymore.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 59:46

Yeah, this is this one's interesting because I so I posted the book club on my socials. And I had a couple of people on TikTok basically say, you know, I've been vegan for some of them. I think it was like 15 to 20 years. I had a couple of people say this, but they were like, I actually, you know, don't go out of my way to read vegan stuff anymore. I don't like really go out of my way to interact with vegans anymore because I've just kind of reached this part of like, I'm staying vegan but I'm kind of fatigued on all of that but I'm really glad to see you know vegans are out there doing book clubs and trying to like spread it

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:00:17

Yeah I think community can still help because just being able to talk to people who share your values is valuable like being able to find and share new recipes with people who are interested is nice and I think I mean this is pretty common with anything if you have interests like you know I have interests like 3D printing or cars or computers like I'm in some form of community for most of those things and it's like I don't really I'm not, I mean, I still learn things from time to time, but, like, a lot of the stuff that gets talked about in those communities is stuff I've known for 20 years. So, it's not like I'm constantly needing the reassurance. It's just like, oh, like, I like cars and I'm in this, like, community, people talking about cars. It's cool. It's interesting.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:00:53

Right. And like we talked about before, even if you're just, like, someone who wants to observe stuff. I mean, you know, obviously, their algorithm is attuned to veganism or they wouldn't have seen my post, right? So it seems like they're probably still at least getting vegan reels and stuff, and maybe they're looking at recipes. So that's cool.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:01:10

Yeah, definitely. So if you are looking for a vegan community and you don't know where to find one, I would suggest starting with our Deficient Vegans Discord server.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:01:17

Yes, we might be a little biased, but there's a ton of really nice, very helpful and kind people. Lots of different channels, lots of different interests.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:01:25

Yeah, the link is down in the show notes. Yeah. There's also a lot of food and tasty recipes shared pretty regularly. And, you know, we talked about here, some of these surveys have shown that the food is the number one hurdle and getting people back in, like finding tasty food is the number one thing. So if that's something you're looking for, we've got a whole lot of that. Yeah. We also have the Vegan Book Club going on right now. Looking into starting up some more clubs, like potentially a movie club, maybe a recipe club where we all kind of make a recipe and see how it goes.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:01:54

Yeah. Still working out some of the logistics there, but trying to make it more of like a shared community space where people really interact with each other. Yeah.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:02:00

So we'd love to have you there. And if you have any suggestions on what would make the community even better, we'd love to hear those, too. We'd also like to hear in the comments how you guys have made personal vegan friends or found a vegan community.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:02:10

Yeah.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:02:11

Because there are a lot of ways to go about it. Yes. We'd love to hear some success stories so maybe other people can follow suit.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:02:16

Tell us how you found your vegan best friend.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:02:18

Okay. So I am a personal trainer, and I did an ask me anything a while back on Reddit. I had a bunch of questions come in. So we have a segment called Bite Size Coaching Now, where I answer a question that came in to me either through the AMA or maybe through some personal interactions with clients or people in the community or whatever.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:02:34

And I get to ask him the question.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:02:36

All right. What's the question?

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:02:37

Okay. What would you recommend for someone who wants to lose weight but has very little time to spend working out or cooking?

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:02:44

Yeah. Well, if you're just trying to lose weight, the good news is you don't really need to spend any extra time at all. 90% of weight management specifically happens in the kitchen. The best thing you can do is get a kitchen scale and a calorie tracking app and track everything you eat so you can get yourself into a calorie deficit to slowly lose weight. If you've never tracked before, it's a little tedious at first. But once you get the hang of it, it literally just takes a couple of seconds each time you eat. and is even faster if you tend to eat the same things on rotation because they'll be like in the history of the app. So you just open it. You're like, yes, I ate my protein oatmeal thing that I make every morning and it takes literally a second.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:03:18

Yeah. Like you can get in a lot of the apps, you can create recipes or meals.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:03:22

Right.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:03:23

And then you can just go through your recipe list and click, click, click, click, click. Yeah. And if you use protein deficient vegan recipes, you can just go find them because I put them all in there. Yeah.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:03:31

They're all in MyFitnessPal specifically. So if you use the other apps, you can't do that. So you have to use MyFitnessPal.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:03:35

Sorry about that. They don't have that. No.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:03:38

And I will say that's just for weight specifically. Like there's also like how are you going to look when you get down to your goal weight? That's kind of where you start thinking about, okay, I do want to be in the gym, build a little bit of muscle, things like that. But if your number one goal is just losing weight, it's basically entirely a kitchen problem.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:03:55

Which I feel like is good and bad.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:03:56

Yeah, no, absolutely.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:03:57

Like it's like, oh, okay, but also I didn't want you to tell me that.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:04:01

That's always the answer. Yeah. I remember I had a cousin once like a long time ago when I lost a bunch of weight. And they were basically like, oh, what did you do to lose that? And I was like, we were at a family reunion or something. I was eating a piece of pie. And I was basically like, I don't eat stuff like this very much. And they were like, that is not what I wanted to hear. I walked away.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:04:17

The worst thing you could have said to me. And then they smacked you in the face.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:04:22

Yeah. So it is what it is. I can't help how the math works. So now we're going to do my favorite part where you read us some of the very mean things that people said to you on social media this week. Do you have anything this week?

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:04:33

I have a lot. Okay. But I'm going to go on a rant for a second.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:04:36

Oh, okay. Let's hear that.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:04:38

Okay. So, I posted my high-protein rice crispy treats.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:04:42

Oh, I like those. Everybody likes those, actually.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:04:43

That use edamame puffs. Yeah. And it went, it did pretty well. Yeah. But when a post does well now, for some reason, everybody tags a man in my comment section named Liam.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:04:56

Who the hell is Liam?

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:04:57

I guess he's some large content creator that talks about beans.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:05:00

Okay.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:05:01

If you're doing that, I don't like it. I worked really hard on that post, and now it's all about fucking Liam.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:05:10

We have to know this random man on the internet likes your recipe.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:05:13

They're like, I'm a little skeptical. Liam, can you tell me if this is good? And then they're like, I don't know where to find this product. Liam, could you help me?

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:05:23

Liam is Google. I thought it was called Google, but it's actually called Liam.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:05:28

Why is Liam's opinion more important than my opinion?

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:05:33

Is Liam a vegan? Do you know?

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:05:34

No, he's not even a vegan. Interesting. Stop tagging this man. so yeah that's that's my mean my mean comment of the week because i got like a hundred of them they're like a hundred liam tags

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:05:47

Yeah liam will never answer your prayers people.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:05:51

He might we don't know i also feel like that's a catch 22 what if he doesn't like it then he just blasts me i don't know no well

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:06:00

Liam can be wrong.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:06:02

Liam could be wrong. You should still make them.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:06:05

Is Liam infallible, you think?

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:06:07

People seem to think so.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:06:09

Interesting.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:06:09

What I want to know is...

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:06:10

No disrespect. I have no idea who Liam is.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:06:12

I'm sure Liam's great.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:06:15

It's not his fault they're tagging him, probably. Well, he probably asked people to, I guess. But, you know, still. He can't control what they comment on.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:06:23

I just think it's interesting that I have a video that finally does really well, and it just becomes about Liam. and that's why it's me anyways i'm sure liam is great stop tagging him all right so that's that

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:06:39

Okay we've got a few updates this week.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:06:41

I also had people tell me that soy is bad

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:06:44

Oh yeah i'm seeing that a lot this week i got.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:06:47

So many people being like soy lowers testosterone just thought everyone should know soy does this soy does that soy doesn't do that Yeah.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:06:54

I mean, I feel like at this point, the trolls are just like a Google away from getting their answer that they so desperately want, I guess.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:07:01

They don't care about evidence.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:07:03

Yeah. These aren't even things. So, like, soy lowers testosterone. That's just not a thing. That's not even true. That's never even been, like, the thing people don't like soy for.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:07:11

I know. And they just say it like, okay, so this, I had to block her because she was really annoying me. But she said that soy lowers testosterone. Just thought everyone should know. And I said, basically, I said, there's extensive research and studies that show this isn't true. Then I linked one. And I said, feel free to share your sources. And then she got really mean with me.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:07:31

You can't be asking people for facts.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:07:33

Well, I did call her a conspiracy theorist and told her to take her nonsense elsewhere. So you can't trust me anywhere. I don't have a filter. Yeah, that's true.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:07:43

I can't take you anywhere.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:07:43

But then she said, let me tell you something. Basically, almost all conspiracy theories are true.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:07:50

Hmm.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:07:51

So that's not really like she was basically like, you can call me a conspiracy theorist, but that's not a negative for me because all conspiracy theories have proven to be true.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:08:00

I can't argue with that.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:08:01

So there's that.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:08:03

All right. On that note, a couple of the updates we have for this week. Our discord is going strong. We're up to 210 people now. So going well there. If you want to join again, it's down in the show notes. Also, the first week of the book club was this week and I think it's going pretty well.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:08:19

I think so, too.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:08:20

Yeah, we've had several discussion questions, good conversation. Yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:08:24

Still time to join if you want to join. Because we're, so we're basically doing, we broke the book up into four sections and we're doing one section each week for four weeks. So we haven't even finished the first section yet. So there's definitely still time to catch up. Plus we're, so basically we're breaking the sections apart so you don't end up with spoilers.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:08:43

Right. And all the discussion questions we're putting in, we're pinning in our channel for it. So even if you join late, you can go back through the PIN messages and reply to everything if you want. Yeah. There's no time limit on it or anything, really.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:08:54

And we love that.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:08:54

Also, we appreciate you guys listening. If you're listening on Apple Podcast or Spotify, if you could leave us a rating and review, that helps us out a lot. If you're listening on Spotify or YouTube, you can also leave us a comment. That's really cool, and we love replying to those. You can also see down in the show notes, we have our websites for protein-deficient vegan and muscle-deficient vegan, as well as the website for the podcast, which has a couple of blog posts we've been posting about like some of the main topics here and just kind of general veganism stuff.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:09:24

Yeah, that's kind of shareable. We also have our social medias where we're kind of sharing carousels of the content we talk about on the podcast, which I think is kind of like useful if you want to share this information with someone you don't want to make a list of the podcast.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:09:37

Yeah, little bite-sized chunks of some of the stuff we're talking about. Maybe it'll get my interested. All right, well, I think that's it. Do you want to say bye? Bye. Bye, everybody.