Staying Vegan: Dealing With Cravings
I’m lucky to have been vegetarian most of my life, so I never get meat cravings. And I’m also lucky that I was never a cheese fanatic so I never got those cravings either. But I have dealt with some cravings for animal products, like for ice cream or milk chocolate. I’ve also dealt with cravings for an addictive substance: cigarettes.
Plenty of vegans and vegetarians deal with cravings for animal products. So, I have three suggestions for dealing with cravings. One is positive, one is negative, and one is neutral.
First, make sure you are getting adequate nutrition. Take a multivitamin, drink plenty of water, get some exercise, and look at your diet to make sure you’re eating well. It’s much easier to resist cravings when you’re eating well.
Positive: Find the true craving and satisfy it.
Colleen at Compassionate Cooks reminds us that most cravings aren’t for a specific food item, they’re usually about a certain kind of taste, texture, emotion, or memory. She suggests trying to figure out what the craving is really about and then find a vegan or nonfood substitute. So, for example, if you’re craving a quesadilla with cheese, maybe what you really want is warm, chewy, and spicy. Or maybe you crave fat or salt. Or maybe the last time you had a quesadilla you were with someone special. She says try to figure that out and focus on the vegan or nonfood aspect instead of the animal product. (Here’s one podcast that addresses cravings.)
Cravings for animal products are not bad. It’s normal for someone who experienced any significant portion of their life as a meat-eater. You are not a bad person for craving animal products. You just have to learn how to deal with them as a vegan. So, find a good substitute or similar sensation in a vegan or nonfood item.
Negative: Associate a negative feeling and/or taste with animal products.
You can do this by reminding yourself of all the disgusting bacteria, excrement, and toxins in animal products. Look at disgusting pictures of nasty, rotten animal products… stuff that has worms on it or flies.
You can also create this unpleasant emotional association with the craved food by reminding yourself of the horrible, cruel practices that are required to create the animal product. There are tons of videos and pictures you can use for that purpose. It will make you sad, but that strong emotional reaction will likely influence future cravings and keep you away long enough to ditch the habit.
Just please be careful and don’t use this trick on healthful, vegan foods.
Neutral: Quit cold turkey and use distractions.
It only takes about three weeks to form or break a habit. Now that depends on the degree of the addiction, but three weeks is a good, general rule. So remind yourself that the longer you hold out and abstain from said animal product, the easier it will be next time to abstain. It will just get easier and easier the longer you stay vegan. Go one day, then the next, then another… until you’ve developed a new, vegan habit.
Just will-power it out. Drink some water, take a deep breath, and avoid temptation. Go for a walk or watch TV. Chew gum or read a book. Just do something other than think about and be around the tempting item. This is what I did to quit smoking and I swear, if it can work to quit that nasty, terribly addictive habit, it can work to quit cheese or ice cream or whatever. The craving starts strong, but after time it will subside. You must hold out and avoid the animal product. You can do it!
Do you have any additional tricks or helpful tips on dealing with cravings?
By the way, here’s another article about dealing with cravings:
http://veganfaq.blogspot.com/2007/11/how-do-you-handle-sudden-unexpected.html
Associating a “negative feeling” with the carved-for food has been effective for me. As Gary Francione says, “That glass of milk is a whole glass of suffering.” This has been a powerful tool when I crave a slice of cheese pizza.
Alex’s last blog post..“LD 50″ tests for your Botox.
For some people, lifestyle changes based on moral or political convictions are more permanent than ones based on temporary goals like weight loss or improved health. So it makes sense that associating milk with suffering would work for many people craving milk.
Like Alex, I will sometimes use the negative association method. It just depends. But the more and more conviction I develop in my veganism, the less I crave those things, because ultimately, I simply don’t see them as food.
As you probably know, many vegans refer to animal products as “nonedibles” because we don’t view animals as food.