I recently went to Thanksgiving dinner with my girlfriend's family, and it was the first time they all learned that I had changed to a vegan diet. I was surprised that a lot of them didn't know the difference between vegan and vegetarian, and I found myself amazed at how much people didn't know.
Then I reminded myself that I didn't know what a vegan was until I asked about this new word, and that was within the last six years, being at college and exposed to the term. Even then, I had to read a book on the different forms of vegetarianism (ovo-lacto, vegan, etc) before I really understood anything.
My favorite question this past weekend: "So, do you just love animals, or really, REALLY hate vegetables?" B-)
I'm still learning the best response to why. Apparently "I'm doing it for health reasons" isn't good enough because it makes people really concerned that I have cancer or some other life-threatening disease. However, I did learn that if you get into specifics, someone in the room is inevitably going to be a farmer or otherwise get defensive. B-)
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