Hold your tongue and tolerate the turkey carving: Vegans offered Christmas meal advice

VEGANS should “leave their megaphones at home” for Christmas and not lecture meat-eating friends, family and colleagues, an activist has urged.

Kate Fowler, a special projects manager at the plant-based movement Veganuary, which encourages people to try the diet throughout January, warned plant-based diet followers not to hurt relatives’ feelings by rejecting non-vegan presents that offend them.

She also suggested they step away from the table when the turkey is being carved and return only when it’s time for mince pies and sherry to avoid emotional distress. She has written a guide on how to “navigate” Christmas as a vegan – something which she jokes is like steering a ‘“boat through a rocky outcrop, blindfolded”.

Ms Fowler, a vegan for more than 25 years, said her light-hearted guide, published in Vegan Food & Living magazine, would ensure vegans survive the festive period with their “relationships, sanity and integrity intact”. She accepted “the week before Christmas is a tricky time to push the vegan message”. However, by Boxing Day, vegans should begin campaigning again.

Giving advice on Christmas parties, Ms Fowler said: “The biggest pitfall at Christmas parties is not the booze or the snacks. It’s the conversation. Us vegans tend to tell the world about veganism on a regular basis. And that is a good thing – people need to hear what their choices do to animals and the environment so they can make their own informed decisions and the world can be a better place.

“However, they are probably not receptive to such information at a Christmas party. Answer any vegan-related questions with good grace as they come up, but avoid the big campaign push until Boxing Day.

“At that point, your natural campaign urges can be given full throttle and you can invite all your overfed, regretful friends to do something wonderful and sign up for Veganuary.”