How to Start a Vegan Support Group

June 13th, 2013 by Savvy Veg

The Vegan Support Group of Las Cruces, New Mexico began unexpectedly during an appointment at an urologist’s office.

Guest post by Dee Davis, a long time Savvy Veg recipe contributor and friend of our FB page. As far as I can tell from Dee’s post, the way to start a vegan support group is - just do it! It would be wonderful if more people like Dee were inspired to do that, and if every town had a vegan support group like the one that she recently started.

I think that often vegans and vegetarians feel like they have no other people like them to talk with, ask questions, share cooking tips and info, eat with and make friends. That social isolation and lack of support is the biggest obstacle to staying with a plant based diet - imho!

Can you imagine how quickly veg diets would spread if everybody who needed it could get free one-on-one friendly personal help from experienced vegans?

There are vegan support groups online, but it’s just not the same as meeting with a group face to face.

The Vegetarian Society supports groups in the UK. The North American Vegetarian Society offers support to both vegetarians and vegans in the US, but I saw no mention of groups on the site.

Vegan Meet-Up is a site which facilitates vegan support groups, but I notice that these groups tend to happen in big cities or suburban areas. Las Cruces NM is on the small side with a population of 100,000 and as far as I can tell, no Vegan Meetup Group has been started there before. Go Dee!!

I look forward to hearing more updates about Dee’s group, and I wish them many happy hours of vegan bonding.

Judith Kingsbury, Savvy Vegetarian

The Las Cruces NM Vegan Support Group Begins, by Dee Davis

Rosella the Nurse Practitioner looked at the form I filled out and said, “I see you don’t take any medications. The average for people your age is 15 pills of some sort.” (My age is 79.) She gave me a quizzical look and added, “What’s the secret?”

I was hesitant to broach the subject of eating a plant-based diet head on, so I deflected somewhat by saying, “Well, you probably are going to poo-poo this, but I think it’s because I eat a vegan diet.”

Rather than seeing her eyes glaze over, which had been the response when I broached the subject of diet with my “regular doc,” Rosella smiled and said brightly, “Me, too! About six months ago I decided to eat better than I had been. I did a little research that led me to the Vegan diet. Overall, I’ve lost 30 pounds and in the process discovered that I was lactose sensitive. Now that I’ve eliminated dairy I’ve lost the dull ache in my gut and I feel clear-eyed and energetic.”

At that moment, I recognized that people new to a vegan diet, or curious about it, would appreciate support. There was none, as far as I knew, so the next day I went to our food co-op and reserved a room, chose a date and time to meet, and then went home and prepared a flyer and handouts.

The first meeting attracted eight adults and two young girls, probably 11 or 12. They had been raised on a plant-based diet, which was probably why they could flawlessly field questions from the adults.

During introductions it was clear that the motivation to eat vegan varied. Concern for animals was one incentive; maximizing optimum health was another. With a few people, both were relevant reasons.

One individual, who had recently read Dr. T. Colin Campbell’s book, The China Study, said he was impressed with the information and wanted to know how to initiate a Vegan diet. He was shown several cookbooks one of the attendees had brought to share and was also directed to explore the list of Internet sites listed on a handout.

During the hour, various topics were explored, questions were answered, and experiences were shared. The last to be discussed was what direction we might want to take as a support group. Other than suggesting that an individual might want to lead in a discussion on a topic of interest to the group, possibilities remained open.

One thing was decided upon, though. At the next meeting we each would bring a copy of our favorite recipe to share with others.

By the way, Rosella didn’t show up last month. I’m going to contact her and remind her of the up-coming meeting in June.