Isolation

Recently I went to a little work reception where they served food and the only thing gluten-free vegan were the veggies; and the dip was dairy based. Then today I had a conversation during my daughter's soccer game and the person told me about a local farm shop. The bulk of the information was about the poultry they sold. Mmm..... yeah, I don't eat the flesh of formerly living animals--gross. It's very isolating to be in this sort of environment. Some of my coworkers are realizing that there is not food for me at events and I really appreciate when they see that. I want more support than the Internet. It's really awesome that other members of my family are vegan as well. Get-togethers are easy, except for the gluten-free part. My work environment, however, is very anti-vegan. It's nothing personal, of course, nothing from individuals. It's just cultural and, well, ignorance. It's not even on their radar to have meat-free dishes, much less dairy-free. At the few events where there was vegetarian food, it was vegetarian lasagna or pasta with cream sauce.
At first it was exciting to be vegetarian and explore all that offered. It was easier, though. Now trying to be vegan (which I'm not 100%) is more difficult. It doesn't help that my blood test recently revealed that I'm deficient in Iron, B12 and D. I already knew my D was low... that's normal with the lack of light and the fact that I'm so pale I can't be in unprotected sun long enough to make it. It's about time that my B store is lower because I haven't been good about taking my supplement and it's been 3 years now of transitioning to vegan. Iron deficiency is also normal in women my age because of menstruation, not because I don't eat cow. Wouldn't you know it that someone I shared this information with suggested it might help if I ate iron-rich meat. No thanks. I'll stick with beans and greens and take my supplement.
There is a vegetarian group in my area, but, and I'm being age-ist here, in the information online the members appear to be much older. I really want to find a mom's group because the hardest part is not figuring out how to keep my own diet exciting and rich, but in doing that for my kids. They don't feel deprived--they do have meat maybe once a week. But I really want to make their favorite meals vegan meals. The little one still says her favorite food is chicken nuggets. So, boo, Meat Industry. You suck. Also, Dairy Industry, I hate, hate, HATE the "Got Milk" posters you put all over my kid's school. I want to go around with a sharpie and cross out the "Milk" and write "Fat" or "Puss" or "Hormones" or "Blood" or "Childhood Obesity." Alas, there are cameras that would probably get me caught. Too bad I'm not a reckless teenager, although I was never really that reckless of a teenager. Now I'm thinking about Seth Meyer's Weekend Update "Really" section last night talking about congress making pizza count as a vegetable. I'm not surprised. Ketchup is a vegetable according to school nutrition guidelines and congress is making sure to fuck up everything Obama tries to fix. So, yeah, really... we're going to keep getting more unhealthy and fatter and not have affordable health care. Good plan, America.