In developing this website, I’ve found that there are actually quite a few people who aren’t vegan. Weird, I know! Most of these folks are thoughtful, compassionate and great critical thinkers, so the only reason for them not to be vegan must be a lack of information. For these people, I decided to include some tips on how to be vegan, so they can get started right away.

“How to Be Vegan” Tip 1: Pictures or You Didn’t Eat It

Any good vegan will tell you that taking pictures of the food they eat is probably the most important part of their daily routines. Whether eating at a restaurant or sitting down to a home cooked meal, first thing’s first: snap a pic of that grub.

Why is this Important?
If you’ve spent your time stuck in a hot, cramped kitchen (much like the hot, cramped cages in which animals raised for food spend their lives), you deserve not only to enjoy the taste of the meal but also the satisfaction that comes with “oohs,” “ahhs,” Facebook Likes and other forms of attention that a photograph of said meal will bring you. And if someone else cooked, you should still get this attention because technically you worked for it by sitting in front of a computer for forty plus hours a week and developing carpal tunnel and poor vision to be able to pay for it, so there.

What are the Rewards?
Aside from the aforementioned attention from your cyber peers, taking (and sharing) photographs of your food has the potential to bring the following rewards:

• You can pretend showing people vegan food is an important form of advocacy, since it addresses the misconception that vegans have nothing to eat or only eat grass.
• You can tag the vegan cookbook author in your photo, making it appear that you two are friends (right, Isa Chandra My-friend-skowitz?).
• Taking photos of your food in restaurants – especially with one of those fancy Canon DSLR cameras – might make the restaurant management think you’re a food critic and give you a free piece of cake.

What are the Challenges?

• Your food will never look as good as the food in the cookbook, because those people have professional photographers with lighting and white screens and Photoshop trickery and perfect hair and lives! I’m not bitter.
• Your weird Facebook friends will draw faces on your food, making you feel retroactively guilty for eating something that in the future will have a face.
• It’s all too easy to start excitedly chowing down on your great vegan meal, and then halfway into it realize you forgot to take a picture.

I hope this helps. Good luck with your future food-tography!

Top Image: Korean BBQ Portobello Burgers from “Isa Does It” by Isa Chandra Moskowitz
Lower Image: Stir Fry with a Face by Lyndsay Shipley