Post Punk Kitchen Forum

Do you guys know many vegans in real life? If so, how do you know them?

I know one vegan in Bradford who I work with but we don't really share enough of the same interests to want to socialise out of work. I would like to meet some vegans locally I can hang out with but I don't know where I might meet such folk. It would be nice to know people who remind me that some people care about our non human friends.

The only vegans I know in real life I've met through the ppk. (And I rarely see them, because I'm all middle-aged and shiitake, living out in the 'burbs.)

Any other ppkers in your town? Is there meetup.org or a similar website in the UK?

I know this is in the UK forum, but I feel you! When I lived in cities such as Vancouver and San Francisco, it was no problem, but now that I'm living in a small rural community (on a small island, no less) I have no vegan friends. I don't know much about Bradford, but definitely try to find online communities.

The only vegans I know are through the ppk. None of my friends or family are veg.

Off the top of my head I can think of about 15 vegans I know in Brighton. Move out of the sticks, guys.

Eh? I'd hardly call Bradford 'the sticks'. Nor Glasgow, for that matter, tho I know few vegans here...

To the OP, have you tried vegan meet-up groups for your area? I guess you may have to widen your scope to Leeds, but I'm sure there are some out there :)

dunno about these days, but in my early days of being vegan (granted, the early 90s!) there was a huge vegan/AR presence in bradford, mostly centred around the punk scene and the 1in12 club.
thanks to the power of punk rock, i seem to have a decent amount of friends who are vegan however they're scattered all over the UK (though this does have its advantages obviously)...

Have you looked at the Vegan Soc groups for your area?

I lived with another vegan last year, and we had other vegan friends. I knew a few living in Brighton, and one other in Hamburg. I've never sought them out, they just happen to me sometimes.

This might sound mean-spirited, but if there was a vegan meet-up in Bath or Brizzle or wherever, I doubt I'd actually go. The PPK has a nice vibe, but that's largely because it's not preachy. Another vegan forum I know of has a "why we are better than everyone else" feel to it, which put me off. I sort of feel that if I went to a vegan meet-up of people I didn't know, it would descend into a debate about whether or not honey-farming is morally corrupt, and the best way to weave lentils into tampons and I would spontaneously die just to make a point.

Don't worry too much about meeting other vegans. I mean, I know we're better than everyone else, but other people are pretty cool as well.

Ah, yes, 1in12. I have never been but I keep meaning to. I hear there is vegan food available on a Saturday - must check it out.

I haven't found any online vegan communities for Bradford. Idid start going to Bradford Animal Rights Group for a few mths but I got tired of it - it just felt like we were banging our heads against a brick wall. Now I just try to spread the word by feeding people yummy vegan food and demonstrating that it is possible to be vegan without being an arse!!

Thanks for all your responses - I think I maybe need to get out more!!

Of course PPK reminds me that there are some awesome Vegans about :)

There is a Bristol vegan group, and you're so far wide of the mark it's funny. But then, if this is your expectation, maybe that's what you'd find...

All my friends were vegan before me, we all met through going to punk gigs in Brighton when we were 16. Now we're all old and our love for Antimaniax has been replaced by an obsession with Ke$ha but our love for PB cookies still shines on.

I don't know any vegans! It would be awesome to have a vegan friend to hang out with though

Other than one of my good friends and my other half, I don't know anyone else who's vegan. I had a couple of friends around for dinner a while back (one of them was the vegan friend) and it was so nice not to talk about why I don't eat meat/ explain myself etc and just have a good conversation.

I met my vegan friends through the PPK. Come to Brighton for the summer picnic!

I don't know how to meet people generally, so the fact that two of my best friends are vegan never ceases to amaze (and please) me. I forgot how to interact face to face with people around 1992, which coincidentally happens to be around the time I got online...

Anything north of the Watford gap is the sticks.




Lots of lovely vegans in Bris. ....and the annual Bristol Vegan Fayre is always worth a look-in.

Yup, PPK meetups are the way to go.

And I know one vegan at work. He's like an old school vegan and brings me in clippings of recipes he likes from 1980s animal rights magazines that have been written on a typewriter and photocopied 100 times. Cute.

Yes! This x 10,000,000,000,000,000!

I have a lot of veggie friends that I just met in real life but no non-Internet vegan friends. Given that I live in Brighton this probably just says a lot about how much I suck at making friends!

I don't even know what language you're speaking.

I don't even have any friends, never mind vegan friends.




Nah, I'm kidding. I have a friend.

I don't have any vegan friends! My boyfriend is vegetarian tho. Admittedly I don't try that hard to find people, but still. I wish I did, it would make getting dinner/drinks so much easier. I'm always the sole herbivore in my group of friends :(

I've met a couple of hundred UK vegans over the years.

I was involved with direct action AR when I turned vegan (start of '00), through which I met very few proper vegans - most were flakey vegetarians who enjoyed preaching far more than practicing.

Despite having a very active social life at university I met less than a handful of vegans in the 4 years I was there (surprisingly few vegetarians too - it was Essex I guess).

I was mostly of the opinion up until 2005 that I was one of the few 'normal' vegans. Luckily that view got quickly reversed, as during 2006 I met 100+ through meet-ups and parties organised by people from a (then) popular vegan forum. This continued through 2007, before the forum's anonymous foreign owner started moderating / banning the majority of regular UK posters.

I keep in touch with 40 or so of them via facebook, twitter and occassional parties / gatherings. Most live more than an hour away though, so impromtu events are few and far between. It'd be good to know more vegans locally and be able to just go out for a meal mid-week - I've met a few but the only I see regularly is my girlfriend.

Almost without exception all 'proper' (i.e. those who don't eat cheese when no-one's watching) vegans I've met have been lovely people - the majority of whom I've gotten on great with. I've encountered some right nutters/trolls on the internet, but none have actually turned up to meets (probably lacking real world social skills).

I've not met any PPKers yet, but hopefully that'll be rectified this year :)

Hello Mr Flibble! - I have allowed you to follow me on Twitter - thanks for asking!!

I'm going to the 1in12 in Bradford on Saturday with my (non-vegan) friend for some vegan grub. I'm hopeful there will be some v cool people there (vegan or otherwise). She assures me she has spotted a few nice young men sporting ponytails and discussing socialism when she has been in there before.

Newly single, it is essential that I meet some like-minded people soon. I'm fed up with having to deal with omnivorous boyfriends - I always feel like they want to pat me on the head and go "aww...so sweet you don't want to eat the ickle fluffy animals". The new recruit will defo have to be vegan, or at the very least vegetarian/likely to convert. My most recent boyfriend seemed likely to convert and was up for being fed vegan food but then didn't want to hear about animal cruelty and seemed to blinker himself to it all (he used to talk about vegan "propaganda" - more like omni-denial). I got fed up with that (although it's not why we broke up).

Anyways, next step is to go meet some nice lefties at 1in12 and hopefully in time find some friends there. I have few friends of any persuasion atm anyway due to losing them all after various failed relationships or generally not having anything in common so I need to find a new crowd.