I’ve been vegan for about four years. And it’s been a constantly changing process- while there are those who would dispute the label vegan, I’ve held onto it and my views of animal product consumption during hospital stays with NG tubes “dripping” milk-based Ensure into my stomach. During residential treatment stays where my sheets labeled me as “vegetarian”, because the complexity of feeding 10-20 preteens, teens, and adults with wide varieties of eating disorders ruled out the option of making vegan options available. Because whenever the choice remained, the choice would be vegan.

Mental and physical health professionals were all pretty quick to shake their heads at me, challenge me that there was just no way “vegan” wasn’t another word for disordered food restriction. […]