Whenever my job would host a potluck, my colleagues made sure to provide enough fresh fruits and vegetables for me while they enjoyed the hot, savory, cooked meals that mostly contained meat. For some reason, they thought I was a vegetarian or a vegan, probably because they always saw me eating a salad during lunch. Plus I never participated in potlucks because of a phobia I have about eating food in an open setting where people breathe on the food. Very neurotic of me, I know. In addition, I’ve never been a food person. One of my mottos is, I don’t eat for pleasure; I eat to live.
At one particular potluck event, a new colleague offered me a dish of diced cantaloupe, pineapples, and celery sticks. I said to her in a joking way, “What is all this for? I’m not a vegan.” And she replied, “I thought all introverts were vegan?” It was the first time I heard the words introvert and vegan in the same sentence. As I thought about it more, it did make sense that vegans are more likely to be introverts than extroverts. There have also been studies made to prove such theory, although none could conclusively explain why.
As an introvert who is very picky with his food choices, there are four reasons why I believe introverts are the ideal personalities for vegans: they respect their bodies, their neuroticism restricts certain food groups, they avoid meal gatherings, and they tend to escape the norm.
Respect for their Body
Managing self-care is an introvert's number one priority. Vegans consume plant-based foods and eliminate animal products to maintain proper care of their bodies. These two ideologies combined further support the theory that the introverted personality is a proper fit for the vegan lifestyle.
The appreciation of the body's ability to do simple tasks like walking, to more complicated tasks like performing gymnastics, is a gift introverted vegans do not take for granted. Be good to your body, and your body will be good to you.
Neurotic Behavior Restricts Certain Foods
Some vegans eliminate meats and other products that come from animals from their diets because they identify the means to obtaining these foods as slavery, torture, and murder. There is also the belief that mammals are designed to feed solely on plants. This behavior to dismiss certain foods can be connected with neuroticism. Because introverts are believed to be more prone to neurosis, they can establish a strict policy for following the vegan lifestyle. Even if meats like poultry and seafood provide the essential nutrients for staying healthy, for vegans the slaughters are not worth it. Plus, either the same or similar nutrients can be found in certain plant-based products.
Avoidance of Social Gatherings
There can be introverts who avoid social gatherings because of the uncomfortableness of being around people, and there can be ones that avoid them because of the food. It's not that they do not like eating. The tables displaying the variety of delectables usually contain meat or other unhealthy foods. These gatherings can also distract one from determining the safe options versus the unsafe options.
In a personal scenario, I reject my friends' invitation to have dinner with them at Applebees, and instead I stay home and prepare my own meal. I start with a bowl of fresh spinach as an appetizer. The main dish is baked chicken breast strips, steamed broccoli, brown rice with a touch of butter, and I wash it all down with a glass of filtered water. For dessert, instead of ice cream, I will enjoy a dish of low-fat, organic, vanilla yogurt. Pretty boring meal, I know, plus it is not very tasty. But at least I will be able to maintain my diet strategy without the risk of cheating.
Incidentally, I've never cooked dinner on a date.
Tendency to Escape the Norm
In my opinion, to this day it is still considered NOT normal to be a vegan. The majority of the world continues to live on a diet consisting of all food types, and that includes meat and animal products. But more people are adopting the vegan lifestyle for different reasons, such as to get healthy, to save the lives of animals, or to help save the planet. These are all reasons to get away from the normal way of eating, and truthfully this norm is known to have detrimental effects on people's health as well as the life of the planet.
Introverts are the opposite of extroverts—the norm. With their deep, intricate thinking, they seek to become better and rid their minds of the old ways of thinking that have harmed mankind more than helped. They have a unique sense of knowing that when a crowd is doing the same thing, there is usually no good that can come out of it.
By the way, since vegans are said to be introverts, studies have also shown that meat eaters are more likely to be extroverts.
I still love eating meat from time to time, and that's all I've got to say about that.
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