The HANDS-DOWN BEST VEGAN RESTAURANTS IN BOSTON are the following: 

• My Thai Vegan Cafe
• Veggie Planet
• Veggie Galaxy
• Clover Food Labs (not all vegan, but go get a chickpea fritter and be so happy)
• Life Alive Cafe`
• Wagamama (not all vegan but wicked vegan friendly)
• True Bistro (fancy and decadent, a good little black dress date place)

Wherever you’re traveling, make sure to use happycow.net! It is THE best resource for locating vegan, vegan-friendly, or vegetarian restaurants in the area, as well as shops and stores. 

Unless it’s in the long list of asks I currently have, you probably missed it—all my asks are tagged, and if you think I haven’t answered there are three places your ask could be: in my queue, still unanswered, or in the asks tag. 

First thing to check is the company - are they on the cruelty-free list? If not, check their website for the FAQ and see what they say about animal testing. If they say they don’t animal test, move on to next step. If they do say they test or if they don’t say anything, well, there you go. 

Next step is to check the ingredients for animal products. There are a lot out there, especially in cosmetics, so check out Animal-Free app if you have a smartphone and if not you can find lists of animal ingredients in my tag. That’s really all there is to it for cosmetics. 

Also, sometimes they’ll say “vegan” on the bottle. So that’s helpful!

As for breads, you’re generally safe with whole wheat or oatmeal breads. Check for honey, milk, etcetera. In most breads you’ll see mono & di glycerides, and those can be plant or animal sourced. 95% of the time, it’s plant sourced. If you’re really not sure, call the company’s hotline and they’ll tell you. If you see l-cysteine in breads, it’s made from duck feathers. 

Ultimately, speciesism is about how we humans approach and consider the other creatures with which we share this planet. It’s about value judgments and the moral corruption of assigning different values to other sentient beings. You’re right, it IS about the right to live—so why are you making it something different in regards to my interaction with humans? Your logic is invalid.  

You can’t approach me talking about how speciesism is about all of us creatures having equal right to live and then say that I’m a speciesist because when people piss me off I’m not nice to them. I never said, “Wow, this fucking Anon is being so ignorant, they deserve to die.” THEN you could call me a speciesist. Until then, you don’t get to call me that. I resent you calling me that. 

I don’t have to LIKE everyone or everything I encounter, and having a bad experience with rude, cowardly anons online and speaking my mind does not make me a prejudiced person. How could I prejudiced against ANONYMOUS people? I genuinely would like to know. 

Look, I understand that not everyone likes to swear as much as I do, but that’s just me—I swear alllll the fucking time, whether it’s derogatory or not. Being rude? No, no, no. I am the first person to hate on myself when I deserve it, but you calling me rude for being honest with RUDE people? I’m sorry, I’m going to call it what it is: unfair. I genuinely do feel you’re being unfair to me. Why? Well, could be any number of reasons. Maybe you don’t like swears. Okay. Maybe you don’t like seeing these messages because, hey, they are negative. Also okay. But you have to understand that that’s not my problem, it’s your personal preference, and this is my blog. And being honest with people, and not being NICE to RUDE people who attack me does NOT make me a bad person, let alone a speciesist. 

I’m sure you’re a perfectly nice person and you said this as nicely as you could, but I do resent you calling me that. I’ve said it before and I’ll keep on saying it: if all the good I do on this blog and all the advice I give is not enough to show that I’m a good person, I don’t know what will do it—but I will never apologize for being honest and opinionated, and I’m NEVER going to be fake and sugary and sweet to fucking rude, ignorant, cowardly, anonymous fucks on Tumblr. People who approach me like that are asking for it and trying to stir shit up, and I’m going to respond to them with exactly what I’m feeling. If you don’t like that, then maybe you don’t like me—but that doesn’t make me a speciesist. That was rude of you to say. 

Eh, no. Sorry, but I’m not sorry—call it what you want, but you’re a speciesist and you’re still killing and hurting animals, damaging their quality of life for legitimately no reason whatsoever. It wastes water, it’s ruining the environment, and it’s just plain bad for you. What do you want me to say? “Oh, your diet is so destructive on so many levels and makes you a huge hypocrite but I respect your right to do that?”

I do not support willful ignorance, and you can’t expect me to. I respect that maybe it isn’t your time, right now, this second, to go vegan for whatever reason—and I don’t have to RESPECT those reasons. I don’t preach to anyone, ever, and through this blog easily a hundred people in the past year and a third of running it have told me that I’ve helped them go vegan from education, advice, and information. If that’s not keeping an open mind to others’ processes, I don’t know what the fuck is. I am a resource—a VEGAN resource, and if you’re NOT a vegan, you DON’T actually care about animals. 

And I’ll just say it: or your body, or the environment, or anything larger than yourself or your species.

We are all Earthlings, all slaughter is unnecessary, you are a speciesist. Have a nice day. 

Actually the reason it’s right is because if you’re not a vegan it means that you take place in genocide daily. You supply the demand for the genocide of animals everyday, and it doesn’t matter if you’re “buying local” or “grass-fed” or fucking “cage-free”—murder is murder is murder, and how can you sit there and tell me you care about the welfare of animals when you ask for their slaughter in order to satisfy an appetite—not a need, but an appetite? 

You won’t support cosmetic testing in their little bunny eyes but you’ll eat a rabbit stew? You don’t want monkeys in labs but hey, gimme some’a that steak? 

Yeah, call me naive and close-minded if it helps you out, but you’re a speciesist and you are the one that has to live with that. Also, way to go being a huge coward on Anon. It’s really cute and redeeming—proud of you as a human today. Don’t say you “don’t mean to get involved” like you want to avoid as much retaliation from me as possible; anonymously calling someone naive and close-minded is hardly a fucking handshake. 

It’s mind over matter. You need to stare down your favorite dairy and egg filled food and think to yourself, meat comes from this. This is the result of suffering and misery. This is the result of a grieving mother. 

If you’re a vegetarian then you’ve given up meat for a long time and for a reason. Here’s the thing: the dairy industry IS the meat industry. What do you think happens to those momma cows who get dried up after a couple years of constant milk production? They’re pumped full of drugs and hormones so they can produce as much milk as possible, they’re kept pregnant to produce as much milk as possible, and their lives are drastically shortened because of it. Not to mention, their lives suck. 

When they die, they become meat. Every time you eat dairy, you increase the demand for it, the demand on these cows, and help produce meat. 

The female calves are made into dairy cows. 

The male calves are made into veal. They are immediately taken from their mothers, isolated (because to keep baby cows together away from their mums, they’ll try to nurse from each other and hurt each other—because they NEED THEIR MOTHERS’ MILK), and then slaughtered for veal. 

My family was unsupportive, too. I don’t have any vegan friends. I NEVER waste food, the thought of it is awful to me—but that doesn’t mean I’m going to contribute to animal sacrifice.

You don’t love animals if you contribute to their slaughter and misery. You are strong enough. It’s mind over matter. 

You actually can, you probably were just doing it wrong. Also, being a vegetarian isn’t healthy - being VEGAN is healthy. Vegetarians still consume dairy, and dairy is awful for you. Hands down. 

If your health was “rapidly declining” it was probably because you didn’t have a well-balanced diet. Our food is important—it’s definitely more important and more of a responsibility than I think any of us want it to be. Just going meatless isn’t going to fix your health—processed foods, refined sugars, and dairy are still in the vegetarian diet, and I’m sure you were eating that. 

Did you eat whole grains and fruits and vegetables all day every day? Correct me if I’m wrong, but I’m sure you didn’t. I’m being assumptive here and I don’t like that, but it’s hard not to when presented with such a vague situation. 

Don’t say you can’t have a healthy lifestyle without meat if you haven’t actually tried to be healthy. Please take up the veg-lifestyle again—I can help you! I can tell you what you need.