Sphinx

Someone earlier mentioned about Nestle and their ethics - how do people find out about which companies have dodgy practices? I realise the news will say but it can be hidden away. I'd imagine there are websites that are dedicated to reporting this more.

Oh yeah, definitely. Once the topic moves onto veganism from that point it can go on a while and people might forget how it came up in the first place and remember it as 'bloody hell, the vegan's banging on again'. I answer questions on it and give my personal reasons but I'm not throwing it into conversations liberally like a Kat humble brag.

I'm still wondering where I stand with vegan as an identity. I feel like with my family I've become 'The Vegan' so the go-to topic of conversation is what I eat, if it's difficult being vegan, where I get my protein from, if I'm offended if someone eats meat next to me etc. On one hand, it's great to raise awareness and to help people understand it. We need more vegans in the world. On the other hand, I'm not one for 'selling' ideas. It's a choice I've made and it'd be grand if others did it but I don't yet feel comfortable being an ambassador for it. If someone talks shit about veganism I pull them up on it but I don't care to default to that conversation in general. I'm wary of it becoming my identity too much as I have more things to talk about and more to my personality than what I eat. And I'm not really much of a foodie anyway so if people are expecting me to be dead excited to talk about recipes or stuff I've eaten lately then they'll be disappointed. Primarily, there's no reason for animals to be abused and killed. More recently I've become more informed about the environmental impact and the climate crisis. They're more the reason than the actual food for me.

I remember someone posting a video of Kofi not being invited to the New Day Pec Party in a hotel room. Does anyone know where I can find it? It was hilarious, especially Big E ad-libbing whilst pec dancing at the end.

I read a book on the idea of shorter work weeks and universal credit called Utopia For Realists recently. He says how Ford reduced workers' hours to 40 hours a week and that everyone thought he was crazy. He said that his employees would be able to buy his cars and use them in their free time. I think people wearing the amount they work as a badge of honour is more a thing than people being lazy. It's engrained in our culture. There have been several cases where shorter work weeks have ended up being as productive or more productive than the original work week, partly through morale being higher and not being as tired.

I found preparation helped a lot. I followed Accidentally Vegan, Now You Know Its Vegan, Vegan Womble and similar accounts on Instagram. They post what's in supermarkets, the nutritional benefits of certain foods, and some recipes. I don't use Instagram much but these made it more useful for me. They have Facebook groups too. Also, if you find you eat something non-vegan don't beat yourself up and think there's no point now you've eaten it. I ate some crisps with cheese when I started through Veganuary a couple years back and was thinking my run had come to an end and was still thinking quite short that I'd managed x amount of days in January. My friend told me to ignore it and carry on and I surprised myself a bit by carrying it on beyond. The other thing I found was thinking of myself as a vegan and not someone who's giving it a go. That could be in conversation or internal monologue. I found it easier to fulfil the story I was telling myself and found it useful later when telling myself 'I go to the gym'. Try it!

NJPW have released their version of the Network which is available now at http://njpwworld.com/ for £5.38pm