Do you feel like your vegan diet or food allergies make you “difficult” at restaurants and social gatherings? You’re not alone. And you deserve better.

In this World Vegan Month episode, I (author, trauma therapist, senior accredited supervisor etc, Eve Menezes Cunningham) share some of my journey from being an “awkward vegan” with a severe bell pepper allergy to (more) confidently advocating for my food needs. Learn how to:

✨ Ask for what you need without shame

✨ Use somatic techniques to feel empowered when ordering

✨ Navigate social situations where you’re the only vegan

✨ Recognise which people and places truly support your needs

✨ Turn advocating for yourself (stating dietary requirements) into self-healing

Whether you’re vegan, have food allergies, sensory issues with food or any dietary requirements, this episode validates your experiences and provides practical tools for feeling safe, welcome and nourished.

Perfect for anyone with trauma, ADHD, or AuDHD who struggles with the extra layers of complexity around food choices.

🎙️ Feel Better Every Day Podcast Episode 85 Host: Eve Menezes Cunningham Next week: Special guest Tracy Otsuka, author of “ADHD for Smart Ass Women”

📚 Free resources and full transcript: selfcarecoaching.net

#VeganLife #FoodAllergies #ADHD #TraumaHealing #SelfCare #Neurodivergent #WorldVeganMonth

CHAPTERS

(0:00–1:25) Asking for what you need and embracing awkwardness

(1:25–3:50) Power poses, confidence, and feeling worthy of good things

(3:50–5:44) Compassion for yourself when being vegan feels awkward

(5:44–7:15) Sensory needs, boundaries, and finding your people

(7:15–9:01) Speaking up for yourself and healing old wounds

(9:01–11:24) Food, co-regulation, and making socialising easier

(11:24–13:24) EFT tapping, tenderness, and trauma-informed care

(13:24–16:10) Rippling kindness outward and staying idealistic

FULL TRANSCRIPT

Do you ever feel like being a vegan makes it hard for you to enjoy food out with friends, loved ones or even at home?

Do you ever feel like you’re being too awkward if you have any kind of food allergy?

This episode for World Vegan Month is for you and I want to encourage you to acknowledge the accommodations that you need and deserve and to help you ask for what you need with less shame.

I’m nearly 50 and I am much better at it than I used to be but I used to call myself an awkward vegan for many years because I’m also allergic to bell peppers and they’re in so many vegan dishes.

The older I get, I mean I say the older I get, a couple decades ago I was writing for an allergy magazine about the pepper allergy and it was before I went vegan but about the difficulty. It’s not one of the big 14 [allergens].

Back then there was a big 10 and there’s more awareness around allergies but I guess the relevance for this episode is recognising the special needs needing to be accommodated like it could kill me. And it is very stressful a lot of the time and also I love food and I want to enjoy it, I don’t want to be off of the salads.

Welcome to episode 85 of the Feel Better Every Day Podcast. I’m your host Eve Menezes Cunningham and every Tuesday I share a new episode where it’s helping people with trauma, ADHD and AuDHD take better care of yourself, create a life you don’t need to retreat from and help build a world in which everyone feels safe, welcome and loved.

This here is Mighty Meadbh and if you haven’t already subscribed you’re very welcome to and you can find out more information at the Feel Better Every Day Podcast and that will lead you to the book and all sorts of free resources as well as ways of working with me.

For the Feel part of the Feel. Love. Heal. framework today, I want to encourage you to get into your body to empower yourself. It might be that you feel a bit silly doing a power pose before making a phone call to a restaurant or even looking at a menu outside. But it’s hard being in a minority. And with food being so central. We co-regulate with other people and we connect with others so often through food so if you’re the only vegan in your circle it can be really challenging.

You might want to take a power pose to remind yourself that just as you wouldn’t tell anyone else what they should or shouldn’t be eating no one else has a right to be telling you that. And you deserve delicious food.

Notice the way you’re sitting. Notice if you can straighten up. Notice if you can send those signals of safety up via the vagus to the pons part of the brain (if it’s not too awkward depending on where you are when you are you might want to take a Power Pose).

I’ve removed my arms from Meadbh I don’t know what she’ll do now. If you’re standing up, maybe place your hands on the hips but anything that helps you have that open-hearted posture.

It’s not about being awkward. It’s not about being difficult. It’s about being polite but also knowing that you have a right to eat in a way that feels good for you.

I’ve actually considered stopping being vegan because it feels so awkward sometimes and I just… it might be the justice sensitivity with the ADHD and it might be the trauma history and kind of taking the animal suffering, the bee suffering, so to heart, but I would really struggle to live with myself.

I find it much easier to live with myself trying, I mean I’m not… like kind of that sounds dramatic. I don’t mean it like that. But it’s a friendlier way for me personally to walk through this life where humans do so much damage.

To not be a part of that. But there’s nothing wrong with anyone making any choices that are right for them whether it’s through taste or through health reasons or anything else.

But it’s about you giving yourself permission to know what you want and ask for what you want. Where there might be allergies it can be extra awkward. There’s generally more understanding around coeliac… it seems like kind of people seem to be doing well getting gluten-free food.

There is a huge lack of awareness still around what vegan actually means. People are often like, “oh, it has eggs” or “it has honey”.

It’s like that’s not vegan! Plant-based being offered a salad. Let yourself feel how you want to feel don’t be forcing yourself to contort your tastes. If you want chips that’s fine. If you want salad that’s fine but also know that you, like everyone else at the table, is worthy of a meal that you will genuinely enjoy and feel nourished by. You deserve that just as everyone else does.

As we move to the Love part of the framework, remembering that you like everyone else are part of the Divine. Part of nature. And there’s no need to feel awkward.

It might be that your dietary requirements have nothing to do with being vegan but it’s to do with sensory issues. And again, you have a right to eat in a way that feels good for you. That makes sense for you. You don’t need to change a thing.

And it can sound harsh but I know for me with the being vegan and having the anaphylaxis pepper allergy… it filters out people who aren’t good for me. Because if someone is caring and considerate and patient… often people have… my loved ones… my partner has to be very patient sometimes where it’s so difficult for me to get something edible.

It filters out people who are dismissive. Who consider one option that’s barely edible to make the venue a vegan restaurant. And food, again it can be so connecting, it can be so joyful, it can be so… and it can also make you feel like very disconnected.

For the Love part of the framework this week, I really want you to just give yourself some love.

Connect with that part of you that maybe doesn’t feel worthy of the… I was going to say concessions, the accommodations, the awkwardness.

Know that someone would have no problem asking for whatever they wanted in a very specific way. You have every right to frequent establishments that make you feel welcome and that make you feel like you’re not putting them out and that they want to.

And often, it’s really like kind of seemingly meaty places that will be the most welcoming, and where they specialise in that farm to table. Or it’s interesting. Don’t underestimate that there are some amazing places out there and where they will respect your vegan or other dietary requirements and treat you like someone who is deserving of food and you also like kind of really enjoying being there.

Stop arguing with reality. If someone is making you feel worse about it then you might already be feeling that person isn’t good for you those people aren’t good for you. It might be that they’re family. It might be that you have to keep them in your life but you can really be extra tender with that part of yourself that feels rejected and potentially betrayed and uncared for having specific food requirements can be triggering in terms of inner child stuff coming up for healing. A lot of childhood stuff, a lot of like needs not having been met, all sorts of other needs additional needs so really be tender with yourself as it all comes up for healing. And recognise that every time you speak up for yourself, you are healing. You are shining a light on it. And you can bring other people on board. You can let them know how they can support you in it.

One of the things that’s really helped me this year is taking on the booking for a group that I’m part of. It means I can do the research and I can make sure that there’s going to be something edible for me. Something delicious hopefully. I’ve been treated well so far but it makes me feel like I’m not then adding to the person booking workload.

And also, that the person responsible for the food knows about the seriousness of the allergy. So find ways if it’s available to you, to take more ownership over the choices so that everyone can be happy and have delicious food.

And that really is part of the Heal element. The co-regulation, the collective care. The recognising groups where you feel comfortable doing that, groups of friends or more formal groups.

Noticing the restaurants that you feel most comfortable at. The environments you feel most comfortable eating in. The neighbours who might be the most carnivorous creatures on the planet but who welcome a vegan burger at a barbecue or whatever it is. It’s not about, again, changing anyone else’s taste or choice. It’s about honouring that you are as deserving as they are. And they are as deserving as you are. Everyone has a right to food to nourishment and to safety and to feeling welcome.

We know that with Polyvagal Theory, we thrive when we feel safe, welcome and loved. It’s easy for so many people (or it appears to be easy for so many people) when invited to stay for dinner or a cup of tea or anything like that. And it just can feel like an extra barrier. Sometimes, where it’s like, you’d love the company but it means having to say oh, I’ll often just have a hot water rather than go through any kind of milk issue or anything like that.

Think of ways in which you can make it easier for yourself. Think of ways you can make it more enjoyable for yourself.

Let me know how you are getting on in terms of what you do now that you didn’t think to do when you were younger and things that have really made a difference in terms of you embracing that part of you that needs the extra care, the extra tenderness, the extra consideration.

And knowing that again whether it’s through a vegan diet an allergy an intolerance or any kind of sensory issues, knowing that you are worthy.

Let me know how you get on and I look forward to going deeper in the Circle. We’re going to do another EFT Tap Along to help get rid of some of that around decades of potentially feeling unwelcome and too much and impossible to handle and all the things that can be especially triggering with extra sensitive nervous systems, with trauma histories, with ADHD, with AuDHD.

I hope you will join me for that. And you can join via the website at selfcarecoaching.net

Thank you for listening. This episode like all of them has been produced by me, your host, Eve Menezes Cunningham. And you can find out more about the book 365 Ways to Feel Better: Self-care Ideas for Embodied Wellbeing and you can find full transcripts and links and show notes via the blog at selfcarecoaching.net and also loads of free resources around confidence, around anxiety, around menopause, all sorts of things trauma obviously and neurodivergence. Very trauma-informed neuro-affirming approach.

Lots of things you can do for yourself so check that out. I would like to be able to help as many people as I can which is why I do the podcast. Not everyone can afford one-to-one work and not everyone can attend workshops or events.

I love sharing the podcast and it would be really delightful if you feel that it’s helpful if you are happy to share a five-star review or share it with someone who you think might find it beneficial.

This will help in terms of reaching other people with trauma with AuDHD, with ADHD, and with the ripple effect of taking better care of yourself. It really does change everything if you take the example of the food. When you’re well fed, when you’re taking care of yourself, you’re leaving that restaurant or wherever it is feeling like you’re in a better humour, you’re better able to notice if someone else is in need and to help.

To stop to open a door. Tiny tiny tiny little things that add up to give someone the benefit of the doubt to be gracious in all sorts of situations. The more you’re taking care of your nervous system, the more you’re acknowledging your energy levels and what’s happening with your energy your chi, your prana, your life force, the more it ripples out.

And I know it sounds grandiose, but it can if we all took care of our own nervous systems, if we all made sure we were as regulated as possible and if we all came together to topple the systems that thrive on inequality and suffering world peace will ensue.

I might be too old to be an idealist but I still am an idealist. I very much appreciate you listening watching sharing commenting engaging in whatever way feels right for you. And I look forward, next week, to sharing an especially special episode with an author who really helped me when I first began looking into the possibility that I might have ADHD.

Her approach - it’s Tracy Otsuka who wrote ADHD for Smart Ass Women and before that and still she has her podcast by the same name but she’s so dynamic so confident so delightful and so bold – is really exploring the 43% of ADHDers who experience excellent mental health and particularly looking at women with ADHD.

I hope you will join me for that and that you have a delicious week ahead.