Dear Readers,
In case you may not know, a vegan diet consists of only plant based foods. Foods such as meat or dairy products are never consumed. From what I have read over the years, people choose this lifestyle for a few reasons such as animal welfare, environmental issues and/or health.
Today I am talking to JD Mumma, one of the creators of the Facebook group, Vegan Influence & Persuasion.
Please tell the readers a little about the group.
We are a group of sincere, committed vegan activists who work diligently to change our world into a vegan world.
Our members range from persuasion/influence beginners to those who are very advanced and experienced.
We seek to have significant influence and impact on society. We encourage members to be willing to study, research, practice, teach and discuss effective influence skills, strategies, tools and methods.
Our group posts are focused on the process of persuading and influencing and how we can be more efficient and effective as persuasive influence leaders and change agents.
What inspired you to create this group?
I have a personal history of years of experience in marketing and sales and a passionate interest in positive influence and persuasion. I first sarted the Facebook Group – Vegan Influencers and Debaters. One of the member of that group, Daryl Elliot, also a friend in real life, did not like the term “debate” so we jointly agreed to start a new group Vegan Influence & Persuasion. What inspired me to create the first group was that I kept seeing and experiencing lots of the vegan leaders focused on talking about disseminating recipes, nutrition, and moral arguments, but almost no one was focused on teaching influence and persuasion strategies. Being vegan since about 1990, I have experienced decades of vegans using both very good and very poor influence and persuasion strategies. What also kept coming up for me as I learned more about debate, logic, reasoning, critical thinking… was that most vegans (even the well known leaders) were presenting weak, unsound and fallacious arguments, which ended up either being repeated and/or easily refuted by non-vegans and thus used as a weapon/tool against veganism.
One of my first big, ‘something has to be done to fix this’, moments was when I was listening to an interview series teleconference by Kevin Gianni, titled the “Great Health Debate”. Basically, Kevin Gianni had a list of questions he would ask and just the two debate opponents ramble on, while Kevin, those he interviewed and his listeners (based on the thousands of comments) had almost no clue about the errors in reasoning (fallacies) that Kevin and his interviewee were using in the debates. The debate with Gabriel Cousens, MD vs Joseph Mercola, DO, really stuck out in my mind. For me it was similar to listening to two people claiming to be mathematics ‘experts’ making very simple yet completely incorrect math equations arguments, while their debate opponent and the interviewer (Gianni) made no mention of these (illogical/fallacious) equation errors! They both made numerous unsound/fallacious arguments and Gianni seemed either uninterested and/or inept to identify and/or challenge theses fallacious arguments!
What would you like this group to accomplish?
For many people upgrading to being vegan is a major mental, social, physical change, which currently goes against most social norms. In order for vegans to help make this global shift they will need both understand how humans are influenced and be well equipped to influence and persuade other people. Our group is focused on assisting more vegans to be aware of the need and to give them a deep toolbox full of: strategies, tactics and methods, that already have proven track records of having a high-degree of success when it comes to influencing and persuading humans.
Additionally, I own the website VeganInfluence.com and plan to also build that website soon to cover and manage much more that what Facebook can handle.
Thank you JD for taking the time to tell us about this important group.
Click on the link to find this Facebook Group – Vegan Influence & Persuation
*This blog post is part of the Blogging From A-to-Z Challenge (April 2017)
*The Internet is a useful tool for creating online support groups. Please lend a helping hand by sharing this blog post in the hopes it reaches someone who may benefit from this group.
*If you are interested in sharing your Facebook group with my readers please email me at pluckingofmyheartstrings@gmail.com
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~Plucking Of My Heartstrings~ 
Thanks Cheryl, it’s true that the arguments or discussions in favour or against are usually not particularly sound. Also, there is a growing trend I think in favour of veganism and there are plenty of recipe books with delicious, nutritious and simple recipes.
I really don’t know much about veganism. I have some friends who don’t eat meat and tell me they feel much better. I do see an upswing on this type of eating, as more people seem to be interested more than they were years ago.
Interesting. I became seriously protein deficient after a year of a vegan diet and it took years to recover from the complications. My point isn’t that the diet is bad, only that it requires conscientious planning and discipline to make sure the body is getting the nutrition it needs. 🙂
I have heard of other people having similar experiences from eating a vegan diet. I agree, protein is important I’m not a vegan but I would think you could get protein from things such as vegetables, grains, nuts. Not exactly sure how much of these things you would have to eat to get the required protein though.
My body doesn’t react well to a lack of protein. I guess I’m a throwback to my carnivorous caveman ancestors.
I don’t know much about the vegan life. As I mentioned in the comment above, I would think you could get protein from other sources beside meat. I have a sister and a good friend who don’t eat meat. They are not strict vegan’s as they drink milk, eat eggs, ect. They both say they feel so much better since they gave up meat. Not sure I could do it…
I like their focus on effecting positive change and informing. I don’t know that I could manage a vegan lifestyle though.
I don’t think I could either.