Self-Proclaimed Vegan Influencer Makes Excuses After Getting Caught Eating Fish

Why not just be honest?

Edmund

• Published in News
• April 2, 2019

Veganism has had a rise in popularity over the last decade and if done with the right nutritional intake it boasts being the better option.

While that is debatable the dietary lifestyle does seem to work for some. The community behind it are tight knit and incredibly vocal about their beliefs (sometimes causing damage to their cause as a result).You can imagine then the confusion involved when one of their popular digital media representations is caught eating fish and the anger that followed when she proceeded to make excuses.

This story goes from one of fake veganism and becomes about the transparency on the internet influencers (especially lifestyle ones) should have with their audience.

Who is rawvana?

Yovana Mendoza Ayres (or rawvana as she is known on social media) is a vegan influencer with a remarkable following of over 48,000 followers on Facebook, over 400,000 subscribers on YouTube and 1.3 million followers on Instagram. On her website she sells access to health and wellness programs.

What does she do?

Ayres promotes vegan health and wellness on her social media outlets while also selling products regarding and access to her program.

She adopted a raw vegan diet four years ago and even went so far to do 25 day water fasting. That’s right, only drinking water for 25 days. She spoke to others in the same movement and did admit have some problems as a result.

She went to the doctors and when they gave the test results back they apparently stated that she was diagnosed as pre-menopausal.

The video that caused controversy

FISH?!?

She thought her diagnosis was weird as she had been feeling fine. Despite that she slowly changed her diet, even including cooked food.

Ayres’ response

If you are going to advise people on dietary needs there are some things you need to share.

The health problems came and went and her doctor made various recommendations. One of which was to eat egg which she refused.

You can understand if they feel like that.

“So the doctors were like ‘You need to gain more weight, you need to take the testosterone, the thyroid medicine and these supplements, and also it would really benefit you if you ate some eggs.'” Yovana’s response? “No, no, no … I’m gonna seek out some different information and talk to someone who actually understands my diet.”

At least you can admit that.

She was recommended to take iron tablets. This reportedly made things better permanently.

Really?

She did not address this to her audience until the video of her eating fish leaked.

“My hope is to go back and eat the way that I love to eat,” Yovana concludes. “I am grateful for this opportunity to improve my health, I’m grateful for taking the route of self-love and I feel that I’m doing this out of self-love, because I want to be better, I want to be healthy and because if I’m not healthy then I have nothing to give to this world.”

So there you go, she are fish as part of her improving her health. It is good that she has gotten it all under control.

Here are the responses online regarding the response

You can’t have it both ways... without justification.

I mean that’s not all that is destroying the movement but this wouldn’t help

Transparency with a following like that is vital.

Vegans the problem overall?

Yet another person who feels lied to and feels like she has scammed people.

Definitely not one.

Vegan guru or cult leader?

Diet history

She is entitled to provide some information.

Everyone is different. Treat it on a case by case basis.

Edmund