"Can I ask... why vegan?"Everyone has a different answer to the "why vegan" question. Here are the main reasons that most people go vegan. First, because they learn that factory farms mistreat animals. The second reason is because they find out that the environment is destroyed from factory farming. The third reason is because the economy is badly damaged by corporate monopolies on farms. And, the last -- but not least--- big reason is because they learn how unhealthy it is to eat animals and their byproducts. Everyone also has a different capacity for how much of the truth they want to know about the food we put in our bodies. To tell my "why vegan" story I should quickly go back 20+ years to my childhood...
I grew up in a family where we ate meat and dairy daily. Milk was an absolute staple-- more important than any other food. My older brothers had steak-ums in the freezer all the time, we ate pork chops, and we loved my mom's beef with broccoli recipe. I remember proudly cooking bacon and eggs for one brother the morning he got home from college.
But I was always the pickiest eater of the family. I actually preferred brown bread over white long before I knew what whole wheat was. I always had to have meat cooked well done and would cut around anything suspicious. I was never a big bologna kid. And, I always really loved animals. Something didn't add up for me about eating animals.
One day, it seems like it was overnight, I just stopped eating meat. I was about 12 years old and my best friend's older sister was a vegetarian and it seemed like a cool thing to do. I heard a little about how badly animals were treated and I cut it out of my life. I couldn't really make myself hear anything more about the treatment, I just knew it was bad, and that was enough.
And so I was a vegetarian for about 14 years... Really, not much changed. My family teased me often, but was generally supportive. To my friends I was just a vegetarian, no big deal. I went through all my teenage and college years without meat and I got by just fine. I was an active person too-- did several sports and joined a sorority. I even made it through the business world and eating dinners with people who asked why I was a vegetarian.
But, nagging at me was the fact that I never had a good answer to the "why vegetarian" question. I really just told people that I loved animals and wasn't interested in eating them. But somewhere inside of me I knew that I needed a better answer for them, and for me. I picked up a book called, "101 Reasons I'm a Vegetarian," and found so much that bothered me.
That was where I started reading and learning. Are you wondering
what exactly it means to be vegan?
I had found my passion and I was on a personal mission to learn as much as I could about the food world and then pass it on to whoever wanted to listen.
Luckily some states around the country have started to see the cruelty behind current confinement crates and have begun passing measures to ban them. California Proposition 2, passed in the 2008 election, is a huge victory for factory farmed animals. For me, knowing about factory farms was certainly enough information to ensure that I would never eat another animal in my life. And, it was enough to convince me to stop drinking milk. But cheese?? I LOVE cheese. ______________________________________________________________ Pause... Are you signed up as an insider?
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________________________________________________________________ But then I learned that the factory farms are awful for the environment and create more toxic gases than all of the cars on the planet. I recycle and reuse plastic bags and always thought of myself as a good environmentalist, but how could I be if I supported factory farming by eating my beloved cheese? I also learned that the huge farming industry is putting small farmers out of business, and is damaging our economy. I thought about the farm stands by the side of the road on the way to the beach and about how those farmers were struggling to get by. Then I started to get into books about how many health hazards exist when eating a diet that includes meat and dairy. I always thought that meat was the best way to get protein, chicken was lower in fat, all fish was good for you, and that you needed to drink tons of milk each day. I was taught the food pyramid at school and I was healthy and wanted to feed my body properly. I even felt a little guilty about not eating meat because I was missing out on the protein. I read the China Study and learned about how wrong I was, along with almost everyone else in the United States, to assume that diets high in animal protein were healthy for me. Also, I never knew why vegan people abstained from animal products. Wasn't being vegetarian enough? I was completely amazed to learn more about those foods and learn that my understanding of nutrition was misguided. I don't intend to say that my teachers or parents purposely gave me misinformation because I don't think that at all. There are a great many people who still don't know why vegan food is actually better for you. All my teachers thought that meat and dairy is good for you and they were only spreading the information that they knew. When I found out that cheese is adding absolutely nothing to my diet, and is in fact, subtracting from my overall health... I got rid of it. For me, the facts were enough to make a complete shift and cut out all animal products. Everyone is different. Some people start by trying to improve their health, and once they hear about how harmful the typical American diet is, and how healthful a full vegan diet is, it's an obvious choice. The almost immediate weight loss from cutting out meat and dairy is helpful too! My cousin, who once told me she would absolutely never stop eating meat, went on a 30-day vegan diet. She hasn't returned to the meat world, although she does allow herself one day a month to check back in with her body and see if she wants to eat meat or dairy. Other people really don't want to know what happens to animals because they don't want to eat a turkey sandwich and think about the turkey. Heck, it took me 14 years before I got the courage to read about factory farming. And that is fine, everyone moves at their own pace. My boyfriend was like that-- he just didn't want to know. I was reading one day and asked him if he would like to hear one thing. He said yes, so I told him that pigs are smarter than dogs. He hasn't eaten ham since, and he started to ask me for more information, slowly. His "why vegan" story is different than mine. My sister is another animal lover who didn't want to hear how they are harmed. She stopped eating red meat after going to a rodeo many years ago, but like me, she still ate plenty of other animal products for years. Her "why vegan" story is different as well. She is a fabulous vegan cook and I have many of
her recipes listed here.
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