Confessions of a self-serving vegan

1. I’ve been a meat eater most of my life.
2. Disingenuously, I sought evidence to condone my meat eating.
3. I only stopped eating meat when I thought it would serve me.

Like many people, I have always loved animals.  I didn’t grow up with pets, but I never passed up an opportunity to pet a dog or cuddle a cat.  And even though I may be a bit fearful of less familiar creatures, my affection extends to mice, turtles, squirrels and just about any other animal that crosses my path.  On some level, deep inside, it never made sense to me that we ate animals, but somehow this has only recently crept into my full awareness.

I’ve been a meat eater most of my life

I’ve been a meat eater most of my life.  It’s the culture I grew up in.  I never decided to be a meat eater, but neither did my parents, nor did their parents, nor theirs.  None of us, as children, were asked; “Do you want to be a vegetarian?  Or would you rather eat animals too?”  I wonder what I would have answered.

I was 19 years old before I ever considered the idea of vegetarianism.  Though my life must have bumped up against the concept before then, I have no memory of having even heard the word “vegetarian”.  But one semester in CEGEP, a documentary shown in one of my humanities classes, changed that.  It opened my eyes to something I couldn’t have previously imagined.  I remember images of animal imprisonment, cruelty and suffering.  It was a film about animal agriculture, and, for the first time in my life, I heard the term “factory farming”.

The effect of those factory farming images stayed with me.  I was horrified and incredulous.  “This can’t be true,” I thought.  “This can’t be real.”  How could we, as a society, allow this?  Surely, if this was true, the people I look up to and admire would know about it and would be speaking out about it.  Surely my mother, my grandparents, teachers, politicians, clergy and other authority figures would refuse to eat meat if this was how most of it was procured.  I experienced a cognitive dissonance.  What I saw on the screen didn’t fit with what I innocently believed to be true about society.  And so, I continued eating meat – for another decade. 

I sought evidence to condone my meat eating

Though largely in a state of denial and rationalization, I never forgot the images from that documentary.  I was now sensitized to the word “vegetarian” and it started jumping out at me.  Just about every time I met a vegetarian (which was far less common back then) I’d ask them why they were vegetarian.

I have since examined my reasons for asking, and I came up with three:

1. I wanted to appear open minded.
2. I wanted to hear something that would convince me to go vegetarian myself.
3. I wanted to hear something that would reassure me that eating meat was ok.

Strangely, I remember always getting lukewarm responses that lacked conviction.  Today, I understand why.  Usually I would ask the question at a food gathering, when the subject would naturally come up.  I now realize that if the person was vegetarian for ethical reasons, there was no graceful way for them to express that.  Not in front of people eating meat.  Not without appearing as if they thought they were morally superior.  I assume they downplayed their reasons to avoid making me uncomfortable.

I finally stopped eating meat for self-serving reasons

The catalyst for my switch to vegetarianism was unique.  I’ve never met anyone else with a similar incentive.  Despite my claim to love animals, and despite knowing how they suffered for my tastebuds, somehow that never convinced me to change.  What did, was my own self interest.

At the age of 30, out of the blue, I began to have what I’ll call “episodes” of fear and paranoia.  A series of creepy coincidences would rise to torment me for days at a time, consuming all my emotional energy.  Faceless demons would permeate my dreams and a sense of foreboding haunted my waking life.  I’d lived through about 2 or 3 of these episodes over the course of about 2 years when, after a long period of relief from them, another episode begun to rear its ugly head.  A vegan friend of mine named Jimmy, who had seen me through these times in the past, told me something I’d never heard before.  He said he’d read that when we eat meat, we also ingest the fear that the animals felt in the slaughterhouse.  The study he was referring to confirmed that fear experienced during slaughter significantly elevates meat’s levels of stress hormones.  Jimmy wondered if I was experiencing the animals’ fear secondhand.  I was so desperate to end my episodes, I became vegetarian on the spot, and I’ve never looked back.  Although I can’t say for sure that the episodes ended because I stopped eating meat (I made several changes at that time) I can say that I haven’t had a similar episode since.

My greatest reward

There are so many benefits to foregoing meat, and even more upon giving up animal products altogether.  Just google “vegan” or “plant based diet” to read compelling information about how healthy it is to eat this way – and how important for the health of the environment.  But the greatest reward, for me, is to finally be living in harmony with my own values.  I spent several years as a vegetarian before accepting the truth that, by continuing to eat eggs and dairy, I was still contributing to the immense pain and suffering of animals.  In November 2013, I became a vegan.  And now, in February 2018, I’m “coming out” as a vegan activist.   As such, I encourage everyone to learn more about this wonderful, accessible, oft-misunderstood and transformative lifestyle.  If there’s anything I can do to help you move towards veganism – or to help you with your own “vegan project”, please don’t hesitate to reach out.

More inspiration

I’ll leave you with a speech I delivered last November and a link to a yummy recipe I discovered on the Forks Over Knives website… enjoy!

Recipe

The “No Tuna” Salad Sandwich.  I’ve made this twice already.  It’s extremely fast and easy to make, inexpensive and DELICIOUS!
(I made it without the pickles and celery, because I didn’t have any – and I served it on toast with vegan mayo and cilantro – because I had some)