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my experience
going vegan
by melissa wilson
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Genesis 1:28-29
And God said:
"See, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is on the face of all the land and every tree with seed in its fruit; you shall have them for food.
"And to all the animals on the earth and to every bird of the air and to everything that creeps on the ground--to everything in which there is the breath of life--I have given every green plant for food.
"And it was so."
Hey -
maybe we weren't ever intended to eat meat . . .
My husband and I watched a documentary around June 2008 called “King Corn”.
Within this film, two college students set out to research the subsidized industry that drives our fast-food nation. After hearing in one of their classes that by looking at a piece of someone’s hair under a microscope, you can determine what that person eats, the students take hair samples to local biologist.
Expecting to be told they certainly do exist on a diet of pizza and beer, Ian and Curt instead are surprised to hear that by studying their hair, this biologist can tell them that about 95% of their diet consists of corn.
Corn? They hadn’t eaten that since their moms threatened them with no dessert if they didn’t finish their dinner.
Then the biologist explained: “Think about it. Corn is in everything we eat.” Like steak? That cow probably ate corn much of its life. Have a sweet tooth? Have a nice spoonful of corn syrup!
Troubled by their unexpectedly narrow diet, Ian and Curt head to Iowa in search of finding out exactly where our food comes from in the United States.
Along the way, my husband and I learned the corn industry is far more interesting than we ever anticipated. In the 1950’s, the feds began subsidizing the corn farmers. Even today, every five to seven years, the U.S. government reauthorizes this growing heap of legislation now reaching from commodity farming, to rural development, to school lunch programs, to biofuel development.
1/11
Consider these facts from the film:
All of this alarmed me, and left me with one question, as my husband and I sat, gaping, at our television screen.
“What in the heck am I eating?”
I mean really, I sat there in horror, wondering what it is exactly that I’ve been putting into my body for the past 25 years. We spent 50% of our income on groceries 60 years ago, and 13% now. That tells me one thing loud and clear.
The quality of our food has drastically decreased.
After watching the documentary, David and I began buying specifically grass-fed beef, and avoiding corn syrup. But I couldn’t get the gnawing “what the heck am I putting into my body” thought out of my mind. If you are what you eat, I want to make sure I’m made of high quality stuff!
2/11
So I began researching organics about a week later. I’d
heard organic food was cleaner, and healthier for you. But
it wasn’t all of the hippie organic community sites that convinced me that we needed to start buying organic whenever possible. It was, in all irony, the USDA website that
convinced me - and once I read it to David, him as well - beyond any reasonable doubt.
According to UDSA’s organic certification standards, the produce yes, must be free of pesticides, antibiotics, food additives, etc. The animals, in general, should have been treated fairly well, fed a healthy diet and not given growth hormones.
However, disturbing as all of that is - that we eat non-organic food that DOES contain some or all of these items, there was one stipulation that disgusted me.
Organic food must not have been fertilized with “sewage sludge.”
GROSS.
“Sewage sludge”, meaning human, animal or industrial waste.
So all these years that I have NOT been eating organic, I
have been eating many items fertilized by your crap, some
cow’s crap, or Microsoft’s crap.
Well, that about convinced David and I to avoid as many “conventional” (i.e. non-organic) products as humanly possible. However one other thing about the USDA’s regulations stuck out to me, and caused another tailspin of research - that animals raised organic meat should have been treated fairly well, with access to the outdoors.
Hmm.
3/11
Access to the outdoors is stipulated, which meant to me that this isn’t necessarily the standard in “conventional” farming. Could there actually be animals that never see daylight? This lead me to start investigating the livestock industry. I will pause for a moment to allow you to visit the “Animas” tab on this site and read a little snapshot of what I was reading for that next week. Click on the “not food” sub-tab.
I am an animal-lover. I’ve been an animal-lover since I was about four, and remember weekly visits to my aunt’s house, who – I swear, had a mission to rescue any neglected, mistreated or lost animal she came into contact with. And keep them until either she found them a new home, or, they died after a long, happy life at her home. I am one of those people who will gravitate to the animal in the room when I’m at a party or family gathering, ending up in the corner, on the floor, with a chewed up dress hem or dog slobber on my cheek.
But, I was eating animals. The same animals that, if I saw them in person, would “ooo” and “ahhh” and love on – be they cow, chicken, pig or otherwise. Would I ever eat one I knew I’d previously met? Absolutely not. So, was there something hypocritical about my eating meat then? Who said that some animals are food, while some animals are friends? So these “food animals”. I decided to start looking into their silent little world.
Gloria Natavidad, a former USDA meat inspector once said, “Based on my experience in Los Angeles, my advice to the public is to not eat meat.”
Again, hmm. She seems to be someone who would have a rather credible opinion.
4/11
I took an ethics class my senior year of college. At the end of the course, the students, in groups, prepared “opposing views” presentations on controversial ethical issues. One group presented the issue of animal rights, and used some undercover PETA footage. I believe it even may have been “Meet Your Meat”. Seeing that video convinced me to go “mostly” vegetarian.
That lasted for about a month or two. And I made an exception for my dad’s Thanksgiving and Christmas turkeys.
I honestly don’t think that a lifestyle change can last permanently unless you personally invest time in researching why you’re making the change. You paid a price for it. I also don't think they last if they're based on emotions, rather than on rationality.
Which is what I did. Three years later, there I was, looking at the same, frightened, lonely, painful expressions on animals faces as they were chained, beaten, hung, sliced and skinned alive, whether for my McDonald’s “happy” meal, or my bowl of ice cream, or my “Independence” Day cookout, or for my Saturday morning omelet. I paid my price by forcing myself to watch video after video, and read graphic accounts of what is simply daily life for hundreds of thousands of animals every year.
I was horrified. And, to those of you out there who may be supposing or assuming things right now, no, I did not start my research on PETA. I started with places like Vegan Outreach and Mercy for Animals. I specifically chose to hold off on PETA research because I stereotyped them as being over-the-top. Now, however, I'm a PETA member and find them to be one of the most courageous and effective organizations out there . . . and they're my favorite website.
5/11
I chose less controversial organizations because I didn’t want to taint my recollection of my research in people’s minds, by coloring it with a giant PETA paintbrush. When I explained why I was going vegan to people, I wanted to be sure they understood that veganism is not some sort of wild-eyed, naïve lifestyle. On the contrary, it is simply a realistic understanding of the inner-workings of the livestock industry. As well as the fur, leather, wool and animal experimentation industries.
Veganism is putting into practice the belief that using animals for food and clothing is unnecessary. Let me make it clear here that in third and fourth world countries, where people don’t have access to substitute products- Gardenburgers, or soy milk, or pleather, or polyester - I understand the simple necessity of survival. It’s the unnecessary that I have an ethical problem with.
I like the way Matthew Scully, writer of “Dominion: The Power of Man, the Suffering of Animals, and the Call to Mercy” understands it. He explains that humans have abused the concept of “dominion”. When God put us in charge of the animals, He chose humans because we are intellectually superior to them, and understand the concept of justice. We were chosen to maintain order among the animals and yes, given permission to use them to fulfill basic needs. Scully explains that throughout history, we have used animals for various things – fur coats in Siberia, horse-drawn carriages, etc. But as technology and innovation develop products that allow these needs to be fulfilled by other means (faux fur, engines, etc), we release the animals that had been doing that work from their obligation to help us. It’s just. Their labor is no longer necessary to our survival.
6/11
So why haven’t we don’t that with food? It has been proven hundreds of thousands of times over that a person does not need meat, dairy or eggs to survive and live a healthy, vital life. In fact, plenty of research suggests a vegan diet is the healthiest diet a person can follow, lowering cholesterol, blood pressure, and decreasing the risk of heart disease. Many people have chosen to be vegan primarily for health reasons, and only secondarily for ethical reasons.
Why do we still eat meat? We like the taste. I couldn’t fathom that I was endorsing and supporting the brutal suffering of animals simply because I liked the taste of something. How arrogant. One person giving up meat and dairy saves approximately 100 animal lives each year. Surely my taste buds were not so royal that their satisfaction was worth 100 lonely lives and 100 painful deaths.
The day I made my decision that I would never again eat another animal, or an animal’s byproduct, I printed out my research and brought it home with me. After all, I needed something tangible to show David when I explained to him my choice. Certainly my carnivorous husband who had just spent $900 on a new grill would be disappointed. I knew he’d be supportive though.
As it turned out, before I even had a chance to break the news to him, David approached me that night and said that he was convinced that he wanted to go vegan. He had found my pile of papers in the living room and read them on his own. In shock, I began explaining that this was a “me thing” and that I had no expectation of him ever modifying his eating habits.
7/11
He firmly held his ground and said, “No. You don’t understand. After reading that, I absolutely do not want to eat meat or animal products anymore. There’s no reason to.” He told me that while he was very disturbed by the animal abuse in 90% of the livestock industry, that his primary reason for being persuaded was indeed motivated by health. He had, after all, gone vegetarian several years before in order to get into shape for running, but like me, only lasted a couple of months.
And that was that. Except for the part about “What the heck are we going to eat?” Rather comicaly, all of this started with the King Corn documentary, and planning to avoid so much corn in our diets. The research had snowballed into then eating organic, which snowballed into researching the livestock industry and caused us to rule out meat, dairy and eggs all toghether! This was quite the leap in lifestyle changes, and yet the goal was the same - we wanted to put good stuff into our bodies - only now, we knew we could save animals, people and the earth by doing so!
Surely grocery shopping would cost at least twice as much because of all of the specialty food, and it would probably take twice as long to actually do the grocery shopping, having to read hundreds of labels. And how would we handle future meals with friends and family?
One of the most memorable things I read after deciding to go vegan was an honest account from a guy who was explaining to future vegans what it was like for him to go vegan. He said that he thought he’d be living on a diet of twigs and broccoli after going vegan. He was pretty concerned that he’d have little to choose from in the grocery store, and food would become boring.
On the contrary, he explained, after a few weeks, he began noticing how varied his diet became now that he was vegan.
8/11
It seemed to him that he had more options now than he did
before. Why? Because suddenly he was forced to consider all of the options available. It was no longer simply: “Chicken or burger for dinner?” Now that he no longer had his staples to eat, he was able to think outside of the box for meal planning.
I must admit, I was a little nervous initially about
giving up “so much” food, and definitely had the martyr mentality. You have to understand, I was an ice cream FANATIC. Growing up, we had ice cream for dessert after lunch every weekend, and all summer. We had “game and ice cream night” every Tuesday night. My mom ate ice cream every night at 9:00 on the dot. In college and all the way up through this vegan decision, I ate a bowl of ice cream at least three or four nights a week. And let’s not get into cheese. I was a cheese freak.
For me, giving up meat was not going to be that big of a deal. Aside from a bit of meat on my salad or sandwich, I was never a big fan of the stuff. The idea of eating something that used to be thinking thoughts and feeling emotions just seemed a little off to me.
But my ice cream! My cheese! Yep, I was going to be a martyr, and give up life’s delights for the sake of the animals.
Guess what? After about three weeks, the thought of ice cream grossed me out. All I could think of was those giant protein molecules in dairy products. Here’s a fact for you: Americans consume more milk per capita than any other nation in the world. Yet, we have the highest instance of osteoporosis of any nation in the world.
Wait. Doesn’t the dairy industry tell us to drink milk every day for strong bones?
9/11
What happens is this: since the human body was not designed to metabolize protein molecules this large, the only way our bodies can break down the milk is to pull calcium from our bones to aid in the metabolic process. Yep, drinking milk leeches calcium from your bones.
In all, it took about a month for our bodies to adjust to our new diets. It felt similar to a detox process. Even formerly carnivorous David is grossed out by meat now. He also found an unexpected benefit of being vegan, at least for him - he can now eat as much as he wants and not gain weight! Being female, and half his size, I can’t brag about being able to do the same, however I can say from a woman’s perspective that it’s much easier to maintain weight now, rather than seeing the scale up five pounds or down three pounds constantly.
All vegans get asked the same questions, at least several times a week: What do you eat? How do you get your protein? Isn’t grocery shopping difficult and expensive? You can’t really eat at restaurants now, can you?
Let me answer these questions. First, we eat anything that does not come from an animal. There are thousands of varieties of fruits, vegetables, beans and grains. We eat plants. Most people think of leaves when they think of plants. Rice, sugar cane, red beans, star fruit, dark chocolate, tempeh - all of this stuff comes from plants. If you saw what David and I eat for dinner most nights, you’d think we were pigs. A typical meal consists of bread with olive oil and balsamic vinegar, hummus with pita chips, baked tempeh or tofu, Thai green beans, and broiled asparagus. For dessert - vegan chocolate chip cookies and a couple varieties of fruit. We honestly can eat as much food as we want, because vegan food is so nutritious - even the fats are the “good” fats.
10/11
Protein. This is, by far, the most frustrating question to us, because, we actually eat more protein-rich foods now that we’re vegan than we did before. A serving of tempeh, for example, contains about 40% of your daily value of protein. Beans contain about 30%. The thing is, once you go vegan - and if you do it responsibly – I promise you'll become so conscious of what you’re putting into your body, you’ll naturally make extra efforts toensure a balanced diet.
Grocery shoppingtook us about three or four weeks to adjust to. Our first trip did take about twice as long as usual, but I would say after about a month, it took just as long as it did when we weren’t vegan, and now, it’s actually a shorter trip. We had to adjust to reading labels in the beginning, but now it’s the same grocery shopping for us as it is for anyone else – we know what products we like, and we go buy them. As for the new cost? Believe it or not, we are spending less now on groceries now than we were before, and we believe it’s because we’re not buying nearly as much junk food. We’ve found eating vegan to be more satisfying, likely because the nutritional value in the food we eat is much more dense. Even vegan junk food is relatively healthy.
And eating out. We definitely don’t have as many options as we did before, but we also don’t really miss the places we used to eat. We’ve found that a good number of restaurants out there are vegan-friendly, meaning they will happily customize your order if you request no dairy, eggs or meat. And when we have meals with friends or family, we simply bring our own dish.
I hope I’ve made vegan eating less mysterious. It’s really a simple thing - we eat anything that doesn’t come from an animal. You couldn't pay me not to be vegan at this point. I feel more energetic, lighter - and good, knowing that each time I eat a meal, I'm helping save a life.
11/11
wings are for flying,
not for frying!
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