Sunday, August 26, 2007
How I Became Vegan
This is the story of how it all began.
The first seed of interest in vegetarianism was planted way back when I was in fourth grade, during a sleepover at my friend's house. I can't remember how the subject came up in the first place, maybe someone just mentioned how gross it was that meat came from animals, but I declared that night that I wanted to become vegetarian. However, the lure of bacon and sausage for breakfast in the morning was just too strong, and that aspiration quickly fell by the wayside. The seed was still there, but was buried by many practical concerns--what would I eat? How could I give up bacon? Although my mother was health-conscious and we ate healthy foods at home, meat was an important component of nearly every meal. It would have been too difficult for my fourth-grade self to become vegetarian, so I quickly fell back into my regular habits.
By the end of high school, I was a proud meat-eater. I looked forward to my family's nearly-weekly meal of steak, mashed potatoes and gravy; ordered big juicy hamburgers at lunch; and looked forward to the local rib cook-off each year. I secretly scoffed at people who would order "just a salad" for dinner. I prided myself on being different from the picky eaters and dieters of the world, and celebrated my love of meat.
So, what happened? In short, Seattle. Right before we graduated from high school, BB and I started dating, and the winter afterward we decided to take a trip together to the Northwest since a lot of his family lived in Washington State. So we left our hometown of Reno, NV and spent a wonderful week visiting Seattle and the Olympic Peninsula. It was no doubt a different environment altogether from what I had known in Reno, and I loved everything about it, even the rain. And a curious thing happened--all of our hosts asked us if we were vegetarian, so as to determine the appropriate food to serve. These casual remarks reawakened my interest in vegetarianism and got me thinking about it once more. I found myself ordering pesto pasta in restaurants instead of meat entrees. BB, who had also tried unsuccessfully to become vegetarian back in high school (but found that subsisting on bagels and french fries didn't leave him very satisfied), was also intrigued. But alas, we were heading back to Reno, where such tolerance and awareness of vegetarians largely did not exist. Then, at SeaTac airport on the way to our gate, BB was approached by two Hare Krishna monks, who talked to him about their religion and gave him a cookbook called "The Higher Taste," in exchange for a small donation. Not having anything else to read, he started looking at the book during the plane ride. It had a large introductory section about vegetarianism, and as he read, he started to think it all made a lot of sense. At one point, he turned to me and said, "I think I'd like to try being vegetarian." I sighed, quite reluctant, especially due to some of the dubious claims that the book made, and the fact that the Hare Krishnas were the ones who finally got us to convert. "Alright," I said. "I will too, but I'll just try it for a week and see how it goes." At home that night, I ate my last non-veggie meal, a bowl of homemade chicken soup, and then declared my vegetarianism the following morning.
Weeks later, we were both still vegetarian, and were enjoying the newfound possibilities that had opened up to us. We had to reach out of our limited culinary horizons to the cuisines of other countries, and learn how to cook for ourselves. This worked out great for a few months, and then BB told me that he wanted to become vegan, giving up animal products altogether. He had been reading a lot about the philosophy of vegetarianism, and thought that being vegan was what he really wanted to do. Easy for him to say, I thought; he had always been sensitive to milk--it seemed to trigger his allergies and irritate his throat--so he didn't drink much milk anyway. However, it was much harder for me to think about giving up my precious milk and cheese (though eggs were easier for me). I resisted for a while, but then my research started to convince me too, and I was able to gradually phase dairy products out of my diet. BB found that after he cut out the dairy altogether, he felt so much better, and didn't suffer from the allergies that used to plague him every spring. As for me, I felt good about my choices, but didn't notice such a dramatic change in my health. Still, I enjoyed being vegan, and it became even easier after we moved to Seattle and discovered so many excellent restaurants and resources for good food. I even eventually lost my taste for cheese, and now the smell of cheese or butter makes me feel queasy. So strange, but I suppose my taste preferences have adapted over time. Now, seven years later, we are both still happy vegans.
So, that's the how, but what about the why? My personal philosophy for why I am vegetarian has changed somewhat over time, as I become more informed on the issues. I should note that, despite our somewhat mystical-seeming circumstances of "conversion," I am definitely a scientist at heart, and like to see the unbiased scientific evidence on the issues. For example, I remain somewhat unconvinced on some of the health claims related to vegetarian diets being a cure-all for a variety of diseases. Disease processes are complex and depend on many factors, and while there is good evidence for vegetarian diets being able to reduce risk for some diseases, it isn't a magic bullet by any means. I am convinced, however, after three years in grad school studying nutrition, that a well-balanced vegan diet is nutritionally adequate and can be followed throughout the lifespan (yes, including pregnancy, lactation, infancy, and childhood) with no adverse effects; to the contrary, they can be quite beneficial by allowing exposure to many healthy foods (like fruits and vegetables) and decreasing the risk of obesity (a major public health problem these days). By the way, it isn't just my own personal research that leads to this conclusion; it is also the position of the American Dietetic Association.
But my major reasons for choosing not to use animal products are much more common-sense. The simple truth is that it takes a huge amount of natural resources to produce animal products--energy, water, fertilizer, pesticides--and that eating lower on the food chain is much more energy-efficient. Meat production is one of the main contributors to CO2 production, contributing to climate change. Furthermore, the current systems that exist for producing meat (largely factory farms) are extremely wasteful and unnecessarily cruel. Eating less meat is another way to contribute to positive environmental change (although this unfortunately goes ignored by many environmentalists).
I personally do not believe that eating animals is inherently wrong. Indeed, the human race would not have survived long as a species without it. I do believe, however, that animals have the right to be treated humanely while they are alive, which is sadly not the case in modern factory farms, where the animals are forced to live in miserable conditions. This doesn't just go for animals destined to become meat, but also for dairy cows and egg-laying hens. I decided long ago that the line that vegetarians draw between animal flesh and other animal parts was somewhat arbitrary, since purchasing eggs and dairy products also supports the meat and veal industries. I couldn't ignore that connection, a main reason I decided to become vegan.
But, can one person really make a difference? Is it just a drop in the bucket, since Americans eat so much meat? I firmly believe in the adage that "if you're not part of the solution, you're part of the problem," and that voting with our dollars is one of the more powerful tools that we have to bring about change in our capitalist society. Some have chosen to purchase only free-range, humanely raised meats in order to be part of the solution against factory farms. While I respect this position, it was not an option for me (as it isn't for many, since this meat can be hard to find and is more expensive than factory-farmed meat) back in Reno, and now that I have been meat-free for so long, the idea of eating animal flesh is disgusting and deeply disturbing. With the rise in "big organics," it is also less likely that you can be sure of the true conditions that the animals are living in unless you go to visit the farms yourself. Even then, it still produces much of the same strain on the environment. Because of these considerations, I have decided that being vegan is the way to go, at least for me. Of course, this was a very personal decision, but even decreasing meat consumption a little bit can make big differences, and my hope is that as more people learn about the consequences of their dietary choices, we can slowly change food culture in America to be more sustainable and humane.