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“I need my protein.”
“I could never give up meat.”
“Bacon tastes too good.”
A few of the things you hear from people that are still eating meat or used to, including myself. When I first turned vegetarian almost two years ago, I was always asked *why?* My response at the time was " I don't like the way animals are treated inhumanely." Over the course of nine months I said I would only convert back to eating meat if it was ethically raised and organic. Constantly being told by my personal trainer that I needed protein and should eat meat, along with the deep cravings and dreams of meat I was continuously experiencing on a night-time (nightmare) loop, I caved. I dug my fork right back into a cows thigh, and at the time it didn’t at all bother me because I thought the animals I was now eating again, had a good life and were treated well. You know? "Free run" "Happy farm" "Organic Bred!" After three months of reverting back to my old lifestyle I watched the documentary Cowspiracy... which I highly recommend watching to anyone who lives under a rock and hasn't yet. This documentary changed my life and I know it could change yours too. If you really listen to what it's saying and showing you.
As someone who deeply cares for the environment, I was repulsed to know that grass fed, free range, “happy” cows, pigs, chickens, etc. actually had a worse effect on our earth than an ungodly factory farm. Here I was for the last three months thinking I was doing a good thing for myself, by getting back to eating "proteins" such as meat, without understanding at all the implications my eat meating was having on the Earth and it's environment.
After that night (of watching the Doc) I went back to vegetarian with the intention of eventually going vegan. Buying milk, cheese, eggs and other animal by-products made me feel guilty and contemplate whether I should purchase it or not. Knowing that cows are raped so they can produce milk along with their own babies being stolen away was wrong. Every time I chose to drink milk or eat something that contained it I was denying a baby their own right to drink milk from their mother. After a couple of slip ups I went fully vegan and haven’t craved meat since. Seriously people. I honestly do not crave meat, feel I need it, or that anyone does. The reasons I chose to live this lifestyle now are so much greater and for me now that I understand why and what is going on in the produce and product world. I have so much to learn, but now I can't help and think about how odd it is that as humans we don't request or demand the right to know exactly what and how our food is being made.
I needed to eat meat again to form stronger reasons and beliefs for being a vegan. When asked now why I’m vegan I have so many reasons to the point of not knowing how to respond. I’m vegan for the animals, because I believe we are all equal and I can eat a diet where another life does not need to be taken. I’m vegan because I believe in energy and that the suffering and death the animals experience still remain in the meat we eat. I’m vegan because of water, it takes far much less water to grow delicious vegetables and fruits than it does to raise an animal. I’m vegan because the food that we feed “livestock” (I hate that word) could have fed someone that is starving. I’m vegan because we are destroying majestic rain forests to raise cattle. I’m vegan because of my health and the health of others. I’m vegan because of our planet and the fact that every time we eat animals, I feel the pain of not only the animals but the earth as well. Change is hard especially when you’ve been doing something for 20 years of your life...but for me, being selfish and putting myself before others is harder. We are all on our own journey and that’s something I’ve grown to understand. I would never want someone to go vegan because I told them to, but rather because they truly believe it is the right thing to do. So in the meantime I will provide guidance and wait patiently for us all to see animals as a partner to humans. Inhabiting Earth together, in one beautiful life.
