Why I Went Vegan

I've always felt in my heart that all living creatures are equal and should be treated with courtesy and respect. Unfortunately, it's taken me 30-plus years to really get it.

My first hands-on experience with animal cruelty goes way back to the mid-70's when, as a little girl, my dad and I were fishing beside a pond in rural Nebraska. It was just the two of us on the edge of the lake that morning. Little did I know that Dad was going to show me how to bait my hook. Whoa! Say what? You mean I have to impale this poor worm several times to get it to stay on the hook? No way. I went ape-shit. Crying. Panic. Hysteria. Dad was irritated and probably wishing my brother was with him instead of me. The serenity of the morning was lost and Dad eventually caved and baited the hooks for me. So, after catching my dad in the back several times while attempting to cast a line, I finally settled down and began to fish. You can image how the rest of the morning went. Fish getting caught and me feeling miserable. And so begins a lifetime of hearing how animals "don't feel pain", "are raised for food", "are put on the earth for humans". The list goes on and I pretended to believe it for a long, long time.

A few years later, some friends of our family invited us out to their big 4-H event in Iowa. We got to meet their son, Troy's, "project" calf, Jessie. Troy was to raise Jessie for a grade, and I, being naive, thought Jessie was to become a part of the family at the end of the project. They did live on several acres in Iowa, so why not have a pet cow? Sadly, about a year later I learned that Jessie was slaughtered. I still, to this day, don't know how Troy could nurture his calf then oversee his death.

That's when I started to question why I was eating meat. I would inspect my food and started to notice things like veins in the steaks I was about to eat. Several times I went completely mental at the dinner table. More crying. More freaking out. And more of my family telling me to get over it. And so I learned to get over it and spent years ignoring what I knew in my heart ... that animals have their own lives and we don't have the right to take away their existence.

I ate everything. Meat, cheese, fish, dairy. Probably even some foie gras or veal here and there. I was completely callused to the whole situation from years of brain-washing, and I had tricked myself into believing that the production of meat and dairy is a painless process for animals. It wasn't until one Saturday night in late 2007, when my husband and I sat down to watch television. We didn't know what was showing, but we had a plate of cheese and salami and we were ready to settle in a watch something great. HBO was about to start "I Am An Animal". Being a documentary lover, I said "let's watch THAT!" About half way through the movie, I put down my food and tearily decided never to eat meat again. I was a lacto/ovo vegetarian for exactly 7 days, until the next Saturday when I decided to investigate the production of dairy. I was surfing the net and stumbled upon "Meet Your Meat", the 12-minute video that changed my habits forever. By the end of that video, I had decided to never purchase another animal product again. I was terrified. I thought "What will this new life be like? I am now one of those "vegans" and they seem so ... odd." I looked around my house and began to feel very embarrassed of my gluttonous behavior. Down blankets. Wool sweaters. Leather shoes. Remnants of living creatures were everywhere. I was surrounded by death and all of it my own doing.

It didn't take long to learn to be vegan. I love it. I can't image a better way to live. Previous stomach problems are gone. I don't have the old guilty feelings I had when eating artery-clogging foods. Dishes are much easier to wash. And best of all ... I know nobody has to suffer so that I can "indulge" unnecessarily.

It took some time, but learned to accept my past life and the reminders I collected along the way. Instead of throwing away the blankets and sweaters, I decided I use them, treat them well and mend when needed. Leather shoes get polished and repaired. Simply discarding these items because I finally learned of the suffering involved in making them would seem to me like adding insult to injury. They are, after all, the last animal goods I will ever buy and I want to honor the unknown friends who gave them to me.