Its that time again. The third edition of the Carnival of Empty Cages is coming and i, of course, am writing a last-minute submission. I’ve procrastinated, i’m tired, and i have a very long day ahead of me tomorrow, so i’m gonna keep this relatively short and stick to the questions asked by this edition’s hosts.
1. The story of when and how people became a vegan.
I first went vegan nine years ago as a senior in high school. I had just moved to a new city, a big city, after spending the first 17 years of my life in rural, southcentral Indiana. I didn’t know any vegetarians, and i had never heard the word vegan. But it wasn’t uncharacteristic of me to quickly befriend a few vegetarians (it seemed a prerequisite of my new school’s environmental club, and i had been a budding environmentalist since i was a young child). Two of them quickly became my best friends. Within a few weeks of meeting them, i had already gone vegetarian (i remember the last dead animal i ate came from a drive-thru. I took a couple of bites and realized i just couldn’t do it any more - i now saw the face that was once on my meal). A couple of months after meeting the two new best friends, B mentioned going vegan while we were eating lunch. Without hesitation i said that i, too, was going vegan. At first, i said i was going to cut things out one-by-one, starting with milk. But once you are hit with compassion and empathy, its hard to justify eating animal products. So within a couple of months, i was a full-fledged, label-reading, Animal Ingredients A-Z owning, vegan. Nine years later and i’ve never once looked back.
2. The evolution of people’s reasons for staying a veg*n.
I became vegan for ethical reasons. I’m still vegan for ethical reasons. But those ethics have expanded. Instead of looking just at it in terms of compassion towards non-humyn animals, i am now also well-versed in the environmental-friendliness of a conscious vegan diet. I also look at it in terms of stopping the horrible working conditions inside the slaughterhouses. As well as using the grain fed to “farm” animals to feed humyns, instead. At my root, i am an animal liberationist. But now i see how all liberation is connected.
3. The most frustrating aspects of being a vegan.
I must say there are fewer and fewer these days. When i first went vegan, nobody knew what a vegan was. Everyone assumed i was either starving myself to death or just crazy. But now there are vegans everywhere! And we not only see more and more vegan and vegetarian restaurants, we are now seeing RAW vegan restaurants. The frustrating part is how expensive those restaurants can be, but i prefer to do my cooking at home anyway. Back in the day, the most frustrating thing was all the same questions being asked over-and-over again. Now, the most frustrating part is being baited as a terrorist because i don’t think animals should be tortured in labs.
4. The most rewarding aspects of being a vegan.
In high school i had a really bad temper. I mean really bad. I was picked on in school, so i took it out on people while playing sports. One things that living compassionately and learning to look at other living beings with empathy has done for me is to create a lot more inner-peace. I still get angry (considering all the injustices in the world, of course i do). But i never lose my temper any more. I know there are many factors in that equation, but i know that the new outlook that veganism provided me helped drastically in my shift as a humyn being.
Other than that, the most rewarding aspect has been the great love of food that i now have. I have yet to meet a vegan that doesn’t LOVE food. I don’t know if its because we digest our food a little faster (which isn’t really true for the vegans eating lots of wheat gluten) or because we quickly learn how to make our own great-tasting food or what. But for some reason vegans seem to have a great appreciation for the basic element of life: food. I not only love cooking and eating, i really love being around vegans and food. Seriously, there is nothing like a kitchen full of vegans cooking up a great meal or a room full of vegans at a potluck (not so great is being the only vegan at a potluck, tho). So another rewarding aspect, for me, is the appreciation of food - growing it, cooking it, eating it, and sharing it.
5. Whether or not people make much of an effort to “convert” others to veganism and what people think of this as a concept.
Depends on what you mean. I’ve never been a super-zealous vegan and i’d say i’m even less so today. But that doesn’t mean i don’t educate people. Of course i do. Funny thing is that i’m rarely the one to start the conversation. Ok, maybe fifty-fifty. Seems like most of the time its people asking me why i’m vegan or “what’s wrong with eggs” or other such questions. I don’t judge people for eating animal products. I did so for the majority of my life to date. Its the culture that engulfs us. But i will always use such an opportunity to talk honestly about why i am vegan or why i don’t eat eggs. Much of the time, if you aren’t just trying to show someone how fucked up and wrong they are, people will respond pretty positively. And, of course, there are the times (like in the comments section of the ‘make yer own damn soymilk’ post on this blog) where i will see an opportune time to insert a nasty little tidbit about non-vegan foods and products. For example, did you know that Iams forces oil down the throats of dogs and then makes them run on treadmills. Then they cut off a large chunk of the dog’s thigh, while its still alive without using anesthesia, to see what kind of effect this all had on the muscle. The dog is then thrown on a cold steel floor with other dogs who underwent the same torture. They give up and just lie there in pain, awaiting death. Sad, huh? That’s why i boycott Iams Dog and Cat food.
I also hand out literature from time-to-time in front of grocery stores. I think its important to counter the silence of the dominant culture. It is that silence that allows the torture of animals. It is the same silence that allows the continuation of domestic violence, rape, environmental destruction, war, poverty, and all the other horrible effects of an unjust culture. I’m not one to use the term “convert”, but i’m all for folks who educate and break the silence.
