Intertwined with (and starting long before) my journey of discovering my core values (explained in: Exploring the Value Within), was the journey of discovering how what was on my plate affected my body and my soul, and how I became sure that a vegan diet and lifestyle is the right choice for me. Like anyone, I’ve been down some winding roads to get to this place. Some, you may relate to and of course some will be unique to me. What matters is that we are all here together and spread our message of healing to both the ones we love and those we have never met. At the very least, my hope is that you learn something new about me and about yourself. If you’re vegan, or want to be more plant-based, know that you are not alone and you have community!
I love to see a new perspective, but it’s not always easy or quick to shift into it. A mix of intentional exposure and unexpected experiences shape the way we view our world. Our world: the shared system of our planet that belongs to all of us who live here, who are born to carry out a specific purpose. We are lucky to have free will, learn new information and meet new people who help us learn what that means for us. Through both pleasant and unpleasant events, it becomes more and more clear; we become more clear. To me, in a very simplified expression, our purpose is to take care of each other and evolve back to our compassionate nature. It feels safe to say that what stifles that nature is need, greed, fear, and a distorted sense of self. We need to meet our needs while helping others reach theirs. Work through what makes us feel yucky so we can feel great, and help others do the same if they want that for themselves. (Honestly though, who wouldn’t want to feel great?)
I don’t remember much before fourth grade(’03-‘04) as it relates to my food journey. It was around then I started noticing a discomfort around eating certain animals. Pork chops were always hard for me to enjoy, way too tough and dry, and any pieces of meat on bones that had veins running through them, gristle, or large chunks of fat grossed me out beyond belief. I didn’t like many kinds of fish and went through periods of time I didn’t enjoy eggs due to the texture and the weird white squiggly thing attached to the yolk (a chalazae, anchoring the yolk to the egg white).
I think it was around the time our fish passed away that things really started to change for me. My dad won him from the fair as a prize for my sister, and I was so sad when he died. We buried him in the backyard, in a small paper jewelry box with his favorite fish food and some tissue paper. My perspective started to shift. I couldn’t help but think about the fish and other animals on my plate in a different way. I was grossed out by a lot of different things and meat quickly became one of them. I started to see them as moving and breathing creatures, even when they were dead and moving around in my mouth as I chewed them. By fourth grade, I felt like I had no choice and became a vegetarian (lacto-ovo, meaning I ate dairy and eggs), not wanting to eat anything with a face. My parents were supportive and would make a portion of each meal for me without the meat. After a little over a year, I was feeling left out, misunderstood, and limited in social settings. One day at lunch, I was tempted by my friend’s chicken nuggets, and started eating chicken and fish again. That evolved into deciding I was pescatarian (lacto-ovo, still), not wanting to eat anything with four legs, and slowly creeping back out to only eating dairy and eggs.
Being a vegetarian felt like a phobic trap. I felt irrationally afraid of consuming animals, disgusted beyond my comfort levels, and of course still felt alone and misunderstood. The foods I “couldn’t have” looked and smelled so delicious, and the teasing didn’t help! But if this was who I was meant to be, why did it feel so bad (aside from the occasional holiday dinner at someone else’s house where all I could eat was carrots and rolls cause there was bacon in all the veggies and side dishes)? I knew I didn’t want to feel this way anymore but wasn’t sure how to change it. By 2013, I decided it was time to seek outside help and chose a neuro-linguistic programming practitioner (hypnotherapy). I researched to learn that this approach helps people lose weight, quit smoking, eliminate phobias, and more, but only if a person really wants to change. I signed up for five sessions, which included a variety of visualization practices in a meditative state, asking me to reflect on how I felt and how I wanted to feel around eating meat. I wanted freedom from my worries, to be able to choose what I ate without being disgusted, to feel ok, included, and not limited. By the second session, I shed enough of my fears to eat a piece of pizza with the pepperoni picked off it, which I would not have done before if something was cooked with it. By the end of the fourth or fifth session I felt like a whole new person, shedding a huge perceived weight off my shoulders.
I was an omnivore for about four years, as my journey of self-discovery and spirituality continued. I moved to eastern Washington for the year of 2017, with my dog and my partner at the time. I was a three-hour drive from my closest friends and family members, which meant I had a lot more time for myself. I spent a lot of time working, hanging out with my dog, going on adventures, exercising regularly, trying new things, exploring my connection to the universe, and learning more about other things I was interested in.
In May of that year, my dog passed away, leaving me feeling lost and alone. The next week, I was having lunch with some friends at an authentic Italian restaurant and asked one of them if it was weird that I felt conflicted to order the pasta lardons(pig cubes) because my dog had just died and I was comparing the idea of the meat on my plate to her limp and innocent flesh (of course I would never eat my dog – or any other dog for that matter). I turned off those thoughts and ordered it anyway. It was delicious but my mind and heart were disconnected from my mouth and motor. I started reflecting more on this perspective and decided to dive deeper into spirituality to help mediate the affects of my mourning.
My spiritual journey had started as a child in the Catholic church and evolved into my own personal practice. This year in particular, I decided to take what I was connecting to more seriously. The teachings that rang loudly into my soul were simple: to abstain from killing any being, stealing, sexual misconduct, wrong speech, and intoxicants. The only one that didn’t feel deeply connected to was the intoxicants aspect, as I enjoyed light-to-moderate alcohol and cannabis consumption. I was quite aligned with all the others, and more than happy to match my actions to my beliefs. At the time, it meant I was going to be vegetarian again.
It felt right this time to make a conscious choice not driven by an irrational fear, but by my head and my heart. A little bit of research and I discovered some things I hadn’t previously considered or been exposed to: The meat and dairy industry are the same (along with nearly every other animal-based industry). The dairy cows (females) are sent to slaughter once they no longer produced milk, and the male babies they have that made it so their bodies produce milk for years at a time are of no use to the industry and sent to slaughter for veal. I had no idea, and I was not willing to pretend I didn’t know it now. I used to think dairy was freely given by cows and that they were happy on farms; that they weren’t harmed or killed in the dairy industry. I thought milk was intended for us and necessary to our flourishing health. To discover this wasn’t true was a game changer. Cow’s milk is for cow’s babies, not us. I was hurt and felt betrayed by the marketing of animal agriculture. Aside from animal’s well-being, I also learned the many environmental and health benefits of eating plants exclusively.
It was time to slowly transition away from eating animal products, learning enough information along the way to effectively respond to concerned friends and family members about my health as a vegan. I experimented for a month at a time, cooking mostly whole food plant-based and ordering out only vegan food, using the chronometer app to track my calories, macros, and nutrient levels to make sure I was fully nourished. Then I ate animal products for a weekend to see how I felt. It was like night and day. It was clear by the way my body and heart felt that this was the right choice for me. It was just a matter of time for me to wean myself off dairy and it’s scientifically addictive properties (casomorphins – a morphine-like compound found in breast milk, concentrated in the cheese-making process). I was nearly in full swing by the end of the year, aside from the occasional impulsive pizza purchase. As soon as I moved back to western Washington, I made a point to work at a vegan restaurant or end my baking career. I found a job at a vegan restaurant and the rest is history. Nearly four years since this massive perspective shift and I’m still 100% sure this is the right choice for my life.
The more information that comes about about the benefits of plants and detriments of animal agriculture and the more vegan options are being provided at stores and restaurants, the easier it is to be a well-informed and well-nourished vegan.
I’d love to write more on some of the topics mentioned in this post, so stay tuned and let me know what you’d like me to share next!
What parts of my story do you relate to? What parts do you see differently?
How did you get to your current perspective?
Did you learn anything new?
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