"I could never be a vegetarian". I've said these words repeatedly over the years and yet here I am now, not just a vegetarian, but a happy vegan. People think that I'm crazy for the most part or that I just haven't thought this through. They ask me about my nutrition, "Where do you get your protein?" Or "What DO you eat?" I smile, because I get those questions nearly every day. And comments like, "I could NEVER give up cheese" or "Don't you think you're being a little extreme?" pretty regularly too. It's okay. I get it. As I said, that was me just 8 months ago. I didn't go vegan overnight though. I had a journey like most vegans do. Here is how I became a 40 year old vegan.
I saw a post on a friends facebook page about a movie called Food Inc. He liked it and since I value his opinions and respect his intellect, I went to add it to my Netflix queue and noticed that it was available for instant viewing. It's a movie by Michael Pollan that exposes America's industrialized food system and the effect it has on our environment, our health and the economy. While watching the movie I was quite taken aback by how ignorant I had become about how the food in our bright and shiny grocery stores actually comes to find itself on those shelves. I suppose the "ignorance is bliss" attitude was at the root of it. But I also think that growing up on a farm where we raised most of our own food had sort of tattood this rosy world view of farming on my consciousness. The image in most peoples minds of the aged and weathered farmer, working and respecting the land, tending to the animals and doing chores was the reality of my upbringing. So to see how factory farms actually work was a cold slap in the face.
When my children were young, my ex-husband and I lived in small town Nebraska. During that time, he worked on a cattle ranch that boasted a herd of 500 head of Black Angus. "Corn fed beef" is the mantra there and it helps keep Angus at the top of the list for flavor and juiciness. What I learned while watching the movie scared me to death. There is apparently an enzyme in the first stomach of a cow that naturally kills E.coli bacteria. But it is only activated by a magic ingredient...grass. So the fact that at a very young age, cattle are shipped off to factory farms for "finishing" really rattled me. That's where the "corn fed" part comes into play. Cattle there are put on a nearly 100% corn diet. Without grass in their diet they are now exposed to E.coli on a regular basis, as they are cooped up in deplorable conditions standing elbow deep in their own waste. Some USDA reports show that some 80% of all ground beef could be contaminated with E.coli. Yikes! That alone was enough to keep me off "corn fed" beef for life. But to add insult to injury...bring on that corn diet.
It's the equivalent of feeding Twinkies to toddlers 24/7. Yeah, your kids will LOVE them and gobble them up. They will also become grossly obese, have major health problems and get really sick in a short amount of time. The answer? Antibiotics. 20 million pounds annually!! 70% of all antibiotics produced in the US every year are used in factory farms to keep the animals alive. You know the old saying...You are what you eat? Yeah, well I don't think having all those antibiotics in our food is good for us as a nation. And I certainly don't want it in MY body. Well another big problem with that corn fed diet? Antibiotics only work so long before the damage to the cow is too severe to treat. The answer? Slaughter. The life span of a cow is estimated at 25 years. I say "estimated" because the average age of a cow at slaughter is 3. Most cattle in the US don't make it to their 10th birthday.
The whole thing disgusted me. I could go on and on about everything that I learned while watching that documentary but in the interest of time suffice it to say that it went against everything that I thought was wholesome and good about farming. So I started out by vowing to be more conscious about where I bought my groceries from. Local farms, local producers and naturally raised products became the staples in our house. And I swore off supporting factory farms whenever I could. But I still didn't quite make the vegan connection.
I had heard of a movie called Earthlings and finally got the nerve to watch it online. It too was directed at factory farming but it's main focus was the welfare of the animals. We don't like to think of our food as "faces with feelings", but after watching this documentary it was impossible to pretend that the animals involved in our food supply didn't suffer horribly. I cannot express the emotions I felt watching this movie. I sobbed uncontrollably for hours. Not just during the film but long after it was over. The closest thing I could relate it to was bearing witness to a holocaust. I've angered many people by making that comparison. But the similarities, to me, were profound. Our feeling of superiority over animals is no different to me now than any other form of discrimination. No other species on the planet enslaves another in servitude except humans. Animals are capable of protesting their confinement, showing distress in their living conditions and expressing emotions of happiness, pain and even bereavement. They nurture their young, choose mates, and live in families and communities but we still choose to enslave them and torture them because we like the way they taste. So, in that way...I made the connection. I get it.
The rest was cemented with nutritional information. I read a lot. I asked a lot of questions. I educated myself. So now when I get that protein question, I can say, "duh...the same place cows do. A varied diet of plants including grains, fruits, and vegetables". Besides, "protein" is pretty over rated in the Standard American Diet (or SAD diet, as it's called). Protein deficiency is virtually unheard of in the US. "Kwashiorkor". Thats the medical term for it. No one I know has ever heard the word or knows how to pronounce it. The only reported cases of it are extremely malnourished children and people with severe eating disorders. So, I never concern myself with how much protein to get. I eat lots of whole grains and lots of green vegetables. And I take 2 vitamins. Vitamin D, because I get very little exposure to natural sunlight up here in the Pacific Northwest, and B12.
It helped a lot that my Grandmother got sick with Diabetes as I was researching this. She has suffered from heart disease, high blood pressure, stroke and now this? I looked at my family and thought, "I never want to have these things happen to me". How does one develop diabetes at 85? How do you treat it? Those were the questions I was asking her doctors. They all had the same answer to both questions. Diet. Cancer, heart disease, and diabetes can all be prevented, treated and reversed by diet. And there are multiple studies to prove that eating a plant based diet will reduce the chances of getting one of those ailments by 85%!! And so, that did it. No more animal proteins. I gave up meat, eggs and cheese, and I gave up butter, which had been my favorite thing my entire life. I'm now a vegan. And I'm happy that I'm doing the best thing for my body, the best thing for my environment and the best thing for my spirit too.
