Growing up, my parents always fed me meat and various animal products. I never knew of anyone that was vegetarian, or vegan. Me, along with seemingly everyone else around me ate normal diets without restrictions. I always thought that if someone was a vegetarian it was religiously based, and not a choice. Yet, as I entered my teens, I began to learn that choosing to deter from ingesting animal products was growing in popularity.
A close friend of mine introduced me to veganism first when she told me that she would be going vegan. I was confused at first as to why? Why would she choose to not eat animal products? I thought to myself that she was being ridiculous and would surely quit being vegan sooner or later.
Yet, I was naive and uneducated about veganism and all that it stood for. The more questions I asked, the more my friend opened up to me as to why she went vegan. She began by explaining that she wanted to find a diet that benefited more than just her body. Not only this, but she wanted to find a solution to her inner struggles with crash dieting, and eating disorders. She truly wanted to find a way to stop her unhealthy habits, and explained to me how veganism was helping her do that.
She first opened me up to a community of youtubers that discussed their journey's to veganism, whether motivated by wanting to end their eating disorders, better the environment, or simply live an overall healthier lifestyle. She was able to find a community that bonded over their love of the environment and clean eating. She did her research to ensure she was correctly nourishing her body, and it allowed her to relinquish her guilt when eating. I found a complete change in her persona, and I loved how passionately she felt about bettering herself and the world around her.
I myself also struggled with my own body image issues, and how I ate. I wanted to consistently eat healthy, and not have to worry about how many calories I was intaking. I knew that tracking my calories, over exercising, and obsessing over my body's appearance bottom line wasn't healthy. From my good friend's positive experiences with going vegan, I began to do my own research to decide if this was truly something I'd be interested in trying.
I made a deal with myself, I'd attempt to go vegan for three months. Three months going completely cold turkey with any and all animal products. I learned quite a bit, the first being…
How healthy you feel
Within the first week of eating vegan I felt the healthiest I ever had, I was able to eat when I felt hungry without guilt. For the first time, I felt a sense of freedom from worrying about how much I ate. Instead, my body felt cleansed and rejuvenated from eating plentiful amounts of fruits and vegetables.
How much animal production takes place yearly
An article published by Animal Equality states that, "Over 56 billion animals are killed every year by humans." 56 BILLION! That's eight times more than the human population, and even more shocking, is that I learned a quarter or more of that food is eventually wasted. I never realized how inhumanely animals were slaughtered, only to be wasted at such a high level.
How difficult and expensive it is to find and buy vegan options
The sad downside of veganism in a midwest state, is that it's extremely expensive to lead an animal products free lifestyle. Healthy organic foods aren't sold cheap, and going grocery shopping myself taught me how costly buying mass amounts of produce and dairy/meat free options are. I was also astonished at how few vegan options there truly was in restaurants and normal home cooked meals. It opened up my eyes as to how much production of animal products has to take place in order to meet the demands of worldwide consumers.
Overall, I learned a lot throughout the three months I was vegan. I found that it wasn't a complete fit for me, but can still be implemented into my diet by focusing on eating more plant based versus primarily eating animal products. Going vegan is an awesome movement to follow and try, even if you don't plan on being vegan like myself.
