I was a junior in high school when I decided to become vegan. I know, vegans have a bad rap. They are 'crazy animal lovers', hippies, crunchy granola-types, in-your-face, pushy, only talk about being vegan, etc. But I’m somehow ashamed to say that I’m not like that.

I do love animals, a lot. In fact, I’ve rescued more animals that I can count and my dream is to have rescuing animals be a life-long hobby of mine. But the real, honest reason I became vegan was to try to lose weight. That was kept a secret until recently, though. I didn’t lose weight from being vegan, in fact I actually gained quite a bit of weight - despite my excessive running, from under-eating protein, and overeating fat carbs. However, going vegan taught me a lot about meat, my body, and the world around me.

Following a vegan diet means that you don’t consume any animal meat or animal products, including dairy, eggs, or even bone marrow (which is used in gelatin to make gummy bears and the like). I had never read a food label in my entire life until I became a vegan, and at a very young age, this was the most groundbreaking part for me. Reading nutrition labels taught me what calories are. Vegetables are never a problem, peanut butter has a lot more fat than protein…whoops. There are a lot of ingredients in my favorite foods that I can’t understand, and you can make brownies out of black beans and chocolate chip cookies out of chick peas.

Reading nutrition labels made me aware of what I was putting in my body, and although that doesn’t mean I was eating a balanced diet – because a spoon full of peanut butter for lunch and entire bag of frozen broccoli for dinner is not the way to go – I became aware of what food is and was no longer blindly feeding my hungry self whatever was in front of me.

It also wasn’t until I became vegan that I started to take note of how my body reacts to certain foods. I would get extreme stomach aches almost weekly and used my new found love for checking food labels to try and slowly eliminate ingredients to see which one was causing my discomfort. I also became determined to eliminate whatever it was in my diet that was causing my breakouts rather than relying solely on medications and topical creams.

Spoiler alert – my veganism only lasted 6 months before I dove into a salad full of hard boiled eggs and shrimp, and I wouldn’t recommend anyone to eat a vegan diet simply because I don’t think it is the most balanced way of eating. However, it taught me to continually make a conscious effort to keep my environmental footprint as small as possible. I do enjoy a double cheeseburger from Danny’s Drive In in Stratford almost every month, but I now only opt for meats and eggs that were grass-fed, free-range, etc.

Although most people (including myself) would argue that the impact of eating “organic/cage-free/grass-fed/whatever” is so minimal that it is meaningless, it is better than blindly eating meat and animal products that support inhumane animal farming. Especially for those who have absolutely no interest in ever going vegetarian or vegan, this alternative is MUCH better than putting in no effort at all. If the number of sales in “organic/cage-free/grass-fed/whatever” animal products grows, more farms will continue to raise and sell this kind of meat, and (hopefully) one day it will be the only option.

This would result in not only happier animals and human bodies, but a possible decrease in methane gas release from cows, which destroys our ozone layer, as well as a decrease in water waste from meat production, transportation, and packaging.

Now, I no longer feel blind to what I am eating. I understand that both an animal and the environment suffered so I can eat my monthly burger and that (although completely micronutrient friendly), eating a bag of broccoli is not the true picture of “health”. I understand that a breakout and a recent pizza night are not completely unrelated. And most importantly, I no longer feel better than those around me who are unaware of all of this information I gained from 6 months of following a vegan diet. I don’t judge at my friends who indulge in a pint of ice cream or still go to McDonalds. Now, I choose to educate.

I do my part to help the animals suffer a little less, my body function a little more properly, and the earth to be around much longer than we are. I can’t do that alone though, and I understand that now. So no, I don’t encourage you to go vegan like I did, and I don’t encourage you to read every nutrition label you touch or shop only at Whole Foods, but I do encourage you to become a little more mindful of what you eat, how your body reacts, and how your seemingly nominal daily actions affect the world around you. You’d be surprised.