There are many possible reasons for why people turned vegan, whether it was dietary reasons, animal right reasons, or even environmental reasons. I, myself, decided to turn vegan for all three of those reasons just about a little over a month ago.
In the beginning of January this year, I made the decision to cut out all dairy products out of my diet for health reasons. Growing up, I've always felt a bit weird when I drank a glass of milk or eating a slice of cake but I didn't think anything of it because I thought it was normal for my stomach to feel "heavy."
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I've done my research and discovered that about 90% of Asians are somewhat lactose intolerant. Now I'm not saying that if I decide to eat a cookie one day, then I'm going to go straight to the hospital. It just means that we can't digest dairy products as well as other races and our body reacts weirdly to it. I decided to test out if I was somewhat intolerant to dairy products and three days into my trial, I've noticed that I felt a lot cleaner, awake, and my skin felt and looked a lot better.
Then about 6 weeks ago, I decided to cut out meat as well. I didn't struggle with this transition as much as I did with no dairy since I basically only ate chicken when it came to meat. Ever since I cut out meat, my body feels a lot more cleaner and I feel better both mentally and physically.
Although, I turned to the vegan diet for health reasons, I also transformed my diet for animal rights. Growing up, I've always been a huge animal lover and looking back at it, I wish I turned vegan a lot earlier than just a month ago. I've always felt somewhat guilty in the back of my mind when I would eat chicken tenders or cake because I knew that an animal had to suffer for me to eat what's on my plate. I could go more in depth but I'm pretty sure you understand the broad idea of the animal rights portion for why vegans turned vegan.
I know that me becoming vegan won't change the meat or dairy industry instantly since I'm just one less consumer, but I feel a lot better consciously knowing that my meals hasn't put an animal through torturous practices.
So what do I eat? A lot of things. Ever since I became vegan, I've noticed that I've been consuming a lot more vegetables, fruits, beans, rice and most importantly, tofu. Tofu is a blessing.
Now I'm not writing this to try and convert you to becoming vegan, but to hopefully educate you on why I made the decision and to hopefully make you more aware of what you eat. You don't have to completely cut out every dairy or meat product in every meal but instead, consume less of those products in your meals. It doesn't hurt to try.
