Disclaimer: I have hesitated to publish this post. I do not want to put anyone on the defensive or come across as combative, but I do want to be honest and not tiptoes around my personal beliefs. Hopefully I struck the right tone here. And if you’re not interested, feel free to skip this post and come back for the next one.
It’s a question that usually comes up, and I understand why people are curious. Being vegan is a starkly alternative choice, especially in the Deep South. I try not to make a big fuss about the fact that I am vegan (I do not want to be the punch line of the joke: “How do you know someone is vegan? Don’t worry they’ll tell you.”). But being vegan is very important to me. I do not eat, wear, or buy animal products and do not knowingly make exceptions.
Texas made me do it
I have been vegan for 12 years. I am raising my children vegan. My reasons are not earthshatteringly different from other vegans’ reasons, but my journey may be somewhat unique. I grew up eating meat and wild game. As a child, I liked animals but never gave them much thought. I grew more health conscious in my high school and college years and learned more about the environmental impacts of our food production, and particularly how animal products created a large carbon footprint. It was then that I decided to consciously reduce my consumption of animal products. If I had to put a label on it, I was a “flexitarian.”
After I married Dan, I moved to Texas for a summer while he was in training. Since I was unemployed, I had lots of time on my hands. A friend introduced me to the world of food blogs—this was 2011 and blogs were hot—and I began experimenting with new recipes. Of course, I was curious why the vegan food bloggers made the decision to go vegan, so I went down a rabbit hole, consuming books, documentaries, and podcasts about animal suffering, factory farming practices, and meat production. As I learned more, I felt increasingly uncomfortable with continuing to eat and consume as I always had. I knew too much.
Then Dan deployed for a year, and I went back to Nashville to finish graduate school by myself. I decided to try being vegan for as long as I could, just to see how it would go. And that was that. Dan came home and I told him I would not cook or buy animal products, but he could, and our joint household essentially became vegan overnight.
Becoming a full-time vegan
Some people become vegetarian first, or they cut out certain kinds of animal products initially, like beef or pork, and then ease their way into cutting out more foods. That was not my process. I became just as disturbed learning about the dairy and egg industry as I did the meat industry, so I never thought to become vegetarian. Nor did a “sometimes” vegan approach feel right to me. Because while I believed that a “sometimes” vegan approach could be a great choice for health and environmental reasons, it did not feel morally consistent with my new views on animals’ place in the world.
I am not a militant vegan (I don’t think). But I do hold some fairly radical views. Do I wish that the world would go vegan? Yes, I do. I would rather not have the veganism conversation be framed in terms of personal choice. I think we are destroying our earth by raising so much livestock. I think it is sad to bring creatures into the world only to kill them. I worry about the low paid factory workers who must slaughter hundreds of animals each day and the toll that takes on their psyche. Land is much more efficiently used to grow plants that human beings eat rather than growing plants that animals eat that humans then eat. We could feed the world much better if everyone became vegan, but we could still feed the world better if everyone would simply eat less meat. Lab-grown meat in fact addresses all of these concerns. I hope lab-grown meat takes off in the coming years for those who want to eat meat, and I hope consumers will buy the product.
I recognize the shades of gray and moral inconsistencies. I do not want to be responsible for taking an animal’s life, but human beings do so indirectly all the time by stealing away habitats. We do kill ants and fruit flies in our house (but we try to relocate other pests when feasible). There are all sorts of intricacies to this conversation, I know, and legitimate questions: What about different cultures’ practices and customs regarding meat consumption? What about the livelihood of farmers and ranchers? What would happen to the farmed animals if everyone became vegan? (This last query is more straightforward: They would die off. Human beings domesticated them and they are not really “natural” anyway.) Neither am I touching on some big but nuanced topics like hunting and how it differs from factory farming, raising backyard chickens for eggs, and eating oysters (which are believed not be sentient). I will save those for another time, or this post will be a million words long.
A vegan spirituality
At the end of the day, when I decided to become vegan, it was because my understanding of who I am in relationship to animals fundamentally shifted. I do not see myself as in control of or having dominion over animals. I already take up so much more space and resources than they do, with my Amazon orders and minivan and two-story house, and I do not want to take more away from them. I want them to enjoy creation and their own lives, which may or may not intersect with my life at all. I believe they deserve their own stories, and I am not confident enough to say that they do not have a profound experience on this earth. We only so know so much about sentience and the intelligence of other living creatures. So yes, being vegan is intertwined with my spirituality and understanding of God and God’s world. That is my reason, but I do not expect that my reason would change anyone else’s mind. And this reason helps explain why I am not a “flexitarian” anymore or a “vegan before 6” a la Mark Bittman.
That said, I always want to encourage people who are vegan-curious. It is NOT all or nothing; many little choices do add up to make a difference. It is a great thing to sample more vegan foods and adopt Meatless Monday in meal planning. It is fabulous to rescue a dog that needs a home. And it is especially nice if you eat with a vegan not to make fun of them or make them feel more self-conscious.
I cannot speak for all vegans, and I know some vegans out there do incite arguments, make provocative statements, and shame people for eating flesh and wearing carcasses,. Other vegans may have primarily health motivations (they usually prefer the term “plant based”), and they may dissect the evils of every morsel of food you consume. (I will state for the record that I do not think it is inherently unhealthy to eat animal products, especially when done in moderation.) But most vegans, I think—I hope—are seeking to live compassionately and sincerely, and do not want to make other people feel awful. That kind of goes against the value of compassion, right? Keep an open mind when they ask you if you would like to try their vegan food. You may be surprised.
I bake a pretty fabulous vegan brownie, if I do so say myself, and I would love to share….
Thank you for sharing. This is an issue that is also near to my heart. I have been a vegetarian for nearly 40 years. At first, it was a choice about not supporting farming practices that were cruel. Later I felt it was also a spiritual practice. There are areas where I still struggle. For example, I decided a few years ago to switch my synthetic thyroid supplements to naturally derived (read, made from slaughtered pig thyroid). I rationalized that it was a byproduct of an existing industry. I immediately felt much better on the natural supplement, yet, I do find the pills a bit revolting. I also still rely on dairy products, wear leather shoes, etc. I struggle, I don't want to be a driver of practices that I feel are not acceptable, yet, I am the beneficiary of them in some ways.