To Vegan and Back: How a Trip to India Sparked My Diet Makeover
In January 2016, I spent three weeks in India with a man on a mission to turn the world vegan. I had taken a hiatus from my magazine job to travel to India with a nonprofit conducting a pilot project working to bring cleaner cookstoves to rural Rajasthan. Having done my due diligence, I took off for my trip with several expectations: that I’d likely suffer jet lag on the way there and back, that I’d experience paradigm-altering culture shock, that I should brace myself for at least one bout of Delhi belly during my travels, and that, with any luck, I’d master the art of the Indian head wobble. What I hadn’t counted on was coming home a converted vegan.
It was New Year’s Eve in Udaipur. I was rooming at Hotel Shri Karni Niwas with Kayley Lain, a graduate student of mechanical engineering at the University of Iowa, who was there measuring field results from the pilot project. Kayley and I had just spent a couple of days settling in and planned to take our first trip to the villages the next day. I was grateful to have a little time to get my bearings. India was everything people had said it would be — uncensored, cacophonous, chaotic. In just two days, I’d seen more swerving rickshaws filled with passengers in turbans and vividly colored saris than I could count, and the air was frantic with the constant sound of honking horns. I’d seen a man on a bicycle with hundreds of eggs strapped to his torso and a motorcyclist precariously holding a teetering ladder as he went down the freeway. There were dead puppies on the roadside with ants crawling out of their mouths, dust-coated toddlers with world-weary eyes that stared at me as I passed, camels with fodder swaying on their backs, women carrying six-foot-high towers of wood on their heads, and bright green parakeets peeking from banyan trees. I observed very quickly that, everywhere you look in India, life bursts out of the rubble.
Not only did I have Kayley to help orient me as a clueless first-timer, but I also had Sailesh Rao, an engineer and founder of environmental nonprofit Climate Healers who was leading the clean cookstove project in Rajasthan I’d come to write about, to turn to as a newcomer to India. That New Year’s Eve, Sailesh came down the hotel’s dimly lit hallway and knocked on our door, ready to escort us to a rooftop dinner at the hotel where The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel was shot. Our table overlooked Lake Pichola, a manmade lake in the center of the city that was built more than 500 years ago. We could faintly see outlines of people on the terrace at Lake Palace, a gorgeous white structure in the water built by a Maharana and later turned into a luxury hotel. I tried not to show my disappointment when Sailesh offered to order for the table, expressly avoiding any dishes that included fresh cheese or dairy.
When the food arrived, each dish had a small dollop of cream on top. Instead of privately scooping it off, Sailesh turned to our server and asked him to take the food back to the kitchen and remove the cream. This, he had apparently decided, was the perfect opportunity to vocalize his views on why the whole world should be vegan.
While I was relieved that Sailesh remained friendly throughout his interaction with the server, inside I was cringing. Going into the trip, I knew Sailesh was a vegan, and a passionate one at that. Yet somehow I hadn’t anticipated how awkward I would feel eating in front of him. Maybe it was because back home, my friends and I had cycled through all sorts of different diets — gluten free, Atkins, sugar free, raw, you name it. The unspoken rule had been to do what you want, but don’t inflict your diet on your friends.
I was quickly learning that Sailesh had a different outlook. Talking about veganism with perfect strangers was a big part of how he spread his message, and thanks to his enthusiasm and sincerity, he was surprisingly well received. But it made me deeply uncomfortable to witness. For the past decade I’d eaten meat, but before that, I was a vegetarian. Growing up in the Midwest, I’d dealt with my fair share of questions and comments about what I ate (e.g., “But how do you know you don’t like meat if you won’t try it?”), which often felt invasive and judgmental. I came to view dietary choices as highly personal, and believed that you should give people the space to make them on their own. As a former vegetarian, I’d also learned what I considered to be proper food etiquette. I didn’t think people should hassle waiters for items not listed on the menu or insult their hosts by refusing a home-cooked meal. For this reason, vegans, who often came across as sanctimonious, had developed a bad rap with me.
Sailesh challenged this notion. Imagine a professorial-looking, middle-aged Indian man picketing at a Burning Man barbecue with a “Meat is Murder” sign slung over his shirt. Yep, that was Sailesh. He told me his son had invited him to the drug-fueled festival in the middle of the desert to have fun, but Sailesh couldn’t resist the opportunity to convert a few unsuspecting omnivores while he was there. The man fancied himself the Gandhi of veganism, on the verge of launching a peaceful revolution. I began to wonder: Was he a fanatic or a man admirably dedicated to his cause? I couldn’t decide.
The Argument for Veganism
I had many discussions about veganism with Sailesh in the following days. While his argument that a plant-based diet is better for the environment, for your health, and for animals was compelling, the fact that his conviction was rooted so deeply in an ideology made me suspicious. After all, Sailesh discussed the moral imperative to be vegan and even cited Hindu texts and the idea of Dharma (meaning “right action”) as reason to back up his claims. With beliefs like that, could I trust the science he referenced?
And yet the argument for cutting animal products from our diet isn’t new, and plenty of research, not to mention common sense, points to its merits. Here’s a brief background:
Roughly one-third of the arable land on earth is tied up in livestock production, according to a report from the United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organization. In Brazil, the scale of deforestation caused by livestock production is staggering—70 percent of once-forested land is now being used to raise cattle. And Cowspiracy, a 2015 Netflix documentary that Sailesh co-produced, cites that livestock and their by-products account for 51 percent of all worldwide greenhouse gas emissions. While this statistic is astonishing, it’s also widely disputed. Based on a 2009 World Watch report, the stat’s calculations vary drastically from UN reports that say livestock emissions account for anywhere from 14 to 18 percent of overall emissions. Either way, it’s clear that livestock production is a leading source of greenhouse gases.
Sailesh, who has a Ph.D. in engineering, teamed up with Atul K. Jain, a professor of atmospheric sciences at the University of Illinois, to figure out what would happen if the land used for livestock production was left to reforest. They found that the earth’s carbon emissions would revert to levels similar to those before the Industrial Revolution.
There are, of course, plenty of opposing arguments to veganism. For instance, a recent research study looked at how much land it took to feed people on a variety of diets, including variations of omnivorous and vegetarian ones. The study found that growing food for vegans requires more land than it does for most vegetarians and omnivores, mainly because the latter make use of grazing land that’s unsuitable for growing produce.
Other conservation efforts focus on reducing the impact of animal agriculture by implementing soil and water conservation practices on farms, instead of eliminating the systems altogether.
When it comes to health, nutritionists are split on whether we’re better off eating tofu or steak. Sailesh was fast to point out that, in 2009, the American Dietetic Association issued a favorable position on veganism, saying: “Appropriately planned … vegetarian or vegan diets, are healthful, nutritionally adequate, and may provide health benefits in the prevention and treatment of certain diseases.” But the report goes on to say that vegans may need to take supplements or eat fortified food in order to get essential nutrients like Vitamin B-12. It also acknowledges that vegan diets often require more planning than average diets do.
And then there’s The China Study. Authored by scientist Colin T. Campbell, the 20-year study of diets and mortality in different regions of China concludes that people who eat plant-based diets are the healthiest. Campbell also found that, based on lab tests performed from the 1960s to the 1990s, feeding animals large amounts of casein (the main protein found in milk) promoted cancer growth.
In a 2012 Wall Street Journal article, professor of nutritional sciences Nancy Rodriguez argued that Campbell’s claims fly in the face of the majority of research touting a balance of fruits, vegetables, grains, protein, and dairy as the essential components of a healthy diet. She said that vegans are at risk of deficiencies in calcium, Vitamin D, protein, Vitamin B-12, zinc, and iron. She was also unconvinced that casein in isolation would have the same effects as it does in milk products as part of a well-rounded diet.
Another major argument for veganism centers around animal rights. With the rise of factory farming, millions of animals live in highly confined quarters for their entire lives. And even on farms that let their animals graze freely, there’s the ethical question of whether we should be slaughtering animals for food at all.
For several years, I have been a fan of famous food writer Michael Pollan, who explores the ethics of eating meat in his book The Omnivore’s Dilemma. After having read that and a few essays in the same vein, I’d come to believe that one could eat meat ethically by sourcing it from local farms that provided animals with good lives and “one bad day.” This philosophy looks at animal husbandry as a symbiotic relationship. While it actually requires more land and water resources per pound of meat, it provides animals with an infinitely greater quality of life.
Yet the core of Sailesh’s argument is at odds with this way of thinking. He says that since we do not require animal products to survive, we cannot justify killing them. I remember him asking me, “If given the choice, why unnecessarily harm another living thing?”
His words were fresh in my mind during a trip Kayley and I took to an animal rescue in Udaipur. A row of cattle lay on their sides covered with blankets, bellies bulging. I walked over to one whose head was craned back at an unnatural angle, with wide eyes that looked like they were being pushed out of its head. The employee giving us a tour explained that male cows or older females are left to starve on roadsides and end up eating plastic from garbage piles, which builds in their stomachs until they die. The lucky ones are wheeled to places like Animal Aid, where they’re given painkillers to help relieve the agonizing death awaiting them. It’s hard to know whether the animals’ fate is worse in India or the United States. At least in the U.S., the same cows are slaughtered instead of being left to suffer at length.
I left the animal rescue feeling stunned. For the past 10 years, I had gradually allowed myself to start eating meat. I had grown up a vegetarian who ate dairy, eggs, and heaps of tofu. My parents had become vegetarian when they learned to meditate, modeling their diets after their teacher Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, who, like many Hindus, was vegetarian. As an adult, however, I had begun to wonder if vegetarianism was an unnecessary restriction I was putting on myself. After all, looking around the town I grew up in, I saw that many of the people who subsisted primarily on plants, lentils, nuts, and seeds looked malnourished and frail. It looked like a hamburger and a shot of whiskey would do them good. So even though I had continued to feel conflicted about eating meat, I eventually embraced it as part of my newfound freedom. But the longer I spent in India, the more horrified I felt about how nonchalant I’d become about taking animals’ lives without any thought to their suffering.
By the time my trip to India was coming to a close, I was ready to make the switch. I talked to my husband on the phone and explained my thinking; he said he was on board. I felt excited that I had a support system back home to help me stick to my newfound agenda.
The Aftermath
Deciding to go vegan when I was in India has not been the end of the story for me. Since coming home, I’ve tried a lot of new recipes, most (but not all!) of which have been a success. (A word of advice for those of you considering veganism — when in doubt, stick to Asian dishes, especially Thai and Indian, which are naturally plant-based.) I even switched the dog food we gave our boxer mix to vegan dog food, since most meat formulas are sourced from factory farms. I started shopping for canvas products in place of leather ones and got rid of my SUV in favor of a Chevy Volt. I tried to take steps to turn some of the eye-opening realizations I’d had in India into action in my life.
But life post-India has also brought with it some health challenges. Granted, I came home from my trip with parasites that took me months to get rid of, but I also noticed other issues, such as my immune system weakening, causing me to catch every cold and flu that came through town. I started noticing other little things too, like my hair shedding and nails thinning more than usual. For the first time in my life, I felt frail.
Most of all, though, being overly regimented about what I ate didn’t feel good for my mental health. I have a predisposition toward anxiety, and adding layers of dietary dos and don’ts exacerbated my worry. Denying myself of some of life’s simple joys, like my mom’s gooey spinach and ricotta lasagna or Bavarian crème-filled doughnuts at work parties, began to take a toll over time.
I also began to wonder if I had gotten sucked into the absolutism of Sailesh’s way of thinking. Looking at meat as murder is only one way to think about animal agriculture, and an extreme one at that. Many people find that meat and dairy is a necessary part of their diet for their health and well-being. Under the right circumstances, meat can be medicine.
I still think that going vegan is an admirable and worthwhile pursuit, but I don’t believe it has to be all or nothing. I’ve settled into eating a plant-based diet, but I branch out as I see fit. Since inviting some variety back in to my diet, I have been feeling much stronger. And that is key for me.
While I respect Sailesh’s vision, I’m wary of a one-size-fits-all approach to diet, climate change, health, animal rights — or anything, for that matter. My experience this year with veganism has taught me that being extreme can backfire. I can eat a primarily plant-based diet without making any grand statements about what my diet will look like in the future, since I can’t predict what will feel right for me then. It’s an important lesson to do what works for you. For me, that may mean enjoying an ice cream cone once in awhile.
