Reasons why I became Vegan
(and why some people get mad at me)
This post is good opportunity for me to explain the reasons why I became a vegan and also to have some fun describing the little social experiments that are now part of my routine.
The most bizarre thing is how sometimes people who want to have this debate position themselves as the devil’s advocates. Another thing, is that they all suddenly become nutrition experts and protein specialists... Why?
In case you want a glimpse of what I think (yes some of them don’t want to let me speak sometimes!), find some of the reasons why I became vegan and why I don’t see myself going back, listed below in chronological order (their importance to me changed over time):
1. Health
Becoming vegan is usually triggered by one factor, then expands to more, for me it was health. When I discovered that meat was linked to a lot of avoidable chronic diseases and cancers I decided to rethink my position. When I got aware of the quantity of hormones and antibiotics (more than 50% of the antibiotics worldwide) given to livestock I decided that I did not want this in my body anymore. I also feel much better now. I’m full of energy from the time I get out of bed in the morning to the time I go to sleep at night.
2. Cruelty
I thought I knew what was happening in farms and slaughterhouses but I decided to be more curious and to face the truth by watching more and more movies and documentary as well as by reading more books. First, I realized that it’s worse than anything I could have imagined. Second, it made me reach a higher level of consciousness where I was not only aware of what was happening but I was also feeling it deeply inside of me. I was living it.
3. World hunger
It’s not in mainstream media, it’s not even on the environmental organizations’ websites (watch this super inspiring documentary Cowspiracy), but the meat industry is number one in terms of resource consumption. 50% of grains available worldwide are used to feed the livestock, we could sustainably feed 9 billion people if nobody was eating meat. Same thing with water, when we realize than we need 2,500 gallons of water to produce just a pound of beef… In the meantime 30,000 children are dying from malnutrition every day. Imagine how many lives can be saved daily by changing out diets.
4. Environment
We obviously don’t have enough room on earth to sustainably feed 9 billion human being AND 100 billion animals (that’s the number of animals slaughtered yearly) with products issued from agriculture. However, we could feed two planets if we would not have to feed the livestock. It’s just not sustainable and there is no way it can become. Cattling is the number one cause of CO2 emission, pollution, water intoxication, deforestation and more.
“We do not inherit the planet from our parents, we borrow it to our children”
What kind of legacy are we leaving to the future generation? If we don’t become more aware, the war for profit will destroy all species, including humans and will generate a too-big-to-handle amount of pain and suffering. The planet is not in danger considering that time is so an issue for her, we are as a specie. Also, when we stop being products of marketing and when our circle of compassion expands, we simultaneously stop creating suffering around us.
Stop letting our past, our belief system and our lifestyle habits define what we truly are.
Becoming vegan is not an event, it’s a process. A process of becoming more curious, of getting critical thinking back and of being able to stop letting our past, our belief system and our lifestyle habits define what we truly are. To my opinion, this is what is causing most of the frictions with some non-vegans and that’s probably what is scaring them: they have to confront the insecurity of breaking their conditioning.
After all we are all free to live the life we want, there is no reason to impose our life choices on others. There is also no reason to follow the mass or what the society tells us either. We just need to think for ourselves and decide what is right and respect our deep personal values and principles.
The world needs a wake up call though, everybody would agree on that. The thing is that we cannot count on corporations to stop the destruction, it has to come from us people and consumers.
Let’s become the change we want to see in this world.
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