October 24 through 31 is World Go Vegan Week, a celebration of compassion and a time to take action for animals. Today’s guest post is by Rebekah of Jaunty Dame, about her journey toward veganism.
It was, as I recall, the spring of 2008. I was perched on a tall stool in a campus computer lab, desperately wishing that my co-worker would wear headphones if he insisted on watching Mamma Mia! at work.
The phone rang. It was Ian, my boyfriend.
“Rebekah,” he said gravely, “There’s something I have to tell you.”
My heart paused. Was Ian leaving me? Was someone dying? Or worse, both; was he dying to leave me! Curses!
Ian said, “I’ve decided to become a vegan.”
Why hadn’t I seen this coming? Date a Buddhist, expect to hear about sentient beings. He had recently read Gary Snyder’s Writers and the War Against Nature and taken a sudden interest in albatross. Most tellingly, he’d gone vegetarian a few months before.
I’d heard of vegans; a well-meaning friend sent me a vegan cookbook that included enticing recipes such as a cooked carrot on a hot dog bun. Somehow, I was in no rush to join their ranks.
In many ways, I was an unlikely candidate for veganism. My heart seemed three sizes smaller than those of veg people. In childhood, I threw our cat down the stairs repeatedly to learn if cats always landed on their feet. (Trust me, they don’t.) My teenage journals reveal entries about Arby’s, I was so thrilled at the prospect of roast beef. As a college sophomore, I defined “rich” to a classmate as “being able to buy meat and dairy whenever you want” and sniffed belts to make sure they were leather. For years, I believed that if misusing animals mattered to God, my church leaders would have told me about it. I had never met a vegan.
By the time Ian announced his pending veganism in 2008, I was newly ex-Mormon and still bristling at extraneous commandments and “thou-shalt-nots” of any stripe. Why trade one set of rules for another?
But in more ways, veganism made perfect sense for me. My family loved animals and always had plenty of pets. I’d read the anti-factory farming children’s book called Nature’s Chicken that had pithy lines like “You do not need cow milk; you are not a baby cow.” My favorite aunt and uncle were vegetarians, which made having unpopular dietary ethics seem feasible. Then as now, videos of baby animals reduced me to a quivering puddle of happiness. Naturally, I loved the movie Babe. When a boyfriend announced he’d shoot a dog or cat for entering his yard or walking on his car, I dumped him the next day. Wouldn’t you?
More than anything, I learned about veganism when I was fresh out of organized religion and finding my own moral path; where would I draw my lines?
Back when Ian had first become vegetarian, I’d attempted to follow suit and failed. Unsurprisingly, the strength of his convictions didn’t change my diet. Only when my sympathy for animals finally overrode my love of sausage could I live meat-free.
Veganism was a similar story; when I tried to give up eggs/dairy/leather/silk/honey/the kitchen sink to keep pace with Ian, I couldn’t. It wasn’t food that defeated me; it was the teasing, an endless gauntlet of friends saying “Oh, I’d just DIE without cheddar.” I wasn’t emotionally ready to take a stand. After so many years dutifully defending Mormonism, I was aching to lay low and “play normal.”
In a Thaïs-style twist, Ian stopped being veg. That final factor tipped me from aspiring vegan to vegetarian for more than a year, awkwardly straddling the fence. I drank soymilk, yet ate cheese by the pound. I refused to buy leather, yet ate eggs and honey. I wasn’t disciplined or self-sufficient enough to completely change my ways, but it was too late not to care about animal welfare. Like I said, awkward.
But one of the noblest spillovers from my Mormon upbringing is an abiding love of integrity. Whenever I asked myself “Rebekah, are you comfortable with living and eating this way?” the answer was always no. It was too late for me to “play normal.”
For the past two months, I have been using up the last of my “pregan” possessions (some supplements and mascara, mostly) and inching toward coming out as vegan. My conscience is at peace, my body feels fine—and I live by “rules” I’ve chosen for myself.
About Rebekah
Rebekah is the bookish, soul-searching, nearly-vegan mastermind behind Jaunty Dame. Contact her via Facebook or email rebekah@jauntydame.com.
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What a great, thoughtful post–just like I have come to appreciate from Rebekah. I’m not vegan or even vegetarian, partially because a meat-loving boyfriend makes things difficult, but I’ve been trying to improve my choices and buy local and humane as possible. A couple of vegan roommates make it seem easier than I’d originally considered it, although they do it for health purposes rather than ethical ones. It’s mostly the ethics of eating that gets to me, especially thinking of Babe…
This is terrific! I think that food and religion are often more closely related than people believe. Thanks for writing this, because those of us who have felt confused about both like knowing we’re not alone. Congratulations on your veganism!
Well said Rebekah! I learned a lot about the two of you I never knew.
Bravo! If I wasn’t a leather sniffer myself, I’d be right there fist-pumping next to you. Alas… I’m a steak inhaler
I’m glad to hear more from you on this. I loved this:
>But one of the noblest spillovers from my Mormon upbringing is an abiding love of integrity. Whenever I asked myself “Rebekah, are you comfortable with living and eating this way?” the answer was always no.<
And I actually think it could apply the other way too. There are a handful of reasons I'm uncomfortable with veganism (for me, not for others), and when I've considered it I've asked myself the same question, but with the "this way" as vegan. And the answer has been no. Dogma doesn't work; it needs to be felt, and then it'll make sense, as you're finding upon your emergence from the vegan closet. Congrats!
I was a vegetarian my 8th grade year, and again just after high school. I went veggie once more when you were quite small, and again for a couple of years when you were a teenager. I quite like being a vegetarian, as long as I can keep myself from becoming a self-righteous pain in the neck about it.
In September I did the 30 Day Vegan Challenge, but I worked my way up to it by returning to vegetarianism through all of August. My boyfriend didn’t like it, and he’s the primary cook at our house. He did live through it, though.
Here’s what I observed:
At the end of the 60 days of not eating animals (30 of it not eating any animal products) I realized I was depressed, hated my stupid pointless life, wished I had never been born, and I had been feeling like that for weeks. Not a good thing.
I ate a can of tunafish, and within 15 minutes I felt fine. No depression, back to my usual cheery self.
For the last month I’ve been eating animal food again and I feel fine. No depression, no feelings of hopelessness….I feel just fine.
Returning to omivorous no-limits eating I have learned this:
I don’t like chicken. I used to like KFC, but it was clearly the 11 secet herbs and spices I liked, not the chicken itself. Yes, we’re homesteaders and have a flock of hens, but they’re egg laying hens, not hens to be eaten.
I like ham, but what I like about it is the saltiness. Same with bacon I think.
I like fruits best, vegetables second best, grains third best, then some types of fish. I think meat is my “food of last resort”, given a choice it’s not what I prefer to choose.
I love beans on toast.
I love baked potatoes with a sprinkle of sea salt and nothing else. Yum.
I love greens. Also with sea salt. I don’t like salad dressing.
I like home cooked food 100 times more than fast food. Seriously.
I like simple dishes, not things with 50 ingredients.
Here’s what I still need to learn:
1-I was depressed as a veg this time around, but was not depressed ANY of the other times in my life I’ve gone veg. Why is this? Clearly there’s some nutrient I was not getting during those last 30 days that I was getting all the other times. I need to figure out what it was.
2-I really hate making people unhappy, and being a veg with a omnivore mate who is the primary cook does lead to making the cook unhappy. I need to find a solution to this.
I suspect I’d do better if I had some vegetarian friends, positive peer pressure or something. The other times I was veg I had veg friends and I think that helps. I suck at being the only one. I do not have a lighthouse personality.
3-I also suspect I’d do better if I were the cook, and if I happened to live where I could go to the market for fresh stuff quite often. I may have to move to Europe to accomplish this.
Becoming a vegan isn’t just changing your diet, it is changing your whole life.
Everyone I know who has successfully quit smoking has also unsuccessfully quit smoking several times before. I know one person who quit 10 times before it finally was permanent. Aside from the metabolic aspects, behavioral changes can take some practice.
I suspect for me becoming a vegan is like that…it’s going to take me some trial and error and examination to get to where I can do it long term and healthfully.
Happily I have you to inspire me. !
PS-a non-meat kitchen is a whole lot easier to clean.
This whole subject is fascinating to me, especially the interplay of how one partner’s choices affect that of the other. Also, the part of trading in LDS rules for another set of rules is interesting and makes me consider things about my own life — I reject the dogma of Catholicism, yet instead of adopting another sensible belief system, I make up my own stupid rules about pointless things. (“Why can’t we watch new episodes of Comminity until we’re all caught up with Season 2? Because the Earth will fall off its axis and spiral into oblivion. Duh!”
I am going to introduce “belt-sniffer” into my vocabulary. New word Friday!
Mia – Bless you for getting the comments rolling! You get a gold star for making conscious decisions about your food purchases. Vote with those dollars, missy!
Eliza Woodyard – Eliza, our beliefs can be a huge, tangled mess. It’s often easier to avoid thinking than to untangle ourselves, especially when there are so many lovely distractions around… You’ve made big ol’ honking strides in living your own life. High five!
Mel – Thank you, Mel! Ian and I could pass as normal people if I didn’t insist on telling our stories…
Alisha – Ah, but I know you’re not afraid to stick up for your beliefs. You’re just using your fist-pumps for other causes.
Autumn – Yes, we do have to check in with ourselves before making any big changes/taking moral stances. Committing to things in which one doesn’t really believe is 1) not fair to oneself and 2) damn near impossible to maintain, unless you have worlds more self-control than I do. =) To thine own self be true, yo!
Leslie – (Note to Cheryl; Leslie is my mother. Now you see where I get my penchant for book-length comments!)
Leslie, being a self-righteous pain in the neck is not among your faults. Rest easy.
If we could just get our hands on those 11 secret herbs and spices— tofu could use the help!
I want you to be healthy and happy, and making behavioral changes really can suck mightily. Be safe, be conscientious, continue experimenting bravely while carefully monitoring your health, and I suspect all will be well with you. You enjoy fruits, veggies, and prefer water to soda, which gives you a huge leg up on sensible eating.
We only buy groceries once a week. I haven’t mastered planning fantastic meals or anything, but I’ve learned some good, healthful recipes and neither of us are in any danger of starving to death. Baby steps.
Having veg peers WOULD be fabulous; I’ve still never met a vegan, and the only long-term vegetarians I know are AK and UD. Most people my age haven’t done much of anything long-term.
Jacob – I wonder if making up rules is part of our long-lost-twins personality, or if it’s a reaction to growing up in commandment-dense religions. I find myself making/breaking at least a dozen self-imposed rules every day; no internet until the dishes are done, no replying to new emails until I empty my inbox, no taxation without representation, don’t put a sock in a toaster, and so on. Happy Friday, you dirty belt-sniffer!
I found this to be a thrilling and all-about good read.
You two ladies write some of the best blogs, i swear!
Thanks, James. I a big fan of Rebekah’s blog. It’s an honor to have her post on mine.
As a beekeeper, one thing I’ve never understood about vegans is why you don’t want to eat honey. I mean, I get that it falls in the overarching category of ‘animal products,’ but unlike a sausage (where the animal had to die) or even cheese (where it can be produced ethically but still has a high environmental impact, etc.), the more bees in the world being kept to produce honey, the better. The better for the environment, and the better for the bees. Just curious your take on honey
Nice post!
Actually, it isn’t better for the bees, from what I understand. Kept bees are not living the lives they were meant to live and many die in the process. There are also scientist who believe keep bees (for factory farming) is the root cause of colony collapse disorder, because the bees are fed something other than what they would eat in the wild, which in turn weakens their immune system. I wrote an article about this for examiner.com. You can read my take on it here: http://www.examiner.com/vegan-in-madison/cooking-vegan-hold-the-honey
Thanks for the thoughtful comment!
Hey Cheryl, thanks for your response! Are you familiar with top-bar beekeeping? It’s much similar to the ways bees naturally live in the wild than Langstroth hives. Here in Albuquerque people are quite activisty about topbar beekeeping as a way to keep the bee populations up, and get people involved. I personally don’t feed my bees sugar syrup, just plain ol’ honey and plant lots of flowers for them. We don’t intervene much at all outside of providing them with water, flowers, and a place to live.
Also, a funny story/further questions about eggs… I was staying in a house full of vegans this summer, and one girl was telling me how she believes keeping chickens is wrong. I can understand how _eating_ them is morally questionable, but again, not sure how keeping chickens for eggs (if done ethically) is wrong. My chickens have a great big house and lots of friends and roam around the yard playing in the dirt and eating bugs all day within the safety of my backyard fences. They have quite a satisfying life, especially for city chickens. But this girl was saying how keeping chickens is wrong, so I asked her what she thought should be done since chickens are essentially domesticated…they don’t roam free in the wild or anything (at least not in the US that I’m aware of). She said all the chickens should be released and just allowed to fend for themselves and live freely. I immediately pictured letting my chickens out into the street where they would surely be run over by a car, tortured by a gang of kids walking home from school, or picked off by a cat within hours. So, what should we do with the chickens?
(sorry to be difficult, but as a long time (former) vegetarian, I’ve had to grapple with these questions myself in creating my own personal morality. Curious to know your take).
I will say most chickens do not have a life even close to the ones you care for, but I would still not advocate setting them all free to fend for themselves. That just seems silly and cruel. The whole world is never going to go vegan at once, so I doubt this will ever be a real situation, but people do ask me this a lot. I usually say that as demand for meat goes down, production will go down, just like any other product, so there would be fewer and fewer “meat” animals. The conditions most of these animals are raised and kept in are horrific. I do not feel it is our right as humans to do this to other sentient creatures.
In terms of your chickens, it sounds like they have a nice life. My sister-in-law raises chickens in a similar environment, and last year I got to meet some of the birds and hold one of her roosters. It was a great experience and I have a new respect for the intelligence of chickens. My personal view is since I can live a vibrant, healthy life without eating other creatures (or their eggs and milk), I choose to be vegan. I want to cause as little pain in the world as possible, so this is what makes sense for me. I can’t answer the question for you, but I don’t ever tell others that the way they live their lives is wrong. What works for me may not work for you, and vice versa.