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The love for all living creatures is the most noble attribute of man. - Charles Darwin
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In fact, if one person is unkind to an animal it is considered to be cruelty, but where a lot of people are unkind to animals, especially in the name of commerce, the cruelty is condoned and, once large sums of money are at stake, will be defended to the last by otherwise intelligent people. - Ruth Harrison, Animal Machines
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I know, in my soul, that to eat a creature who is raised to be eaten, and who never has a chance to be a real being, is unhealthy. It's like...you're just eating misery. You're eating a bitter life. - Alice Walker
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We have to change the way people think about animals. I encourage the Tibetan people and all people to move toward a vegetarian diet that doesn't cause suffering. - The Dalai Lama
Going Veg > Why I Went Veg
Everyone has a unique story to tell about why they went veg. If you are thinking of making the switch, or if you're just curious why others have, the various accounts that follow might provide some inspiration or insight.
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So why did I become a vegetarian? I was born one. Both my parents became vegetarians when they were in their early twenties. My dad couldn't stand the taste of meat and as a kid would hide the meat from his plate under the baseboard heater (where the cats would paw it out and eat it), or hide it in his pockets and then flush it down the toilet. He also felt it was the wrong thing to do (eat animals) and easily became a vegetarian.
He met my mom and she also didn't like meat that much and was easily convinced to become a vegetarian. My mom never had heard of tofu before moving to the United States (born in England then moved to South Africa and then Australia). Now tofu is a staple food in our house.
When I came along it was a no brainer to raise me (and my younger brother) veggie and so that is how I (and my parents :) ) became vegetarian.
I have never tasted meat in my life and never will. I am so happy that my parents raised me veggie.
Anne Wilson
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My first animal rights thoughts happened in my teenage years when my musical idol (Morrissey) who happened to be an outspoken vegetarian had a song called "Meat is Murder". This song planted the seed which eventually blossomed in my first philosophy course in college when we studied animal rights. We read some Peter Singer and saw videos of slaughterhouses and all the terrible conditions of factory farming. It became really clear to me that my love of animals was not consistent with eating them and I also didn't want to support the meat industry anymore. It's quite a moment to confront something that you've been doing your whole life with a realization of how wrong it is.
I can remember eating my last hamburger which I got about halfway through, feeling sick about it, and deciding right then and there I was going to be a vegetarian from that moment. That was 18 years ago and now I can't imagine eating meat.
While I dropped the meat from my diet in an instant, the dairy took longer. It didn't take too long to stop drinking milk and eating eggs (didn't really like them that much anyway). I did eat cheese for a long time and removed it from my diet in a gradual way. I've been vegan for probably 6 or 7 years now, but since it's been gradual I don't really have a firm time on it.
Becoming a vegetarian was one of the best choices I've made in my life.
Da5id
Eugene, Oregon
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For me, maturity and understanding are the continual further-grasping of the interconnectedness of all things in our lives. A child innocently goes through the world without understanding the foreign relations with other countries, without an understanding of natural history, without an understanding of the soil underfoot and the stars above. Maturing is a slow gaining of these understandings.
Making the choice to go vegan was an absolutely effortless, logical, and necessary action that corresponded to all the other changes I was making in my life at the time due to gaining new understandings. I was about 15 or 16, and started to realize that commercialized pop culture music, art, and fashion were not the last word in those things. I explored other outlets for these which quickly expanded my mind. Through inspiration of books and lyrics, I realized not only how utterly unnecessary beliefs in god are, but how very HARMFUL they are to mankind's survival. I became an atheist. Once I had shed the hardest and most harmful dead weight of irrationality that is theism, my mind was unclouded to apply the same rational thinking towards other choices in my life. I decided to not drink, smoke or do drugs due to the evidence against their use. I decided to go vegan because anyone that takes the slightest bit of time out of their lives to question the use of animal products will see what a deluded way of being it is.
Everything is connected. if you care about the environment, stop using animals. if you care about animals' feelings, stop using animals. If you care about your health, stop using animals. If you care about the economy, stop using animals. Your tax dollars that fund this country's health programs are needed to treat all the health problems in our country that arise from animal use. (Heart disease is the number one killer in america. 100% avoidable...)
shawn kilmer
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I became a vegetarian as an act of solidarity with the all starving people of the world.
Milton Takei
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As a college student, living in a house and paying too much rent, I couldn't afford to eat food prepared by somebody else. I couldn't cook, either. I had an aversion to fast food and long lists of mysterious ingredients. My diet was restricted to the simplest of foodstuffs, and this did NOT include MEAT.
As a treat, my housemate decided to cook us some dinner using some chicken breast. The meat wasn't fresh and he couldn't cook, so this meal was a memorable disaster. Tough chewy chicken meat of questionable origin made us look at each other and say... huh... this is SO not worth it.
Since that tummy-turning incident, my vegetarianism evolved from something that arose out of convenience and pickiness into a greater philosophical decision, and I chose a diet without murder, accepting the challenges of nourishing my body without killing (or cooking!) other animals.
Irie
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My name is Jessica and here is a little insight to how I became a Vegan even though I am a Cuban from Miami, Florida...not your usual fare for a Latina raised in an immigrant Cuban household.
Although I have never been to a meeting to meet my fellow Vegans, I stay in touch with all of the wonderful [EVEN] e-mails and links. My partner Frank and I are Foster Care Providers of four D.D. men and have a very tough time getting to meetings. Therefore I am extremely thankful for all you do for us in keeping us informed. My story...
I am a 48 year Cuban woman who lived in Miami for most of my life. I left a 13 year marriage and headed West even though I had never been on my own, but not before I had started a life-saving, weight loss program. You see, by the middle of 1996 I had allowed a great sadness and a series of broken dreams to take over my spirit and eventually my body, and I would become a woman weighing 450lbs! I felt lost and could barely stand on legs which already had suffered five knee surgeries, let alone deal with my family and the unraveling which was looming around the corner. Needless to say I knew changes were on the horizon and thus began this leg of my journey.
I lost the first 175 lbs. on the Atkins diet, the smarter version I thought. I wasn't frying steaks in bacon grease and drizzling velveeta on top. I instead bought his books and informed myself of the pros and cons. I set off to re-make myself. I arrived in Eugene April of 1997 and moved into a house with four house-mates one of whom, Frank, has been my partner ever since. Although in the Summer of 2002 my partner, younger, healthy ex-surfer/skateboarder (we still have about 14 skateboards at home which he still rides) came down with Gout. If you've never had this and get it, you will never forget it.
After four days of absolute misery, he finally allowed me to drive him to our 24 hr out-patient facility for some diagnosis and relief. But as usual in our Allopathic community, they wanted to treat the symptom and not the cause. They took blood, gave a diagnosis, filled a prescription and sent him home to continue living a life which clearly his body was fighting. So he tried the meds for about a week until he decided to get information regarding this horrible disease and what he could do to counteract its terrible effects on his health and these chemicals he wasn't used to taking. Luckily he never took the Vioxx as prescribed and instead was given the gift of Veganism and so we slowly embarked on this magical journey which would transform our lives forever.
We have stood among many who have not agreed with our path and then there have been some who have taken the same baby steps we took and are learning how connected we now feel to our Mother Earth and our own spirit. I continue to lose weight slowly and intelligently and find that I finally feel a connection to everything and everyone around me for the first time in my life. Although a Care Provider for over 20 years, I have never felt better about who I am and how being a Vegan is one of the most beautiful gifts I can give myself, our Earth and all the creatures who live upon her.
Jessie Gresmak
P.S. You can use my name, I feel honored to be part of the solution.
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I had always been a very heavy meat eater and, unlike many vegetarians I have met over time, I had loved the taste of meat. However, my diet had created some negative health consequences for me. Starting at age 18, I started thinking about my diet instead of simply eating what my parents and friends ate, but I still tried to maintain my general choices while modifying items on the "edges."
In graduate school I read Frances Moore Lappè's Diet for a Small Planet. In one of the opening sections of the book, she described a hypothetical scene in a restaurant that was empty except for a single diner, eating a meat-based meal. The metaphor alluded that the amount of food and energy devoted to that single diner's meal could have fed 60 people eating a vegetarian diet. I found this information startling. I had never been a Communist or a Socialist regarding monetary matters, but there was something inescapably unfair about creating shortages in things as critical as food. I began a vegetarian overnight, much to the shock of my friends!
Truth be told her book later explained that politics played a greater role in mass hunger than did eating meat, but it was too late for me. A habit and mindset that had been with me all my life, evaporated in a single moment, and I never returned. Since that time, my reasons for maintaining a vegetarian lifestyle have changed several times from social justice to health to animal rights to ecology as well as other reasons and sometimes in combination. While the reasons might change, I have never regretted my decision.
Hilliard Gastfriend
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Why I went Veg????? It's the only thing to do!!!!!!! If we were in a much more natural society, it wouldn't even be a question... and everyone would be raw too!
Lyris Cooper
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I decided to be a lifetime vegetarian at the age of fourteen in 1968. Because I refused to go to school any longer, I was put briefly in juvenile hall and would only come out if I could live with the family of a friend to attend a better school. This family was so kind in taking me in when they already had five kids that I decided I would eat a little of whatever they put in front of me. (I see no need for anyone to do this now.) Fortunately, this only lasted a few months, and by the time I was 15 I was able to be a vegetarian for good.
I had an amazing brother, seven years older than myself, who handed me a skinny little book one day called "Every Living Creature" by Ralph Waldo Trine. He also said a few words to me help me get where bacon and hamburger come from. So we both stopped eating animals at the same time. I still have this odd little book which was copyrighted 1899. This was all it took for me. Not to be corny, but I think 1968 was an auspicious time to become a vegetarian. I assumed all flower children and other kindhearted people would be doing the same, and to this very day I still feel shocked when I see anyone actually eating animals. It always blows my mind even though I know it is the dominant thing. My best friend became a vegetarian with me at the same time. To be honest I technically wasn't a vegetarian for several years as I always thought Jesus ate fish and it was some kind of spiritual thing to eat fish and that fish were happy to be eaten. I truly believed this but finally realized that was nuts. My step dad had some living fish swimming around in the kitchen sink one day. I petted them and the sweet and incredible way they responded was enough for me. It was quite profound to experience. I wish I had hipped myself sooner.
Sincerely,
Genelle M.
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Back in the 60's, I went veg because my friends did, it didn't last. It was the macrobiotic craze. Eat only what falls on the ground. Then in the early 70's, I gave up eating turkey and chicken because I had a bad dream I was basting newborn children on Thanksgiving. Then in 1980 I saw a show late at night while I was nursing my new baby that showed how they treat newborn cows for veal. I gave up all meat after that except for fish. In the mid 90's, I gave up fish because of the movie Perfect Storm. It showed a lot of dead fish and it looked like they had a very painful death. Several years later I was still eating shellfish when I saw a tank with live shrimp. The really big ones. The fish looked right at me and seemed to say "We are the last of an ancient fairy race.", and I never ate them again. Now, if only I could give up my lust for sugar and fried tofu.
Janet Tarver
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A mid-western girl, I always rolled my eyes at vegetarians. Ironically enough, though, I was ALWAYS almost unnaturally drawn to Civil Rights, Slavery, Feminism, Lynching and other injustices----I was constantly reading narratives, essays and more on the topics. Although I wish I could remember what it was "exactly", I know that I was reading both Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr.'s autobiographies plus had engaged in a few conversations with the new vegan that had started working with me. When I made the parallel between slavery, lynching and animal rights, I knew what I had to do. I DO remember that I was laying on my bed, reading, had the epiphany…..and I GROANED aloud! I loved my animal foods. I ate steak for breakfast. But I also had a chronic health condition (candida) that nobody seemed to be able to help me with, on top of my seemingly unrelated budding animal activism. The more I learned, the more shocked I became at what I found out. Now I'm an outspoken vegan educator who follows a high and teaches others how to help their health conditions through a healthier diet, just like I did. Talk about pulling a 180!
Erica Albanese
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I vegadapted because all life in concert is Earth's natural caretaker. The primary consequences of rampant competition for profit are unnatural consumption, oppression, and militarism. For the sake of an audience, the term for this destruction of diversity -- of environmental decay and social division -- is living and dying in conflict.
Humans will remain Earth's most destructive life form until we join other life forms in recognizing the importance of total natural diversity. As our climate changes and oceans rise, achieving this priceless diversity requires a selfless effort to maximize a balanced, peaceful coexistence by making closed human minds the true minority and ending human conflict. For the sake of an audience, the term for this vision of a sea change toward peace -- of a cooperative exercise in human goodness, spiritual prosperity, and diverse productive harmony -- is living and flourishing in godhood.
Life's attempt to evolve to this natural godhood of one synergistic caretaker is a quest too often forgotten by humans until death. Because our "superior intelligence" has long overlooked this necessary mutuality, the evolutionary quest has become a human race against time. For the power of popular demand and universal inclusion to help us adapt, our situation must be highly publicized, revealing clear choices whether to perish advancing the profits of conflict or flourish advancing the godhood of peace.
Brian Bogart
Diversity Scholar
M.A. Candidate, Peace Studies
University of Oregon
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I was born and raised in Kansas City, Kansas. To get to Kansas City, Missouri, we had to cross a bridge above a stockyard. The stockyard smelled awful, but it was part of the landscape, and so we became accustomed to holding our noses when the car windows were open.
In the 8th grade, my teacher took the class on a field trip to the slaughterhouse under the bridge. Until that time, I had no idea that the "food" on my plate was connected to screams of animals and smells of death.
That night, when I got home, I would not eat the meat on my plate. My mother worried I would starve so gradually she snuck hamburger into my meals.
Sick of being sick, I read a lot about diet and health until, at age 26, I became an ovo-lacto vegetarian. By age 35, I was vegan. For a couple of years I ate fish and eggs plus sheep and goat dairy products, but I didn't like the way I looked or felt, so now I enjoy a primarily raw-food diet. I am healthier, stronger, and have more energy now than ever before.
Patricia Robinett
A Lesson In Animal Rights Weighs One Pound
A Lesson In Animal Rights Weighs One Pound
By Neal D. Barnard, M.D.
President, Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine
My first lesson in animal rights was taught to me by a small white rat that I took home from the college psychology lab.
The introductory course in psychology used rats who were deprived of water for three days and then put in a cage that delivers a few drops of water when a bar is pressed by the thirsty animal inside. The point of the lab was to show how learning occurs---if an animal is rewarded for an action such as pressing a bar, the animal will probably repeat the action. At the end of the course, the rats are put together in a trash can, chloroform is poured over them, and the lid is closed.
One day, I took a rat home from the lab. “Ratsky” lived for some months in a cage in my bedroom. And in her cage, she behaved the way I assumed rats behave. But when I started leaving the cage door open so she could walk around, I began seeing things I hadn’t anticipated. After several days of cautious sniffing about at the cage door, she began to investigate the world outside. As she explored my apartment (under my watchful eye), she took an interest in my friends and me.
She gradually became more and more friendly. If I was lying on my back reading, she would come and stand on my chest. She would wait to be petted, and if I didn’t pay her enough attention, she would lightly nip my nose and run away. I knew her sharp teeth could have gone right through my skin, but she was playfully careful.
Like a cat, Ratsky spent hours grooming herself. Given food, water, and warmth, I found that rats are friendly, fun, and meticulously clean. If I let a glass of ice water on the floor for her, she would painstakingly take out each ice cube and carry it inch by inch in her teeth away from the glass until all the ice had been “cleaned” out.
One day, I noticed a lump in her skin. With time it grew, and after a long search, I found a vet who specialized in laboratory animals to take the lump out. It turned out to be a tumor.
After the surgery, she painfully tottered a few steps trembling. Despite the surgery, her condition worsened and her suffering was very apparent. At night I would sleep with her in the palm of my hand so I would wake up if she needed my help. Before long, it became clear that Ratsky’s health was failing and that she was in great distress. Finally, she had to be euthanized.
I carry with me the vivid image of this tiny animal tottering in pain, of her in my palm trying to pull out the sutures that were a constant irritation to her. In the months that followed, I began to think about all the other animals whose suffering I had taken dispassionately, and I realized each one was an individual who suffered just as acutely as the little rat I had held in my hand. And that suffering was just as real whether the animal was a dog, a monkey, a rat, or a mouse.
Now, as a physician, I continue to be puzzled by the resistance to compassion that I see so commonly in others and that I, too, experienced for so long. Cruelty to animals is diagnosed as a psychiatric symptom predictive of antisocial personality. Yet, we often fail to recognize the cruelties perpetuated so casually in laboratories.
Not too long ago, my alma mater sent me a survey asking, among other things, who had been my most effective teacher. I’m not sure they understood my reply.