My vegan journey, Part 1: before veganism

   I don’t talk about my veganism much. There are a lot of reasons for this, including personal morals, misperceptions of others and as bad as it may sound, emotional exhaustion. But because of suggestions from other people, I’ve decided to talk about it anyway. Knowing that people want to hear about this has brought me to the decision to talk about it openly and honestly, so I hope you all enjoy. 

The child

   I wasn’t always vegan. I was brought up in the land of milk and cheese, the Midwest. And while my family didn’t have the money to eat meat very often, I had the biggest appetite for it out of all of them. I loved the savory, chewy, heaviness of meat. 

   Not only that, but I think it symbolized something for me. Since we only really had a “nice big chunk of meat” when we were doing better financially, in a subconscious way it suggested abundance and stability for me. And due to this, I would take every chance I could get to eat meat. 

So throughout my childhood years, my mom would refer to me as her little meat eater. I look back on that and cringe now, but I can genuinely say that at the time, I didn’t know any better. Now, what do I mean when I say that?

We compartmentalize a lot

   When I was about eight years old, I started making connections that I wasn’t comfortable with. It’s such a cliché, but when a kid first realizes that meat is the flesh of dead animals, they often feel very disillusioned. I had asked my mom before what I was eating, and she had been honest with me. If we were eating chicken, she told me it was chicken. But I hadn’t really put the concepts together. 

   When I was told that I was eating chicken or turkey, I didn’t think of the animal. I was thinking more like those processed “blueberry” muffins that have the weird blue spots in the batter but no actual blueberries. For other meats it was even more disconnected, because there were different words for them. Like “bacon”, “hamburger”, or “pork chop”. 

   And even when I was told, “yes, this is made out of pigs” (etc), it didn’t really connect. I was a little uncomfortable and confused. But I looked around and saw all of the other people at the table calmly eating. None of them seemed to have a problem with it. 

   So I didn’t think about it too much. My parents taught me so much about right and wrong, I figured it must be okay if they didn’t seem to have a problem. But remember, what’s right is not always popular, and what’s popular is not always right. 

The first shift

   So in third grade, my best friend went vegetarian, and it rocked my world. I had never heard of that word before, or the concept. And when I asked her why, she said that she didn’t want animals to die for her food. 

   At that point, a lightbulb went off in my head and I finally made the connection between animals and the meat I was eating. It was like, for the first time, they were real to me. Before that I had what they call, “a knowing without knowing”. 

   Now I wouldn’t call young me an “animal lover”, per se. I liked animals. I enjoyed puppies as much as the next little girl and whenever we would go out driving in the farmland, I sure would shout out whenever I saw cows. But they weren’t all that special in my life. The only real bond I had ever made with one was my pet rat, Cassandra. 

   That being said, just because I didn’t have many personal connections with animals, didn’t mean I thought they should be killed just so I could eat. There was other food out there. 

Vegetarianism: my attempt

   Now having this newfound realization, I did what most eight year olds would do. I told my mom about it. I told her how I felt and how I didn’t want to eat meat anymore, and that I was going to become a vegetarian. 

   Well, I wouldn’t say that she told me not to. In fact, she revealed that she had been a vegetarian back in college—something that I hadn’t known about her before. She also told me that it was really hard. That it would be hard to feed me. And what would I eat at holidays? 

   Now I’m not sure if she was trying to discourage me or just gave me too much credit for an eight year old but I had no idea what to respond with. Listen, eight year olds are not equipped to be able to answer the question, “what will you be eating?” I don’t care what anyone says.

   And so I shrank back. I didn’t have a defense for anything or really even any assurance that what I dreamed was possible. I didn’t want to stress my mom out by having her find a way to feed a vegetarian daughter which she made sound absolutely impossible. So I just let it lay. 

   A few weeks later, my best friend went back to eating meat, and the discomfort started to dull over time. Everyone around me just ignored it, and as the event got further and further away, I accepted it begrudgingly. I forgot about it eventually. Eating meat became normal again, and even more than that, became a sort of limitation on humanity, like gravity or lack of gills. 

Flash forward

   Now, as I’ve established, I am vegan today, and have been for years. And if you came to this article to specifically hear about my veganism, it may seem a little strange to stop here. I promise, I will get to the veganism in the next part, however, I found it important to frame it this way. 

   The fact is that as new vegans, we often feel a sense of moral responsibility to change people’s minds and turn them vegan. This is understandable, because it can feel like the world is ending and nobody cares. However, people’s minds get changed when they have enough seeds planted in order to process, accept, and align with the information. 

   I’ve heard it said years ago that people need at least 50 exposures to veganism or the vegan message before they can consider it for themselves. While I’m not married to that number, I think it makes a lot of sense. I certainly had multiple exposures, failed attempts, and moments where I just sunk back into my own comfortable denial. Because it was, in a way, comfortable, and certainly familiar. 

   I’m not trying to make excuses for people who aren’t vegan or don’t care about injustice in general, but I am saying that we all have our own paths. You may not be able to change someone right away (or at all). You can plant a seed though, and that counts for something. 

   I also felt it necessary to break it up because that’s truly how it happened. I wanted to be vegetarian, and when it didn’t work out, it felt like a big letdown. And yes, I was disappointed. And it felt like the end of the story, until years later. 

   But I won’t make you wait years for the next chapter in my vegan journey. As I said, next post we will move on to the vegan stuff for real. You can find part two of my story by clicking here. And if you’re looking for more vegan content, you should check out our sister site, Eight Years In.