I was raised in a small Massachusetts town by a
secretary and firefighter who devotedly loved God, each other, and their three
children. Unfortunately, they also loved meat. And once upon a time, so did I;
although not universally. I didn't like turkey or chicken, baloney, hot dogs,
kielbasa, seafood (except fish cakes or fish sticks, but they don't count), or
steak. This last one was a particular problem in my family. My father loved
steak and we would have it at least once a week. (I still wonder where we as a
family would be if he hadn't bought 4-5 steaks every week for about 15 years.)
On birthdays, the guest of honor got to choose zir birthday dinner and for most
of my family, that meant a very tall, but hockey-puck sized piece of steak with
a strip of bacon wrapped around it. This was called "Filet Mignon"
and it was over a decade before I learned that wasn't right. On my birthday, we
would have spaghetti with meatballs
and sausages in the sauce.
As far as meat was concerned, I loved sausages, bacon, meatballs, and
burgers. When I was young, my father complained that I didn't like steak but
liked burgers. He told me it was the same animal so I should feel the same way
about it. I stared at my plate for a second and then went to the fridge for the
ketchup. I put ketchup on my burgers before I ate them, so to me it was logical
that I would put it on steak too. This was a travesty of justice, according to
the way father reacted. (When steak sauce came around, I had been vegetarian
for 9 years, but I still felt vindicated.) I don't think that my parents ever
told me that meat was important or that I had to have it (until I gave it up),
but it always seemed to be as important as the rest of the meal. When we were
served a meat that I didn't like, I was told that I had to eat it, but this was
the same treatment as vegetables.
It is forever to my great shame that although I did know that meat came from
animals, it never occurred to me to give it up. I never thought about not
eating animals.
I went on a trip to Florida with my religious youth group the summer before
I turned 16. I remember that our group was sitting in a McDonald's and there
was a teenager who was the only member of our group not eating. She said she
was vegetarian in a somewhat passive way. She'd been raised vegetarian. She'd
tried meat, but didn't like the taste, so she went back to being vegetarian.
(And yet, even though she could have gotten something resembling food at
McDonald's, she had opted not to.) I remember thinking that I liked animals and
if there was a way to live without killing them, I should do it. I thought
this, off and on, all through summer and early fall. I knew that if I announced
to my parents that I was vegetarian, I could not, a month later, announce that
I was no longer vegetarian. Once I made the decision, I had to stick with it
forever. So I spent a lot of time looking at what I liked, what I would have to
"sacrifice", what I would eat instead. When I was left to my own
devices, I ate unhealthy vegetarian meals. (I didn't care for most vegetables.)
Just before (or the day of) my mother's birthday, I put a ham & cheese hot
pockets in the microwave for my lunch, intending to pick the ham out. (I know
this wasteful and doesn't help the pig at all.) But as I tried to do that, I
saw an image in my mind of a cartoon pig looking at me and asking why. I broke
down and couldn't eat the sandwich at all, so I threw it out (wasteful, I
know). I told my father I wouldn't be eating the steak because I was vegetarian
now. Four days later, on my birthday, they asked if they could still have meat
in the sauce. I figured that they knew meat was dead and that they didn't need
to eat it, so by choosing to do so, they would have to answer to God on their
own. I had plain spaghetti while my family had my usual dinner.
At first, my father refused to go out of his way for vegetarian foods. The
man's three favorite things were shopping, driving, and bargains; but I
digress. I wasn't allowed to cook because of an earlier accident involving
spaghetti water and how it got all over my upper torso and my mother had to
dress my wounds three times a day for many weeks. My first experience with tofu
was served cold and mixed with plain cottage cheese (if I can get over this and
like tofu, so can you). I was eventually allowed to fry tempeh (until it's golden,
like hash browns with bonus amounts of protein), but my parents were pretty
leery of my cooking. After about 6 months, my mother said, "She's not
growing out of it. Buy her food, Ed." Suddenly, I had Morning Star Farms
and Yves Smart Deli in the house.
I was a slacktivist even then, as I supported Greenpeace and P
eTA who
both always talked about how this one animal or group of animals was being
harmed by humans, but never said that all of them were in danger because of us.
Greenpeace never told me that eating animals is the most harmful thing you can
do for the planet. P
eTA would tell me that a particular farm was
mistreating cows or pigs but they never told me how bad it was even in the best
times. I remember particularly an article from P
eTA about mistreated
dairy cows, which suggested to me that there was a way to get dairy from a cow
without mistreating her (hint: there isn't).
I did know one Vegan, an adult volunteer at the youth group for my church.
We were both also involved in a few other parish causes and participated in
letter-writing campaigns for Amnesty International. I don't remember him ever
telling me about why he didn't have dairy and eggs; but I can't say I'd do any
different with someone else's child.
After college, I had to move back home and live with my mother (my father
had died earlier that year of ALS, Lou Gehrig's Disease). As she worked a full
day and I couldn't find work, I often would cook a vegetarian meal for the two
of us and she was usually happy with this arrangement because there was a hot
meal waiting for her when she got home.
Eventually, I found work, which meant that I could spend money on gadgets. I
bought an iPod and subscribed to several podcasts (the big new thing),
including Colleen Patrick-Godreau's
Food for Thought: The Joys and
Benefits of Living Compassionately and Healthfully. (Find it here:
http://www.compassionatecook.com/publications/food-for-thought-podcast) I
remember that iTunes had it billed as a vegetarian podcast and I thought I'd
like that so I could have comebacks for Mom and some other people when they
asked about vegetarianism.
The first time I heard Ms. Patrick-Godreau, I was waiting for a shuttle to
take me from North Station to work. I was exhausted, probably from having
watched too much TV the night before. I can't remember the exact name of the
episode, but she was talking about how milk
really gets made. I've since
done some further research on this, so I can't be sure what's paraphrased from
her and what isn't. Even on "nice" farms, they have to get a cow
pregnant and then separate her from her child so that she can be milked and the
milk can be sold. Both are killed when they are no longer of service to the
farm and often their skin becomes leather (the softer the leather, the younger
the cow who died for it). The veal industry (which even my parents abhorred)
was born out of the need to do something with this creature who'd been brought
to life so that the farmer could steal his mother's milk. (Female cows are kept
alive, assigned the same fate as their mothers.) A cow could live longer than
20 years, if allowed to. But even the "nice" farms will kill her
after she is six. (Or send her to sanctuary; but after getting pregnant and
giving birth every year, she's a little weary of humans.)
It was around then (or perhaps even the same day) that someone on Facebook
posted an expose of a "bad" egg hatchery where the employees would
take out their frustrations on male chicks, grinding them alive into the ground
or using them as a baseball as one threw and another hit. I thought, "I
have no way of knowing if the eggs I eat came from a place like this. I have to
stop eating eggs altogether. I have to go Vegan."
What the video didn't make clear is that across the industry, male chicks are
of so little value that the standard practice is to grind them alive or stuff
them alive into a plastic bag with their brothers, and let them suffocate as a
group. Some places will grind them up and put them into the feed for their
mothers and sisters. (Chickens are not meat eaters, but this practice makes
them not only meat eaters but also carnivores.)
Despite not knowing about how bad the "best case" scenario was, my
world still came crashing down around me. I couldn't believe I had never
thought about what would happen to dairy cows and egg-laying chickens when they
no longer had milk or eggs to "give" (the industry term for both is
"spent"). I had never considered the males of either species and how
unimportant they were to the industry that had created them.
That day, I bought recipe books, researched Vegan food products, Vegan
recipes, and articles on the health aspect (to help me fight my mother who was
sure to object). I went through a period of fewer than three weeks when I
avoided non-Vegan food as best as I could, but I still ate it when Mom was
around because I wasn't armed yet. One day, in the grocery store, I bought what
I believed to be Vegan cheese (later I would find out that casein is an
addictive protein taken from milk). Mom flipped out and told me that no
nutritionist would approve of this because it's such an unhealthy diet; and
also, eating that much soy would lead to breast cancer.
I saw my actual nutritionist a few days later and she was totally supportive of
the idea. She got a big book that nutritionists use to tell them about
different things, looked up Veganism, and read a list of diseases that I was
statistically less likely to get as a result of my new lifestyle. Among these
were heart disease and all types of cancer, both of which run in my family. It
was also supposed to help with asthma, arthritis, anxiety, and depression - all
of which I already had.
But let me be clear. I am not Vegan for my health (although it has helped
immensely). I am not Vegan for the environment (although I found out later that
the best thing I could do for it was be Vegan). I am Vegan for the animals.
Because someone else shouldn't die so that I can have food or clothes when
there are other alternatives to both. Someone shouldn't be held in captivity so
that I can have fun looking at them when there are other ways to enjoy myself
and be mystified by the beauty of another creature.
Don't ever tell me "I'm sorry you're
Vegan" or "You can't have this because you're Vegan". Because
I'm not sorry. This is the best thing I have ever done. I could eat
whatever food you're so sorry that I can't enjoy; but why would I ever want to?
Veganism has made me more aware of myself. It has led to my being more
active in social justice, feminism, socialism, and in life itself. I was on the
verge of becoming agoraphobic, but Veganism encouraged me to get outside, to
let people into my heart (with mixed results, I admit). I was depressed, but
Veganism made me feel that I had a purpose in life and that all life is
precious and not to be wasted or taken for granted. Veganism has given me the
courage to demand better of myself and for myself, to start showing myself the
compassion I give so freely to others. I sacrificed nothing. I have gained so
much. And I remain, every single day, with every single meal, just so darn
happy to be Vegan. It is the joy of my life, and I hope it is or will soon be
for you too.
