Why weren't you vegan before you became vegan?

[Heather]

EvilFluffbunny you did better than me! I was 9 when I became a total ovo-lacto veggie, but it took me virtually 20years to take the vegan route.
I became an ovo-lacto veggie when I was 7 - my aunt became one and when she explained why, I converted too. I had asked questions about where meat came from before this, but was always given evasive answers by my parents. I sadly didn't become a vegan until 27 years later (about 6 months ago).

I brought my child up as an omni but now really regret this. I believed that she should eat 'normally' until she chose to do otherwise (I know this is a load of cr*p now, btw). My excuse is that I was very young when I had her and that I would definitely do things a lot differently now. Luckily, she converted to vegetarianism a couple of years ago without pressure from me, and is thinking of becoming vegan but doesn't have the willpower at the moment. She is very much against animal testing and constantly argues with her friends in school about this, so I must have done something right!! :)

I've also helped convert my mother and sister to vegetarianism, and I'm working on converting them to veganism - I think I'll go and polish my halo now! ;)

[kriz]

All you people who's been veggie since like you reached a hobbit to his kneecaps just amaze me. I certainly didn't have that sort of inutive awareness by then.

Kinda sounds a bit like homosexuals, you know like some has known as far back as they remembered, kinda interesting.

Interesting comparsion you made there, Robin. I've never heard that one before... but, yeah, it's kind of like that - I didn't want meat since the age of 4. Nobody could convince me otherwise, unless they tried to mask the meat and downright trick me into eating it, which was NOT an easy task! :( My parents tried in the beginning, but then it became a habit for me to double check everything. So when they finally realized how serious I was, they stopped their "tricks" on me. :D I SCANNED all the labels as soon as I knew how to read.... :rolleyes: Oh, Poor my parents, what a fuzzy kid I was! :(

[Korn]

where do I start?
Anywhere. :)

[Robin]

Ah yes, that's my problem, I just can't seem to make up my mind ;)

[DianeVegan]

If it seems too daunting, you can take it in steps. I was about a month into eliminating foods that I could no longer eat for environmental/ethical reasons before I realized that I was on my way to becoming a vegan. I don't think you have to change everything in one day. It's more important that you are making the change to veganism.

[Robin]

Yeah I'm on my way, little by little. We're in the middle of moving so I'm a little scatterbrained for the moment

[jhodgski]

To answer the original question, I wasn't vegan because I thought veganism was an uneccesarily extreme thing that only odd people must do.

It was only after several weeks at work where I was bored and had nothing to do, I was running out of things to surf the internet for when, just out of intrigue, I thought I'd look up veganism and why vegans actually existed.

Before that, I'd probably ranked veganism on a par with line dancing or something like that, but within a week or two I was vegan. End of story!

[WalkingWest]

I'm brand spankin new compared to most here it seems...
Fleshless for about year and a half now: Lacto-ovo for the first couple of months, Vegan for the rest.

It started for me when my girlfriend and I broke up, and I moved out (after 11 years together :eek: ) I dove into the computer looking for answers about life. Couple months, hundreds of documentaries, audiobooks, videos of protests, books later.... I got the picture about the world out there, that I had NO idea existed. Veganism was the final step.
Now I'm back with my girlfriend... I shared what I learned (she was already at "that level" before), she became Vegan, and here we are....
a couple of crazy Animals!

Why wasn't I Vegan before I was Vegan?
I was blind.

[sylkan]

[QUOTE=Heather]I brought my child up as an omni but now really regret this. I believed that she should eat 'normally' until she chose to do otherwise (I know this is a load of cr*p now, btw). My excuse is that I was very young when I had her and that I would definitely do things a lot differently now. Luckily, she converted to vegetarianism a couple of years ago without pressure from me, and is thinking of becoming vegan but doesn't have the willpower at the moment. She is very much against animal testing and constantly argues with her friends in school about this, so I must have done something right!! :) QUOTE]

I did the same thing with my daughter. I just wanted her to be able to choose. Now she loves meat and I feel helpless to do anything about it. I just have to wait. She is fully aware of why I am going vegan, and she hates the idea of eating animals, but she is full into the "me, me, and me" stage of life at nine years old. She can't quite give up something that she enjoys even though she knows that it's wrong. It doesn't help that her father eats meat and has no intention of stopping. He often says that he would like to, but claims that it isn't possible for him (a load of crap as far as I'm concerned!).

[sylkan]

If I ever had children I'd have to bring them up vegetarian (atleast), as I would be able to stand having carcass segments in the house! :p

I do the cooking so there are no carcass segments in my house. She eats meat when her dad gets lunch meats, makes burgers, or the occasional roast or when we go to family for supper. still no carcass segments thank goodness.

[Seaside]

Posted by kriz:

Interesting comparsion you made there, Robin. I've never heard that one before... but, yeah, it's kind of like that - I didn't want meat since the age of 4.

The title of the thread kinda makes me laugh! :) It reminds me of the old "which came first, the chicken or the egg." :rolleyes:

But seriously, I think we are ALL vegan at birth! None of us wasn't a vegan before we became "vegan", we are all just brainwashed by the society we are born in to believe animal products are food. They aren't, and it is only a matter of time for some to realize this truth. Children have natural instincts against meat that are subverted by parents who don't know any better, and the point in your life when you are able to reject this conditioning depends upon how successful the conditioning was. :o
My favorite example is an analogy of Harvey Diamond's, who says if you take a tiger cub and leave him alone in a room with an apple and a bunny, he will eat the bunny and play with the apple. If you do the same with a young human, he will eat the apple and play with the bunny. :p

[kokopelli]

I agree with you, Seaside...but I want to know whether something exciting will also happen if the persian pomegranate spirit appears on my computer screen? :)

[Seaside]

Posted by kokopelli:

but I want to know whether something exciting will also happen if the persian pomegranate spirit appears on my computer screen? :)
I hope so! :p

Posted by Mozbee:

Yes, I'm sure I was born to be vegan...afterall I'm a homo sapien! (Although it seems blood-types do have a bearing on things). :D
I think there is a thread on that blood-type diet. You might be interested! :)

[DoveInGreyClothing]

if you take a tiger cub and leave him alone in a room with an apple and a bunny, he will eat the bunny and play with the apple. If you do the same with a young human, he will eat the apple and play with the bunny. :p
Nice quote there, think I'll be using that on some of my signatures!

[sylkan]

But seriously, I think we are ALL vegan at birth! None of us wasn't a vegan before we became "vegan", we are all just brainwashed by the society we are born in to believe animal products are food. They aren't, and it is only a matter of time for some to realize this truth. Children have natural instincts against meat that are subverted by parents who don't know any better, and the point in your life when you are able to reject this conditioning depends upon how successful the conditioning was. :o


I actualy disagree. Some kids really do love meat at first taste. My daughter is one. She has always preferred meat to any other type of food from the first moment she had it, although I did introduce it late. I, on the other hand, hated it and would push it around my plate for hours. My brother was the same way.

As to blood types, well, in our case, my brother, my daughter and I are all type O so that rules "natural" taste out. I've read two books about blood type diets and I have real problems with it. It neglects the fact that if a type O person (who, according to the diet, should thrive on mostly meat, yuck!) has been raised a strict vegetarian or vegan switched even gradually to a meat diet then that person would become very ill. Much evidence shows that it depends on what you were raised on not on what your ancestors or fellow type O (A, B, AB) eat. Personally I was pretty insulted to read that I am "naturally" supposed to eat large amounts of meat and would likely shorten my life as a vegetarian. Give me a break!

[Hasha]

Lol, Sylkan! I'm also type O, and yet I never liked meat. If it hadn't been forced on me, I never would have eaten it in the first place! My father's also type O, and although he's omni, he isn't a big meat eater; same with my grandmother. My mother, however, is a big meat eater :( , but she's type A.

[sugarmouse]

An easy way to find this out (for vegans) is to try to remember why they weren't vegan before they switched. In my case it was ignorance.

me too!! ignorance of how easy it was to be..cos i was so passionate bout things..n non realisation of my beleifs of hoow it is wrong to eat animalss or their secretions.noiwit meks me feel sick to think of it!!

[LittleNellColumbia]

Ive just come back from staying at my dads....which tought me alot about ignorance. I kindly cooked him tea: satay vegies and rice......"whats this?" he says, "wheres my meat? wheres the meal?" As according to my dad, and an unfortunant amout of others in the world, a meal isnt a meal with out you "basic" staple: meat.

I explained to him my lifestyle, and my choices along with my reasons. "where do you get your iron?" "do you have an eating disorder" were among many of his stupid, ignorant questions and remarks.

He also thinks that humans are superior to other animals! Do ppl just forget that we are ALL animals? we are all living, breathing being with feeling and souls?

It also frusterates me wen im at scool, and this boy will look at me in disgusting and say " well, wot the hell DO you eat? I mean come on, wot else IS there?"

Some ppl are just ignorant. Thats the only explaination i can come up with for myself at this point in time. I just find it very sad.

[Lindsay]

but when you are 13, you haven’t got a clue about what to eat and you have everyone constantly making you feel bad for being veggie it is near impossible. That’s unless you are very outspoken which I was not and you have someone to turn to for support!

Hmm, that's odd. I'm a younger teenager and I think I have a very good idea of what to eat! I don't personally know any other vegans and my vegetarian friends look to me for advice, so I guess I must be very outspoken. :p


I wasn't vegan because I thought veganism was an uneccesarily extreme thing that only odd people must do.

Same for me, when I pictured veg*ns and AR activists, I always thought of the "crazy people" who would stand outside stores and scream and yell at passersby. My mom would always lock the car doors if we got stuck at a traffic light by protesters. I guess by that, I was taught to be afraid of those people, and that they weren't normal. I also thought of those "hippy" types, and that those were weird people who I had no business listening to anyway. I was never going to be "that type."

I think my parents still look at me like that sometimes. :rolleyes:

[Zandi]

I wasn't vegan because I thought veganism was an uneccesarily extreme thing that only odd people must do.

I fall into this category too! I also didn't know enough about what it truly meant though, and had no idea how to go about making the transition. I felt more safe staying where I was than to do something so horribly wrong in my attempt!

[Hemlock]

I thought it would be impossible to find enough to eat and buy toiletries which at first it seemed it was. But after a few months I had it sussed and don't need to go out of my home town to get everything I need. And this is in Seaford which is only a very small seaside town with very basic shops.
Brighton is up the road for shoes, clothes and vegan places to eat out.
How times have changed:)

[foxytina_69]

i didnt know veganism excited, and knew nothing of vegetarianism. i was an avid, full on meat eater until i watched "meat your meet" and after that, i was vegan. :|

[powder]

Didn't know better. I try not to feel bad about not becoming more aware sooner, but sometimes I really wish I had at least been vegan since I was a teen.

[Zandi]

i was an avid, full on meat eater until i watched "meat your meet" and after that, i was vegan. :|

Good for you FoxyTina! :) When I began seeking out video clips to force myself to see what is happening....Meet Your Meat was one of the first I saw. :eek: <--- I looked like that for weeks after seeing it. Lol! I didn't touch meat again and often had nightmares of Alec Baldwin appearing and telling me: "The video you are about to watch...." Lol!!


Didn't know better. I try not to feel bad about not becoming more aware sooner...

It's ok, Powder! I think it happens when we are ready for the *right* reasons! I was a veggie in my teens because I wanted to lose weight and it was also a "trendy" thing to do. I had no idea on how to eat right and didn't really think much about the health portion of it...I liked animals and wanted to be pencil thin. :rolleyes: It only lasted a year and I felt horrible. When I stopped eating animal products this time, it was with more information and much better reasons! I even saw a nutritionist and am on the right track now. I don't feel bad for when I ate meat because it is an evolution and it also gives me hope that today's meat eating friends and family of mine may also realize what they are doing and stop!

Someone recently asked me how long I have been vegan. I just answered, "Since I researched what happens to the animals before I eat them." We can't do better than that, so congratulate yourself for what you are doing today!

[Suedehead]

I was a blinkered veggie!