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View Full Version : Why weren't you vegan before you became vegan?



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Blueshark
Dec 8th, 2005, 09:15 PM
I was ignorant, complacent, then in denial and then I confronted the truth and was free.

peaches22
Dec 8th, 2005, 09:54 PM
First, I was too young. Then, my controling mother wouldn't let me. Then, I moved in with my dad, and I became vegetarian, then vegan.

Cherry
Dec 8th, 2005, 10:39 PM
I was kidding myself that there was no suffering involved.

I was talking about people eating meat and not being 'enlightened' to some vegetarian friends. One of them casually said "I guess that's how vegans feel about vegetarians" and I realised how blinkered I had been.

I was lucky enough to live in a vegetarian only house at the time. Had I lived where I do now I probably wouldn't have been having those sorts of conversations.

Lily
Dec 8th, 2005, 11:28 PM
I can relate to all the reasons given above.

I can't quite believe I remained so ignorant for so long. I wish someone had enlightened me years ago - I know I would have listened.

xwitchymagicx
Dec 9th, 2005, 03:23 AM
I don't think I've replied to this - :confused:

Well I was too young when I first thought veganism was good at about 7 maybe, then I became a vegetarian for lent i think a few years back, then I stopped drinking much milk or anything, then i went vegan, turned back vegetarian for reasons of my own then vegan again. ;)

Pilaf
Dec 11th, 2005, 04:21 AM
I didn't know any better...I grew up being lied to.

eclectic_one
Dec 13th, 2005, 08:22 PM
I know I'm probably a "wuss" or something, but I've never been able to stomach watching something like "meet your meat." I became mostly vegetarian after just hearing about how animals were treated and, as many of you stated, thought that dairy and eggs were OK because no animal died. Well, I should say that I was in denial about dairy and eggs since I had seen part of a news show that showed the rotten eggs and male chicks being squished (actually, on the special, the chick they showed was "missed" by the crusher thing:eek: ) and my uncle, who used to work in the Agriculture Department tried to tell me about the dairy industry--though he was trying to convince me that being a vegetarian was useless. Then I stopped eating even occasional fish after seeing Finding Nemo. Finally, after my mom's cardiac bypass surgery, I started reading about diet and found The China Study, which outlines how dairy is actually at least as culpable in disease as meat and eggs: that being vegan is the healthiest way to be. Once I started reading, I lost my denial about how the dairy industry treats cows and how it does end up in cows being killed--once their milk production stops and their male calves--as well as the egg and honey industries. So I was in denial and now I'm not and I feel much better about it:D

Zandi
Dec 16th, 2005, 06:19 AM
That's so true about denial! I figured to research the dairy industry would leave me with nothing to eat...so I pretended nothing happens to dairy cows and the chicks from hen houses.

I keep seeing people post about The China Study. I'm going to have to look that up!

Skajen
Dec 16th, 2005, 11:35 AM
:) i was thinking about this the other day, because i remember when i was 14 slagging off a friend for being veggie, saying it wasn't natural etc, because of what i'd been told by family. i feel awful thinking back and i think the main reason is ignorance. then i became veggie from 15 and had been one for 6 years. i wasn't aware of what really went on, if i'd seen pictures and was fully aware i'd have been vegan sooner. i've only just become vegan (4 months) and i wouldn't go back, i know too much now. i feel so bad that i wasn't vegan for longer. i want to raise any children i have as vegan so they can be enlightened from birth :)

Jane M
Dec 19th, 2005, 08:50 PM
Sylkan I am so glad you brought that up. I am a type O and my homeopathic doctor (who is vegetenarian btw) insisted I give up my vegan ways and eat meat. All based on this book about blood types!

I really have never liked meats at all. At first with me it was not because of animal cruelty...sorry to say. I grew up on a farm and my parents raised and slaughtered animals regularly...it had been that way for their parents and so on for as far back as anyone could remember. For some reason though I always gravitated to the veggies and would not eat meat unless forced to...it just seemed to hurt me. Back then I didn't even know such a thing as vegan even existed..ignorance. I was to young to realize that there were other ways of living in harmony with nature and myself.

I was very excited and happy to find that there were others like me as I continued to grow and learn. Or I should say I am because I am still growing and learning. There is a wealth of resources now it seems and no reason I can see to eat meat or hurt an animal for my own pleasure.

BTW now I am looking for a new homeopathic doctor.

englishvegoboi
Dec 19th, 2005, 10:32 PM
[QUOTE=Jane M] I am a type O and my homeopathic doctor (who is vegetenarian btw) insisted I give up my vegan ways and eat meat. All based on this book about blood types!

There is a lot of controversy about the blood type diet so I wouldn't be overly concerned.:D

VeganLiz
Dec 24th, 2005, 03:19 PM
I went vegan at 20 when I met vegans at university who showed me vegetarianism wasn't friendly to animals. Before that i didn't even know calves were taken from their mothers and killed so we could drink milk!

Liz

Suedehead
Dec 31st, 2005, 12:48 AM
I went vegan at 20 when I met vegans at university who showed me vegetarianism wasn't friendly to animals. Before that i didn't even know calves were taken from their mothers and killed so we could drink milk!

Liz
That's the frustrating thing kids (& even teenagers) are shielded from so much.
For instance, would they really continue to eat those gooey sweets, such as cola bottles, if they knew they contained boiled down animal remains? :(
Or if they were made aware that farms are nolonger like those shown in childrens story books - perhaps they'd all stop eating animals! ;)

Morna
Jan 18th, 2006, 12:29 PM
At first, I didn't think I had the willpower, and it took me a while to shake off the "you need eggs and dairy" conditioning. Once I researched the nutrition, and found out that hypoglycemics can do fine on a vegan diet, there wasn't any other choice to make. It was only afterward that I found out, thanks to yummy subsitute products, I can still have all my old favorites.

Purity
Jan 19th, 2006, 11:25 AM
I became vegetarian at 13, as soon as I really became aware of the connection between a sheep in a field and the lamb on my plate. I always thought being vegan would be too hard, and I never thought to research the dairy industry (assuming that because the animals didn't die, it would be ok).

It was only just before Christmas that I finally did a bit more research and realised what a fool I'd been all these years. I can only equate it to a religious experience, I feel like I've been enlightened, and now I can never go back. I don't crave any dairy products at all, becoming vegan has been the easiest transistion I could have imagined. I'm just ashamed I buried my head in the sand for so long, and didn't do it sooner.

princessemma
Jan 22nd, 2006, 07:29 PM
I 'realised' at about age 7 someting wasn't right about meat, but I didn't know about vegetarians and thought I just had to eat meat. At 13 I went vegetarian. When I met my husband he ate meat, but turned veggie just a few months later. He said my just not eating meat was enough to make him realise he didn't want to eat it either.
We went vegan a couple of months ago.
Up untill recently I thought cows just made milk anyway, I had no idea that they are constantly inpregnated duh!!! Then a couple of years ago I met an animal rights activist and I went on a few demo's with him. He told me he was vegan and when I realised the truth I was horrified but too lazy to change my habits. Then I went to a local vegan food fayre run by the activist I just mentioned. The food was delicious and my husband and I realised once and for all we had absoultely no excuses. We started eating more and more vegan meals, swapped our milk, yoghurts etc and we are almost vegan. I say almost because we still have some leather belts and shoes that we can't afford to throw out. I also use sudocream on my daughter and I recently had a steriod injection when my hand siezed up with arthritis.

VeganMoominGirl
Feb 5th, 2006, 09:15 PM
I was vegetarian for many years, then began to eat organic meats when I visited my parents - they live in a rural area and it felt good to support the farming families, many of whom are passionate about making changes. I went along like this for some years until it became impossible to continue kidding myself that organic farms are happy, fun-filled earth-bound answers to Arcadia. I don't think that all meat is categorically murder. I do however think that all the meat commercially available to us at the present certainly is, organic or not.

seanymph
Feb 5th, 2006, 10:15 PM
Its difficult to be direct when it comes down to why or why we shouldnt eat meat. Guess meat producing is an industry where farmers make profit as they have bein doing for generations. Consumers think meat and other animal products are vital for health and cheaper then vegan products apparently.... The debate between reformists and activists is endless.

At the the end of the day animals have us vegans and veges if they didnt i can imagine there will more reduced numbers of endangered animals out there.

Its easier to cope with animal suffering if you are surrounded by at leat one vegan friend, coz when your not i guess it drives you insane.

Romac
Mar 1st, 2006, 12:21 PM
sometimes i ask myself the question you've asked above - Why aren't these people vegan? They're intelligent, educated, opinionated. What is happening?

i've been vegan for about 3 weeks...before that i was washing down my bacon sandwiches with meatshakes

the catalyst? one accidental viewing of "meet your meat" the decision was instant

but here i am - 36, intelligent, well-read, relatively liberal, and most of all compassionate...so what the hell took me so long? Answer - the information was never placed in front of me and i never sought it out...simple as that really.

The issue never gets any positive or constructive media coverage, so people are walking around in the world open to the idea (like myself) but never make the change because the information never finds it's way into their laps.

I even have 3 friends who are Vegan, but they've always avoided the subject like the plague. Now they're kicking themselves in the nuts wondering if they could have converted me years ago.

I'm wondering the same thing. I really don't know if a verbal discussion of the issue would have converted me, and i kind of doubt it. Verbal discussions with me are often objective, distant, logical discussions of abstract concepts. And when things get argumentative, people sometimes feel entrenched, lose objectivity, and take up the opposing arguments like they were actually their own...when really they aren't...they're more-or-less playing devil's advocate, but don't recognize it because they're being defensive.

Now a verbal discussion of the issue and a followup email with some links to online information would have probably convinced me.

Anyhow it's an interesting study, because we all know damn well that there's a whole world full of compassionate, intelligent meat eaters out there that would be willing to go vegan if only we could figure out how to present the information to them.

FR
Mar 1st, 2006, 12:45 PM
I’d say complete ignorance on my part. I did not think about what I was eating too much, although I was picky as all hell. The first 18 years of my life I ate the same things over and over pretty much. Then I went lacto-vegetarian (eeeew, gross, I know), again still being ignorant. Then all of the sudden I woke up a little over six years ago and stopped eating that crap, too. After becoming vegan, I began consuming a much larger variety of foods and eating has never been easier. We have thousands of choices and are the most creative eaters in the world.

laurin
Mar 9th, 2006, 12:51 AM
It really is a lack of information, within our society. If people don't know about it then how can they make a conscientious decision on where they stand in the issue.


When you're growing up, nobody informs you that the meat you just ate has steroids in it, or the detergent you put in your washing machine is not only bad for the enviroment but at the expense of a living, breathing animal.

Cairidh
Mar 27th, 2006, 03:54 AM
I ate meat because I didn't know it was a dead animal. I was a bit thick. I never once made the connection between the food "lamb" and the animal "lamb". Or "chicken leg" and "the leg of a chicken".

I knew fish was dead fish so I wouldn't eat it. I knew seafood was living creatures so I wouldn't eat any, was horrified at the idea of eating mussells etc.

I ate eggs and milk for 2 years after I became vegetarian because I didn't know there was anything wrong with them. You don't kill the cow or the hen to get them so I couldn't understand why people were vegan. I had read the Enid Blyton farm books endlessly when I was little so I thought cows and hens lived cosy happy lives and the calves drank their share of the milk, and the farmer took the rest by hand. Somebody told me that the cows want to be milked, and if they're not, the weight of the milk is uncomfortable to them, and they come to the milking parlous and moo and complain until they're milked.

Soon as I read the vegan literature, telling the truth about milk and eggs I stopped consuming them.

Most people, meateaters and vegetarians alike, genuinely don't know.

Korn
Mar 27th, 2006, 06:08 AM
True, and maybe even more important: many people who knows, just don't focus on these things. Maybe they are vegan/vegetarian for a while, but then they get a new girlfriend or move to another city or don't have time to teach themselves how to make tasty veg*n food, and just lose focus. They know what they need to know, they feel it's wrong, but consciously or unconsciously don't focus on what they know and what they feel is right.

Haniska
Mar 27th, 2006, 02:03 PM
[quote=kriz]


5, I was a vegetarian for a few years... I didn't feel good... and my
doctor told me to start eating fish.

quote]

The one I really hate is "I used to be vegan but I got really sick and my doctor told me to start eating meat."

When I ask why they got so sick they say "Oh, well actually I wasn't really eating anything. I was an anorexic teenager."

Shockingly I have heard this one 2-3 times.

Well, to be honest I have had the same problem, which is probably why it bothers me so much:p but I have gotten past it and I wish others would too rather than tell people that veganism made them sick. I certainly never told others that.

Haniska
Mar 27th, 2006, 02:15 PM
Anyway then I bought this book about all different sorts of animal cruelty and found otu the whole deal with eggs, milk, wool, and everything else. And I told my mum I wanted to go vegan and she said it was unhealthy and that I had to wait till I was 16 at which point I could do what I liked as she was no longer responsible. So I persuaded her that I could at least give up eggs, and I gave up eggs, wool, and all other sorts of animal products- till I turned 16 and then I gave up dairy too, and became a vegan.

So the initial reason was ignorance, and then parental pressure not to.

When I was 14 I read about how they keep chickens in little cages and clip their beaks. I clearly remember walking with my mom in the super market and somehow the subject came up and she totally degraded me to the point that I cried. Like I just had the most ridiculous ideas. I didn't become vegan until I was 17 (different situation, more idependent at the time) at which point my mom went out and bought me all kinds of icecream and muffin mixes which took milk. All of which remained untouched:D

One more before I go:D Hehehehehe