Why weren't you vegan before you became vegan?

[Ginger]

I was vegetarian for many years before becomming vegan. In all honesty, I really had no idea about the dairy industry, which now seems unbelieveable. I really think it has everything to do with your upbringing. Many people probably don't realise how deep rooted the ideas they are fed as children are.
Tell someone something often enough and there's a good chance they will come to believe it? My initial interest in veganism came about when I read an article in the Observer magazine last January with Heather Mills. Much of what she said struck a chord with me and I decided to investigate further...
That same day I could no longer bear the thought of drinking milk, and now the rest is history.

[Jannan]

I went vegetarian on June 23, 2006(This is just an estimate...). I wasn't really thinking about veganism until, like...3 or 4 weeks after that? I thought that if I was vegan, then my life would be completely(Well...for the most part...we live in a cruel world...)cruelty-free. So, I went vegan on August 2, 2006. I was only vegetarian for about 40 days of my life. But, anyway...deciding to go vegan was pretty much the best decision I have ever made. :)

[vmomma]

it has been a journey for me. since very young i questioned what i was eating, so much, in fact my mother tells me she and my father had to be "very careful" how they answered my questions...i mean, what would they do with a vegatarian on their hands? (shudder the thought). i didn't like the taste for one thing, but it went way farther than that. even now i can't believe how parents lie to their children about where meat comes from...i was veggie on and off. loved cheese. since i have educated myself about the opiates in cheese because, well, newsflash, it ensures the nursing connection between mother and baby. i still nurse my son and that connection is so strong it is impossible for me to not think of and comprehend the suffering involved in the dairy industry. so, i read a lot. i tried vegan and felt very self conscous because i wasn't ready. i was also convince somehow i was going to do irreversible harm to myself nutitionally. then i found out i was lactose intolerant. my entire life i have hurt after i ate dairy. i was so ignorant of my body and what it was trying to tell me. that finally brought me to a very real place of evaluating my choices. now i am vegan, a month new but i know now for life.

[sugarmouse]

That was a great post, vmomma:)

I am sure I have answered this thread before. I made excuses sometimes, and thougth about convinience. I also beleived vegan was an extreme choice, I knew nothing about the alternatives available and knew nothing about the dairy industry.
Since educating myself, I know I will never return to being none-vegan, as much as i possibly can.

[triona.d.]

when i was a meat-eating child i was one of those disgusting people who said "we've been eating meat FOREVER - it's NATURAL!" i hate those people now - it may be natural, we may be at the top of the food chain but the POINT is that that means we have a RESPONSIBILITY to look after those under us, not a RIGHT to abuse that power....grrrr...it makes me SO angry. so i think it's just ignorance that people do what they do. and my mum, for example, knows that it's wrong but she just likes the taste and doesn't like the think about what she's eating - it's easy and she knows what to do with it and that's good enough for her. i LOVE being a vegan - i think i have a WONDERFULLY interesting and varied diet and i don't feel like i miss out on anything.
:)

[sjne01487]

I was like everyone else until I started campaigning in Norway. I didn't think about the suffering until a Norwegian animal rights group gave me a video. I gradually cut out meat and dairy products. When i met my Swedish wife I became vegan. I am English by the way.
Stan Johnson (England)

[Korn]

we may be at the top of the food chain The food chain theory is based on the assumption the because humans are capable of making tools, we're 'meant' to make weapons. Without those weapons (which are man-made, and therefore not 'natural' anyway), or the idea that since we should make weapons because we're capable of making them, we'd be under lions, crocodiles, sharks and tigers in that imaginary food chain! :)

[estlander]

Why weren't you vegan before you became vegan?
I wasn't a vegan because I wasn't raised this way, and in fact had never heard of anything like this. (like most meat-eaters today) How could one not eat the rotting flesh of another sentient being... oh wait, the question answered itself...
I first quit eating meat (at the age when people start to develop a "personality" and think abstract etc.) because it seemed totally inacceptable. And going vegan from there was a logical progression.

[piper]

I wasn't vegan before because I thought I "needed" to have the protein from meat, dairy and eggs.

[Iron Clad Ben]

I wasn't vegan before because I thought I "needed" to have the protein from meat, dairy and eggs.
Yeah pretty much same here. Typical propoganda about meat and dairy being good for you. Being an engineer, it makes so much sense. Animals eat plants and grains, let's just cut out the middle man. It's an improvement in so many ways!

I think it was just easier living in the meatrix, pretending it didn't matter. BTW http://www.meatrix.com/ hilariously awesome website to check out if you haven't yet.

I was vegetarian for 2 years but not vegan because I thought soy milk was gross and I liked cheese too much. I figured I was doing "enough" by being vegetarian. Now I'm like f*&# it, soy milk doesn't really taste any different and I can live without cheese. I'm really happy with my choice so far :)

[emamaly]

I became a vegetarian when I was 11. I never managed to switch to the vegan diet until I was 21. The main reason I wasn't a vegan was because I assumed my parents would not be willing to pay for the unique foods they were going to have to buy me to keep me healthy. I also thought being a vegan was very hard and was intimidated. :o

[inkedmiss]

I actually thought it would be so hard to give up not so much meat but the dairy from life that I kept stopping and starting. I so wish I had became vegan sooner because it has really not been difficult at all.
Vegan marg tastes the same, soya milk is actually nicer than cows milk and I never ate honey etc before anyway.

[flying plum]

when i became veggie, i wasn't really aware of the cruelty of the dairy and egg industries. but i slowly became aware, and realised that i did want to get rid of them in my diet. it took me longer though. i'm not really sure why - i suppose because milk doesn't 'look' as bad as half a sheep on your plate.

amanda

[emmy]

i really don't think non-vegans are ignorant. they wouldn't be so adverse to comments about where their food comes from and the suffering involved if they hadn't heard it before, or didn't want to 'spoil their meal' etc. this is probably more with the meat, rather than dairy, but that's probably because the terrors of the dairy industry aren't talked about as much (more veggies than vegans talking perhaps? i don't know).

don't get me wrong, i still don't think highly of them, but as someone already mentioned, only they can choose what they do, it can't be forced upon them. it's annoying though!

i only learnt what vegetarianism was when i was about 14. and that was in 1998, which is worrying - you'd think i'd have learnt. i was brought up on meat and dairy. i developed anorexia when i was 10 though, so i actually only ate fruit and veg for 5 years or so. i wouldn't touch dairy, and the only meat i did have was when i was forced to eat a family meal or some such. at 15 i was admitted into hospital, and put on a high calorie high meat high dairy diet. had i said i was vegetarian i would have been corrected to "no you're not, you're anorexic". vegetarian anorexics are accused of choosing that diet because it is a more acceptable 'excuse' to cutting out a food group. it's a shame that a lot of anorexics have turned vegetarian for this reason alone, because now doctors are very cynical about it. i spent from age 15 to 21 in and out of hospitals, including general wards, psych units and specialist eating disorder units. in a general ward i was lucky if i got fed (i can't begin to count the number of times i've heard "oh, she's anorexic, she won't want any breakfast" uttered by a nurse down the corridor - ha!), in a psych ward the last thing you really want to do is eat (too busy plotting escape! :D) and in an eating disorder unit you have no say over what you eat. in the last place i was in you could choose between a veggie or meat menu, but it was still full of dairy. for a lot of the time i couldn't either physically handle or emotionally face solid food, so i was 'fed' on dairy-based nutritional drinks instead (really creamy, milky...ugh). you're talking about 2 and a half quite large cups of the stuff 3 times a day, plus half a cup 3 times a day in between those. looking back, it's no wonder i struggled to heal with all that crap inside me.

i think a large part of the problem, especially in this case, is that the dieticians are taught in college that meat and dairy are healthy. i've never come across a veggie/vegan one, that's for sure, and i've seen a fair few in my time! i once was in an emergency ward after my heart had failed - i remember it so well - it was my 16th birthday and my dad had brought me some cards - and then this dietician walked in who must have been about 10 stone overweight, telling me what i was going to be eating the following day. i obviously had a look of sheer terror on my face at the size of HER (i don't have anything against large people, but as a terrified anorexic faced with the prospect of eating a diet that she recommends, it's not all that comforting!), because my dad took some of the food away for me. colluding, probably, but i'm not sure someone as blatantly unhealthy as her should be a practising nutritionist! anyway, the upshot of all that is that, when doctors and esp dieticians see meat and dairy as fine, this will be the message that keeps spreading in the "health" world. people have a strange amount of trust for medical people, i still haven't worked out why!

i instantly turned vegetarian when i left hospital last year. the last meat meal i ate was christmas dinner in hospital. i wanted to go vegan straight away, but since i'd just spent 5 months in hospital for a major episode, i didn't want to rock the boat too much. i was always thinking and reading about it though and i was gradually cutting down my dairy intake.

it was last july when i finally turned completely vegan. i met my now boyfriend, a veggie of 20 years and vegan of 6 years, and he helped me make the change. i asked him questions and when i knew the details, i immediately switched my diet. no gradual process, just bang. i wouldn't change that decision for anything. i am much calmer....i feel like a whole person now.

and the ironic thing is, that since i turned vegan i have only had one very minor slip up with my anorexia! take that, dieticians!!

sorry for the ramble :)

[scarlett]

wow, emmy, well done for coming through all that you've been through, I can't begin to imagine how tough it must have been.
I'm so glad to hear you feel much better, and it sounds like you have a wonderful boyfriend :)

[frank language]

I think actually it can be quite hard to eat a 100% vegan diet, depending on your lifestyle. My other half eats vegan food at home but when he's at work he sometimes has business lunches etc where it's difficult to get anything vegetarian to eat, never mind vegan. I work from home myself and only have to go to lunch-time meetings occasionally and when I do I just take my own food along, but I can see it could get awkward in a more conventional job.
Exactly; that's why my sister is a vegetarian who eats chicken "if she has to." She's an accountant who works from home, but when she travels it's so catch-as-catch-can, she just goes with the flow.

[healthyvegan]

I remember the weekend I became vegan. I went to a health seminar for 3 days. If I had known it was vegan (I didn't even know what that meant) I never would have went. I felt sorry for myself as soon as I found out and I wondered how I would make it through the weekend. I was sure I would be starving. These people were such extremists! Well they wined me and dined me and taught me. I have never been the same! I relized this was the way I really wanted to live I just had no idea it could be done, I had thought there would be soooooo little to eat. But I had never liked meat and I have always loved the healthy food. They showed me this was the ultimate healthy life style. I had actully thought I needed animal produts to be healthy. I try to remember the way I saw it when I talk to people about my lifestyle now.

[steven1222]

There are several reasons why I was not previously a vegan: (in no particular order)
-I was not aware of all of the problems with dairy products.
-I wanted to eat junk food that contained animal products.
-I did not know that there were vegan alternatives to some types of animal-based foodstuffs and cosmetics.
-My father is strongly in favor of using animal products, as a member of the conventional medical industry. He pays for almost everything I buy. He thinks veganism is unhealthy and too extreme. I hope he dies soon (for many reasons, including some that are not related to this)



Exactly; that's why my sister is a vegetarian who eats chicken "if she has to." She's an accountant who works from home, but when she travels it's so catch-as-catch-can, she just goes with the flow.
She is not a vegetarian. A real vegetarian would not eat poultry simply because that is what is available. I would rather starve than eat something that is not food. Animals are not food.

[Veganicity]

Because its easier to just shut the compassionate part of your brain up and just eat dairy. Well at least it seemed so, I'm a very shy person I hate the idea of making a fuss and having negative attention drawn to me :o. Being a vegan can be socially difficult hence I ignored the voice saying 'This is wrong' for as long as I could!

Then a dairy intolerance meant I was suddenly having to make a fuss anyway and I just thought what the hell lets give it a try. And I feel much better so there's no going back now is there? :D

Its a process isn't it - I'm really glad I'm now letting the nicer side of me talk a little louder and standing up for what I believe a little more rather then bending to the beliefs of those around me, for the sake of trying to be liked and accepted.

This probably makes very little sense I'm very sleepy! :D

[~*Sarah*~]

it probably took me so long because id been a vegetarian for so long (since i was 10) that i probably had gotten lazy and not found out the information... i felt that i was doing "enough" and that veganism would be "too hard".
plus my mum had always said it was too extreme and she was happy for me to be veggie but if i wanted to be vegan i would have to cook and buy all my own meals.
On my year out aged 18-19 was when i started to take more of an interest in being against cruelty and began boycotting cruel companies- stopped using makeup that was tested on animals etc. i wanted to go vegan but was badly addicted to cheese- funnily enough the idea of milk and eggs sickened me, but i would eat them in "disguised" forms.
It was only when i went to uni last year and was buying and cooking all my own meals that i thought instead of being a hypocrite and avoiding some products and not others i should do it properly. Funnily enough simple things triggered this- when reading the ingrediants on the back of a pizza or something from the co-op it mentioned "Eggs (from caged hens)". I knew all about battery hens and i was sickened. I knew i couldnt eat it, and i had to stop burying my head in the sand. So i got on the net, did a bit of research and here i am :) . Been vegan for most of this year now, and now im back home my mum is happy to cook me vegan foods although she does moan about it sometimes lol saying she never knows what to buy. I just wish i'd gone vegan sooner!

[wasteofbreath]

well veganism always seemed like such an abstract concept before i attempted it and honestly thought that it was something that only people with intense self-discipline could even achieve... i've still a newbie at it (only been 14 days ^^) and honestly i think it's one of the best thing that has ever happend to me and i can honestly say it hasn't even been that hard...

[cobweb]

i wasn't a vegan because i didn't know vegans existed til i met one and then i became one! :D

[frank language]

My father is strongly in favor of using animal products, as a member of the conventional medical industry. He pays for almost everything I buy. He thinks veganism is unhealthy and too extreme. I hope he dies soon (for many reasons, including some that are not related to this)
Well, is he in danger of dying soon? My dad died suddenly at the age of 56 after years of ill health--and I ended up worse off. Good luck.


She is not a vegetarian. A real vegetarian would not eat poultry simply because that is what is available. I would rather starve than eat something that is not food. Animals are not food.
In this world, you're a vegetarian if you say you are. She's even been a vegetarian "longer than you--so there!"

A lot of vegetarians I know are fish-chickatarians who wear leather and eat cheese; if they don't see a conflict in what they do, then who am I to tell them they're wrong? My sister is very successful and has lots of friends, any one of whom will back her up.

[cobweb]

steven1222 that's a fine and mature attitude to you have toward your father who pays you way for you :rolleyes:

[cruelkitti]

before i became a vegetarian, i wasn't exposed to it, i was raised in the mindset that "this is just how it is..." and then later discovered on my own that there is no "just how it is..." I now feel an urgent need to become vegan and am pretty nervous about the adjustment...That's another reason that i feel many people who agree that killing to eat when it is no longer necessary is wrong, but still don't make the change...it's just inconvenient...convenience holds alot of weight today...