thanks tish i did i made sure i knew what i was doing befor i acted i didnt want to get a couple of days into it and give up because i found it hard or didnt know what to eat other than just veggies and fruit
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thanks tish i did i made sure i knew what i was doing befor i acted i didnt want to get a couple of days into it and give up because i found it hard or didnt know what to eat other than just veggies and fruit
The wife and I had been vegetarians for fifteen years, then we went to a farm animal sanctuary and learned the connection between dairy products and animal suffering, we left as vegans, the only words spoken were when I said to her "we're done" and she agreed.
Music.
I'd been veggie since i was about 14 (Morrissey was a huge influence on my teenage years) which was difficult enough living at home with my carnivorous parents so when i left for uni it took me about 3 months to go vegan. by this time i was listening Crass and Conflict and that whole anarcho punk scene really influenced me. I was at home for the christmas break and ended up in the local library (pre-internet days!) reading a copy of The Vegan. My new years resolution was to become vegan. that was 18 years ago and i've never regretted it. I've been out wih omnis, veggies and vegans, made my own vegan cheeze (never again - ick) and have seen the options for us open up so much - dairy free pizza in a restaurant? yes please!
The one thing i think i love most is learning how to cook really good food without relying on ready meals and crap like that.
I could never go back. I love everything about being vegan. Yay! x
^ I did it as a newyears resolution too :)
I was veggie for about 14 years then went vegan about 9 (I think) years ago. I so wish people around me had shown me vids like earthlings when I was a kid, I'd have gone vegan sooner. It's like there is a conspiracy of scilence to not tell us what really goes on till we are so habituated that we don't think so much. Like others here say...I'll never go back, never.
Definitely! Big business certainly pushes its agenda with ads that convince parents that meat, dairy, etc. is essential to the health of their kids, and then (somewhat understandably) parents think that they need to protect their kids from the brutality and cruelty (in factory farms) that is seen as necessary to provide people healthy diets. And many children, even without viewing footage, etc., when they learn where meat comes from, want to stop eating it, but their parents force them because they think vegan diets are risky. :(
I saw a movie with Natalie Portman and then read her biography to know more about her. It was then that I saw the first time the world vegan and started researching about it.
Mine ...
I often mentioned on a forum that I used to frequent that one of the benefits of being a vegetarian is that you seem to get a 'clearer' mind.
A vegan there told me that he recognised this as being true from when he had become vegetarian and that when he became vegan he got pretty much the same difference in clarity of mind again.
Upshot: I knocked all the dairy and eggs and on the head that very day and have never touched either since.
I'm still as thick as two short planks, obviously, but that fact is now definitely clearer in my mind.
I read The China Study and went from there onto other web sites, etc. The funny thing is I was vegetarian for 16 years, got gluten intolerance, and was told by my doctor to go back to eating meat. Got more and more ill until I decided that enough was enough and went vegan. Haven't felt this good in years! Plus, I've dropped 11 pounds since I went vegan in August 2010.
I always used to say as a child that 'when I grew older' I'd be veggie, but my mum would just be like "yeah, whatever." During my teen years I didn't really think much about it, especially considering that I come from Spain, a country where there are hardly any vegetarians, let alone vegans.
It wasn't until I went to uni in London (I was 19) that it downed on me. I had just started listening to Moby and his music really got to me, so I began reading about him and found out that he's vegan. Then I started reading about the reasons why he's vegan, and went on to other websites. After half an hour, I decided to become vegan myself, just like that. I didn't even have a last non-vegan meal, I just couldn't face the prospect of ever eating any meat, or any animal products, ever again. I've been a vegan ever since (it's been more than a year).
It was very difficult for me to make my parents (particularly my mother) understand my decision and in fact she was very angry at me for a while. Now they're both OK with it and I have never been happier or felt better about myself.
Going vegan was the best decision I've ever made!
(Excellent name, Bowie!)
Even while being vegetarian I never wore animal stuff, never used cosmetics or products with it in. Basically, for me, it was just a matter of giving up cheese and milk.
The first time I tried to go vegan I didn't stick at it, but for some reason, I've found it much easier this time.
When I was a teenager, I was a huge fan of a musician named Melanie (Safka); I still like her in fact. Anyway, in 1970, for my birthday, my mother got me and my best friend tickets to Melanie's concert at Carnegie Hall. One the songs she performed was called 'I Don't Eat Animals' . I just found it touching and, of course, since I think I really wanted to be Melanie, if she didn't eat animals, then I sure as heck wasn't going to either...and I haven't. Unfortunately, I think Melanie wasn't actually in it for the long haul as I was. It's still a good song though.
I started out as vegetarian a year and a half ago, I had been thinking about trying it for health reasons when a day or two later there was a news article online with a video about how the male chicks are separated from the female ones and thrown into a grinder.. it made me cry when I saw it and so when it was time to go shopping I left all the meat and eggs out and bought soy milk instead of regular milk... I was still eating a limited amount of cheese though or things like cookies or chocolate that had egg or milk as an ingredient.. then one day I was on the Mercy For Animals website and saw a video that showed the cows being tied up and having their tails and their horns cut off and again I was in tears....I realized that these beautiful animals did not need to go through this for me to eat a few bites of cheese.. and how any dairy product comes from the little calves being taken away from their mothers and that was it..its been a few days and so far so good :)
There was a topic on a different board in a miscellaneous section a few years ago about PETA. As the majority of the people posting were simply saying how much they hated PETA, I wanted to post from the opposing point of view of pro-animal rights. So I did some research on experimentation on animals in medicine. From that, I learned of the unnecessary treatment animals received and how blind most people in society were towards them, including the educated and those that were not supposed to be.
I was vegetarian for the next three years before I became vegan two/three years ago.
During Easter (It think it was Easter Sunday) 2008 I was watching Terminator the Sarah Connor Chronicles and after it finished decided to have a look at the series on IMDB, to look at the goofs/trivia about the show.
Anyway I was reading throught the cast biographies and read that Thomas Dekker the guy who plays John Connor was Vegan. As a meat munching omnivore I thought "Who the frigg would want to be Vegan, what bloody fool would do that?". So I decided to look into Veganism, 30 minuted later I decided to become a Vegan and spent most of the night and the next few weeks researching it.
I stopped eating all Meat/Fish straight away and spent the next 2-3 weeks using up all the dairy/egg/non-vegan products that I had in the house (because of the time of year I had loads of Chocolate in the house). After that was gone I was fully Vegan. I found the actual transition really easy (partly because being diabetic has given me loads of will power).
The only thing that concerned my family was that I'm already Diabectic (which means that I have a restricted diet) and they were worried about restriciting it even more by cutting out all animal products, but I decided to do it anyway and I'm glad I did - I dont feel that I've restricted my diet at all.
I went to see my GP to get his opinion (to appease my family) and he actually recommended it as it means having a diet rich in nutrients and complex carbohydrates.
In a few weeks I will have been Vegan for about 3 years and I think its one of the best things that I have ever done.
Well done Firestorm! If you don't mind my asking, have you found eating vegan helpful for managing your diabetes, in fact?
I was always reluctant to go vegan, but when I was about 40, I needed to change my health and eating habits. I started off gradually with the vegetarian diet. I started off with breakfast. I found that eliminating breakfast meats and implementing Fruit Protein Shakes started making a difference. Then I just gradually kept moving forward. Over the next few months,i could not believe how much better my body felt. :)
Thanks Firestorm - I would be interested, but there's no hurry (and no obligation to answer at all of course!).
I have found that becoming Vegan has helped in certain ways and had less effect in others.
A lot of the time I have not changed what I eat (most people have misconceptions of Vegans eating Wheat Grass and Mung Bean Dahl), just the source for example I used to eat Chicken sandwiches I now have “Chicken” sandwiches so that has had very little effect on my glucose control.
What I have found is that on the rare occasions when I do eat things such as a veg curry with rice or lentil casserole my glucose control is generally better. Usually I need something sweet after a meal such as an Alpro dessert or a bowl of custard with Soya milk but when I eat foods with a good level of complex carbs that is quite low GI (such as a veg curry), my glucose stays stable without the need for a dessert.
That notwithstanding I’d rather just have my usual food with a dessert.
What I have also found helpful in controlling my diabetes is that a lot of Vegan products contain less sugar than non Vegan products (such as Soya milk Vs Cows milk) which again helps keep my glucose stable.
The next way that I have found being Vegan helpful is that after becoming Vegan I then discovered Raw food, I don’t eat a lot of Raw food because it’s expensive and some of it tastes bad, but I have found things like Nakd bars helpful as a snack when I want something that is healthy with complex carbs and not full of syrups, the Trek protein bars I have found equally good for post swim snacks and products such as Booja Booja stuff in a tub make a great snack when I don’t want my glucose shooting up.
I usually try and stay healthy most of the time but every Saturday I increase my insulin and have 2 bars of chocolate after my evening meal as a treat – I try to make one of these a raw chocolate bar as they have a far lesser effect on blood sugar.
Without going Vegan I would not have found these products.
I would say that the most important way that it has helped is that I have become a lot more relaxed and sensible with my diet, when I first became diabetic I was so scared of my glucose increasing I would not eat anything between meals – even a single grape.
I then became a bit more relaxed but only when eating out (I would eat what I want – Starter, Mains, Dessert and end up with high glucose).
Since becoming vegan this has all changed, I am more relaxed about food in general and eat a lot more than I used to – especially snacks between meals and treats, but I don’t stuff myself in restaurants (because of the animal contents in desserts/starters) which means I have better glucose control when I eat out and I stick to having desserts/treats that I have made at home so I know how much sugar is in them.
And the obvious way that it has helped with diabetes is that I am supposed to stay healthy and watch my cholesterol, which is a lot easier to do being Vegan as there is no cholesterol in Vegan food.
Sorry if this is not much use, but this is how I feel that being vegan has helped – mostly through my attitude to food and the knowledge it has given me and the actual food itself to a lesser extent.
I was introduced to it by my current partner.
Was always told the food would be bland, you would never get enough nutrition if your active and a bunch of other stuff that I now know is not true. It was actually quite a system shock as I am South African and traditionally our meat based protein intake is rather high. Yes we love our steak and biltong...
Not only am I enjoying the cooking and baking like crazy (and she doesnt mind either ha ha), but I have never had more energy or felt so alert and able to push my body further than I have been able to before.
It is definitely the second most important spontaneous thing I have done in my life. I say its spontaneous because I really did not know too much about it and she is still teaching me every day.
-edit- Have been Vegan completely since November 2010
Hi, I'm new to the forum!
Basically I've decided to go vegan for a number of reasons (only started today). I've been an on-off veggie for a while at different stages in my life. When I lived at uni or on my own it was very easy for me to be vegetarian as I was just catering for myself... however at home was always a different story!
I've always loved animals and kept pets. One of the defining moments for me was when my dad passed a year ago, my springer spaniel Ruby wouldn't leave his side when he was dying - it just broke my heart that an animal can have such unconditional love and we often take this for granted in the choices that we make.
Anyway my reason for going vegan now alongside ethics of the food industry is the number of health issues I've had recently with my digestion. When I eat protein I end up in real pain, so this has boosted me into sorting out my diet. I've recently emigrated from the UK to New Zealand, so I'm seeing it as a whole new lifestyle change... hopefully for the better!
@ Azure- your partner sounds AWESOME
Thank you very much for your detailed answer, Firestorm - very interesting to hear your experiences and I'm sure it will be helpful to others, as people ask about diabetes and veganism now and then. (I guess they are usually asking about type II diabetes whereas it sounds as if you have type I but the principles of glucose control are probably similar?).
It's great that being vegan has allowed you to relax a bit while still keeping things under control.
@ DiaShel
Oh my partner is the best in the world. Cannot even begin to think where to start to ask for anyone better!
Hi
I do have Type I but I think glucose control is different for Type II and III, because I use Insulin its easy to have more or less depending upon what I'm eating and doing, the only restriction is I have to wait a minimum of 4 hours between meals. I have a colleague who is Type II and she has to have tablets at certain times and cannot increase her meds when she needs to so I think there are differences but I only really know about Type I.
It's great that being vegan has allowed you to relax a bit while still keeping things under control.
For me it was a combination of both. I've come across some articles and I've read a lot about it, because I began to be interested in it. Then I decided to go veggie. I wasn't completely sure about me becoming a vegan, but it happened after I thought about it better and after I've read more about the dairy industry and after I've watched some documentaries. And now that's it :-). I'm so glad I made this change.
my cousin was a big influence to become vegetarian and a friend that is a Buddhist monk convinced me to become vegan when he showed me a documentary call earthlings plus listening to dead prez and some straight edge bands like youth of today...
I became a Buddhist Monk and thus a vow of no meat, eggs, dairy products or animal products. Fifteen years later I returned to the USA and was invited to a dinner where all things I no longer ate were served. As I once ate all of those things I thought no big deal and I enjoyed my dinner. I can not express how ill I was the next day and decided to stick to my diet.
When I was 12 years old, I found out that my ham used to be a pig, and I didn't understand why I was eating it. I told my mom that I didn't want to eat animals. So I didn't. That's my vegetarian story.
I became vegan 10 years later, when I read that cow's milk was meant to be for the calve. At the time, I had assumed that cows, as a species, produced milk... it was just what they did. After I found out the truth, it felt completely unnatural to drink milk, or eat milk products.
Add in the moral, and environmental reasons ---
Simply----there is no reason to eat meat, milk or eggs.
Eventually I learned my diet was healthy, and could prevent cancer cell growth, and heart disease.. and I never looked back.
"I love animals. I don't want them to die. I don't need to eat animals to live. So why would I?"
I used to work in a juice bar and half of its staff were vegan or vegetarian. I gave up all animal products for a month but didn't last further. But after watching Earthlings I have now decided to go cold turkey and change for the better. I have been going strong for two days now and have barely any cravings or wants to go back. Eating Vegan will do my health so much better and I am glad I can help the environment and the animals.
When I was 12 a teaching assistant in high school had a t-shirt with something along the lines of "I don't eat anything that had a face", I spent half of the class talking with her and attempting to convince her that she was being silly, she was never once aggressive and didn't criticise me at all. I don't remember what I actually said to her while trying to debate with her but I felt very sure of myself while talking with her, likely because I was too arrogant to accept something which would make me look foolish.
Not until I got home and started thinking about it myself did I decide that I'd never eat meat again, she never even presented any arguements, all she did was explain her own reasons which weren't even ones I particularly shared but it was enough to make me think the subject and actually come to my choices rather than carry on accepting what my parents chose and what I was 'brought up' with.
I wish I could thank her but I never saw her again, she was a 'temp' and the usual one came back the following day. While I've no doubt that I'd have come to veganism anyway she certainly helped me speed up the process and I'm grateful for that.
I didn't finally cut out other animal products entirely until 6 years later and it's the biggest regret I have concerning my past, I have absolutely no explanation for it other than ignorance and then later apathy and routine.
I went vegan after talking for the first time with another vegetarian and explanined why I didn't eat meat, while explaning I realised that it was ridiculous for me to still be eating other animal products and I decided to stop it right there mid sentence. I had already stopped using other animal products years ago, I'd always cringe and feel dirty when touching leather for example.
An early experience that did not result in a real change then and there was when a relative had chicken legs for dinner. That prompted some questioning from me, but I suppose I had no way of understanding that they would be quite so ignorant or dishonest about it.
Later as a more independent individual, I learned from many sources about the environmental hazards of producing animal protein. This was the key motivation for me, so literally one day I stopped flesh consumption. Still after a few years, I knew no vegetarians or vegans personally. While I thought veganism to be a good principle, it took me two to three years to remove all animal product consumption.
Back then, veganism was somewhat difficult when you look at it objectively. This has changed for the better. I've also become better at cooking.
i went vegan overnight. i didn't have any food in my fridge anyway (student) so i just went out the next day and bought soya yogurt and nutritional yeast etc etc. i already used soya milk and soya spread so it was a pretty easy transition.
I was raised by your 'normal' meat eating type of family and loved the taste of it. I had a couple of vegan friends when i was about 19 and was quite interested in why they were vegan but i wasn't enough to 'turn' me :)
Then one day when I was 22 I had a chicken to prepare for dinner. I'd never bought a whole chicken before as I usually just got fillets, but I got this one free from a supermarket after spending more than £50.
So I started cleaning the chicken and held it under its wings under the tap - and then i just freaked out. To me it felt far to much like i was holding a baby and I burst into tears.
Within 2 months of that I became a vegetarian.
I was fairly happy with being veggie and after 7 years I met some more vegans who got me thinking about it, and I also happened to watch Earthlings - That was it, I became vegan pretty much straight away after that which was 5 months ago now.
I was a vegetarian for years (I stopped eating meat in 2002). Always had a huge interest in animal rights and animal rights theory, but never really got to a point where I decided to finally be a vegan. Then I read Eating Animals from Jonathan Safran Foer, which somehow made the trick.
If you had told me in November of 2010 that I would shortly go vegan and remain committed, I would have told you you were crazy. Like most of the meat eating world, I thought vegans were extremists and unhealthy. I barely knew what vegan meant let alone how to pronounce it. A coworker one day was complaining about her "vegan" relatives and she couldnt understand their viewpoint and I remember asking if that was how you pronounced vegan. That was the first time I had heard it spoken. I knew about vegetarianism and even dabbled in that many years ago but the fact that they ate dairy and eggs confused me and I didnt fully understand it. Around this time, I was healing from a long and difficult eating disorder (anorexia nervosa) triggered by a traumatic hysterectomy and loss of both ovaries in 2005 and hormonal changes that turned my life upside down. My third recovery in 2010 (the only one I embraced by choice) included a spiritual approach. I began to explore not only my own relationship to my body and food and what happened to me, but to explore the larger world around me and why the culture I live in has such a disordered relationship with food, body, spirit and why we embrace a culture of violence even in medical treatments. I began to think about world hunger and in turn began to research more about where my food came from. I read Michael Pollen's "The Omnivores Dilemna". I am not a huge fan of him, but he brought to me important points I had not thought about, and I was introduced to what veganism through his book. I found that I was disagreeing with Michael Pollens anti vegan arguments and found myself aligning with vegan views. I explored veganism a little further and everything made such sense I was so profoundly affected. I was utterly appalled at our treatment of other species (let alone each other). I explored carnism and abolitionist vegan approach, not just animal welfare. I explored issues such as world health, hunger, population, environmental sustainability and attitudes and cultures of violence and sexism versus peace and so on. I really examined my diet and realized that a lot of the food I was already eating was naturallly vegan...lentils, beans, oats, lots of fruits and vegetables, plant milks. For years I was lactose intolerant (gas, diarrhea, mucus production) and not a fan of cheese at all. I was never a huge meat eater (easily grossed out and always deep inside an uneasy feeling preparing it) although I did consume a ton of fish and eggs. I realized how easy it would be for me to veganize my life. Everything just clicked. After my short introduction and research period, I took exactly one week to transition. I went cold turkey but that one week I only consumed yogurt as that was the one thing I struggled with giving up. But it is such a little thing in the face of what I know. On February 27, 2011 I finished my last container of yogurt and committed to being a full vegan and I have never looked back or craved meat, dairy, eggs, honey, etc ever. Within the month of March 2011 I got rid of all my animal derived cleaning supplies, toiletries, clothing (suede, leather shoes, wool socks, silk blouses and scarves, down feather coats, etc), even my hairspray. Who needs that shit anyway? I have never worn makeup (except my sisters wedding and dance performances on stage over twenty years ago) so that was not a problem. I am highly sensitive and intolerant to most perfume and cologne (I have actually wretched and get nausea when I am standing near someone with it on). I donated all that stuff to others and brought the cleaning supplies/some toiletries to a local waste management facility for proper disposal. I now make my own laundry detergent, shampoo, window cleaner etc and buy animal free non animal tested toothpaste. I also discovered I rarely needed the sunblock I use to lather on my body even though I spend a great deal of time outdoors biking in the summer. The few times I did need it (open water canoeing for long distances) I was able to find vegan sunblock. I was fortunately able to replace a lot of clothes and shoes because I acquired an inheritance. I simply could not stand the thought of continuing to use something that once was part of a sentient life that suffered horribly and gave up a part of itself for my comfort (and I fully understand what it is like to have part of your body taken from you, even if it's "just" an egg...I didnt wake up from my hysterectomy expecting both ovaries to be gone). Being vegan is like coming home to my spiritual, intellectual, emotional values and physically I just feel better. My energy level skyrocketed. I also feel more comfortable in the way I eat and I do not fear food the way I used to because I know that what I put in my body is healthy and I know where the majority of it comes from now. I pay attention to my choices and what I use. I also believe that had I gone vegan years ago when endometriosis invaded my abdominal area and started me on a path of hell for years, I would have been able to manage it far better and not had to sacrifice important female endocrine organs. In fact most alternative practitioners and even some mainstream ones recommend a plant based diet to treat endometriosis and other reproductive diseases. When you take meat and dairy out of your diet, you eliminate harmful hormones and chemicals that aggravate the disease. Unfortunately we live in a world that is drug and surgery happy and we can't even respect and love our own bodies, let alone appreciate the lives and meaning of other species.
I've been vegan a first time in 2008 for 8 months in a week time, the questionning came up through lectures, involvement in animal protection, etc... It didn't seem logical to me to only go vegetarian, (I'm very black or white)... However after 8 happy vegan months, this failed for various not good enough reasons (social/ circumstances mainly) *shame*...
Lately I felt very *SO* out of touch with my true values, nature and objectives, and as bombarded with "messages" from everywhere to return vegan... Now back on track and trying to extend from diet to whole lifestyle...
Gradually. Having become lacto-vegetarian a few years earlier, which in itself was not an overnight thing. That was sometime during the Spring of 1986 (when I was 19), whilst I later became vegan during the Autumn of 1989 (when I was 22). Neither decision was a consequence of anything in the media, less still any organisation (or the internet which was then but merely an idea in Mr Berners-Lee's brain). It was just part of a gradual process of dietary awareness that I first developed when I was 16. Some people experience an overnight - almost evangelical - conversion - but I always think that they are likely to be reversed just as quickly. For me any change to my diet or lifestyle tends to be slow and evolutionary, now that I am well into middle-age, slower even :lol: