How Old Were You....

[psychocandy]

Went veggie at 9 years old then vegan at 17 years.

[PinkLogik]

Vegetarian at 14 (nearly 15), lapsed when I was 17 (I'm not proud of it....), came to my senses again at 20 where I became vegetarian again, tried being vegan at this point too, but only lasted 3 weeks! Gave up eating eggs and things with eggs in when I turned 22. Decided on January 3rd 2003 that it was time to go vegan. Went vegan at age 26 (nearly 27).

[LittleMissVegan]

Went vegetarian at 14. Went vegan just after my 21st birthday- Best prezzie I could have given myself!!!

[Lyns]

First went veggie at 18. Relapsed then back to veggie last October. I went vegan 3 weeks ago at age 22.

[strawberry]

I first became vegetarian 2 years ago then developed anorexia so I started eating meat again. Then last year I became vegan! Best decision ever. I no longer feel bad when I eat. Animals are so important to me.

[StmpyElephant]

I've had a vegan diet since I was 19, although I'm conflicted in saying that since I ate soy yoghurt that had its culture raised on a dairy protein base. I cut the yoghurt out last year finally (it kept being in the fridge and I kept eating it) so perhaps my vegan diet really began at 20?

I also began to swap all my makeup, haircare and skincare products over to vegan at 19/20. I also stopped buying wool, leather etc.

The only anomaly in this is when I buy sports shoes for running. I have problem feet and I have to be fitted well because of this. I never buy Nike anymore and I ask for the most synthetic shoe, but sometimes that isn't the case. I'm not going to get worked up about this because it's only one thing and other shoes I plan on buying vegan when I'm going to need them. So this probably makes me a strict vegetarian rather than vegan.

I've started to see the big picture on other things, I know I do not want to support sweatshops so I'm going to have to try to find another place to buy tracksuit pants (is there anything not run by a corporation though?) and I don't go and buy clothes constantly as someone my age does. I know that we overuse resources and material esp. plastics cannot break down fast enough in the environment. This also conflicts me as while it is not fair to make an animal suffer, it also sucks that I'm buying something less 'natural' and not aiding the planet in digesting our waste.

[lil_miss_tashwa]

i was about 11/12 when i became veggie..16 i became vegan

[fakepaperdoll]

when i 7 we went on a school trip to the local farm and I remember being shocked at how the animals were kept so i came back and said to my parents Im not going to eat meat, i didnt eat meat for about 4years then my doctor forced meat on me . But I became vegan at 18...too long I know. All the time i did eat meat i felt guilty over it though, i hate my parents for forcing it on me and my doctor even more...

[ph63228]

bought up vegan by my parents, been 17 long years now and i have two lil brothers and a sis fully vegan as well

[saycheezly]

veggie at 9 much to parents horror then vegan at 20, causing them even more horrors.... am 28 now. And new here by the way, this is my first post

[greenworlds]

vegetarian 21,vegan 28.,
It's never to early or ever too late!

[stef]

Vegetarian 17
Vegan 33

[veganbikerboy]

went straight from omni to vegan when i was 21.

i was half way through a bacon, sausage and egg sarnie from a roadside cafe. made the decesion halfway through chucked the rest away and never looked back.

[piggy]

i went vegetarian at 12, more or less, and vegan last year. i still sometimes slip up, though

[tabitha]

I was vegetarian at 40 and then went vegan at 42.

[feral]

Vegetarian at 12/13 much to the dismay of my farming family.
Vegan at 34, much to the dismay of my vegetarian mum who's worried about my calcium intake .

[stef]

Vegetarian at 12/13 much to the dismay of my farming family.
Vegan at 34, much to the dismay of my vegetarian mum who's worried about my calcium intake .

Hi feral

Eat plenty of dark green vegetables....Kale, spinach, brocolli....tofu, almonds, fresh figs, seeds.......and you'll never have to worry about your calcium intake

love
stef

[feral]

Thanks stef, luckly I do lurve me dark green veg etc.

[saucyvegan]

Oh I thort this was going to be a rude thread!!!!

Erm ive been veggie for 20 years and vegan for 18 months only im afraid....but I got there in the end!

[DancingWillow]

Became a vegetarian at 14 and vegan at 21.

[Klutz]

I was never a vegetarian. I went vegan at age 30 during the lunar new year last year.

[veggiesosage]

Oh I thort this was going to be a rude thread!!!!

You've got a one track mind woman

[saucyvegan]

You've got a one track mind woman

Choo choo!!

[Juice]

I thought it was gonna be a naughty thread too. I'm sure I had a disappointed look on my face when seeing what it really was.

[tipsy]

i do have to say that i was also thinking this.... errrr..... ummmm...

one track mind for sure... especially with some vodka in my veins...

wheres that damned drunk thread when you need it??!?!?

[Enchantress]

Pescaterian from birth.
Gave up fish when I was about 11.
Vegan at 15.

[Yst]

I went vegetarian for about two weeks at the age of 19 before going vegan subsequently. I guess it didn't take me long to lose faith in the idea that merely not eating meat was morally sufficent. Have been vegan for the somewhere over five years since.

[the_red_star]

I became vegetarian at the age of 9. I was and have always been very strict but i have only been vegan for just over a year. It took me that long to realise i was vegetarian and the next logical step was to become vegan. After all, vegetarians are just vegans in waiting!

[veganashtangi]

Mostly vegetarian since I was 14 or so. I decided to make the transition to vegan about half a year ago (shortly before turning 22).

[~Lenore]

I volentarily stopped eating meat at age 9, when I really made the connection that it was a dead animal.
I never liked it anyway. I hated the taste and texture but my mom made me eat it. Then eventually she just gave up trying, I guess.
From 9 to 15 I was basically meatless with the exception of shrimp or tuna a couple times a year, and at 15 I decided to become 100% vegan.
I'm now almost 17 and have been going strong since.

[VeganGirl2006]

I just made the transition to vegan and I am 27.

[jennyL]

41

[Haniska]

I went vegetarian at 13, shortly after we bought chicken patties which turned out to be veal. I tried to go lacto-only at 15 or so. My concerned parents had me read up on vegetarianism and I read about how chickens are debeaked. My mom put me down for it in the middle of Giant and I cried. I guess I forgot about it after that because I don't remember having any qualms about eating eggs or anything later Oh shoot, actually I ate clams until my ex-boyfriend told me that they would escape predators; I was somwhere between 16-18. I became vegan at 18 after reading Susan Powter's "Food". Fruitarian at 19 in delight that I would not have to kill ANYTHING. Raw foodsish, then anorexic at 20. I moved back in with my dad, and at my depleted state made the decision to go back to omni. I actually thought it through and remembered that I never felt well and maybe I should eat meat. I occasionaly couldn't eat stuff with bones in it but for the most part I was happy to be part of the crowd. After 3 years of that I still didn't feel well. I thought about going on a diet one day and figured I should eat a veg diet. I was afraid because I associated that with my anorexia. Then one day my fiance and I were eating some farm fresh eggs and one had a "rooster's mark" on it. I felt so bad for that little chick who never got to live. I decided to give it a try and have been vegan since last August.

[hedgefire]

I went vegetarian by myself when I was 9, lapsed for a year when I was 12, then became vegetarian again. Am now vegan (aged 16).

[Kalia]

I decided to be a vegeterian when I was 6, but my carnibore parents were against it and since a 6 year old doesn't really cook for herself I just avoided whatever I knew was meat. They didn't tell me Tuna was a fish =/ so by the time I was 8, 9 I was completely vegeterian.
I am 16 now, and recently decided to go vegan. it's been 38 days

[auntierozzi]

Vegan at 38. It's never too late to change.

[PygmyGoat]

Is that a new word in Kalia's post - 'Carni-bore' ?? . I like it! .

[veggiejess]

officially went vegan on my 21st birthday, which was, well, last monday.

[Kalia]

Is that a new word in Kalia's post - 'Carni-bore' ?? . I like it! .

it's not a new word
carnibore = meat eaters
I use this word all the time

[VeganMata]

went vegan at 15 but went veggie at 10

[davidwelsh]

I remember as a child I would absolutely refuse to eat meat on the bone. It wasn't an conscious, intellectual thing, I just couldn't bring myself to do it - it was so disgusting. My mum said that when I was about 7, I picked up a chicken leg off my plate, saying "You mean this is the leg of a dead chicken!?". She's veggie now, and says she'd have let me go veggie then if she'd known better!


I still happily chomped down meat that didn't bear too much of a resemblence to an animal's corpse until around my 17th birthday. I decided to become a Buddhist around that time, which made me think about vegetarianism - and when I started thinking about it, well...

Just before my 19th birthday, I read "Animal Liberation" and was vegan within about 3 weeks. That was nearly 6 years ago, and there's no going back for me (I honestly can't understand how people can "lapse" - I don't mean that critically, I just can't get my head round it...)

[sandra]

Yes, I don't get the 'lapse' thing either!

[Aaron]

i think i was about 19, or 20 years old at the time meat made me feel sick so i stopped eating it and i went lacto oval vegetarian, after a year or so i went vegetarian and after 15 years roughly i went vegan ,then i went fruitarian 100% raw food april 3rd 2005

[June]

I went vegetarian at 10/11, my parents were not happy about it, it took me a year to convince them it's what I really wanted. Over a year ago I started looking into Veganism (until then I thought Vegans were crazy for not eating cheese ) and six months ago I officially went vegan. It feels like a lot longer though.

[Moto]

I became Vegetarian when I was 16 then, after many false starts, finally became Vegan when I was 23.

[Memma33]

Hi all! I became a vegetarian when I was 12 once I realised what meat actually was!! (I saw lamb brains on a supermarket shelf) After almost 9 years of that, I decided to explore veganism as it came up alot on vege sites and the amount of further exploitation of animals such as cows for dairy products was shocking! I immediately became vegan then when i was 20.

PS: NONE of my family/friends are/were vegan/vegetarian (there's alot of slashes there...sorry). My family were against it from the word 'go', and so far my efforts to convert any member of my family have been fruitless - WHY DON'T PEOPLE CARE?? It boggles my mind...

[RachelJune]

I was 12 when I first decided to become veggie. It was actually my Dad who influenced me in that direction, despite him being a big meat eater back then. He was very honest with me about what meat was and where it came from when I started to question it. I think my family initially thought it was just a phase But I'm still here, over 10 years on and now a vegan (for about 4 years I think)!

[Guacamole Gal]

I went veggie at around 13/14 years old,then made the logical progression to Vegan 6years ago! I can honestly say it's the best thing I ever did, i only wish I'd done it sooner, but hey, 6years and counting and I couldn't be happier! (Well okay, I'd be happier if all animal cruelty was eradicated such that there was no longer even any need for the word vegan, but until then...)

[VeganLiz]

Veggie at 15 then vegan at 20 years.

Liz X

[boombanda]

I went vegan at the age of 18, when my parents weren't legally allowed to control what I ate. I was vegetarian about 4 years before that, but even BEFORE that I have never been able to eat meat without someone forcing me to. My parents just brushed it off as being a whiney, picky kid, and I think they still do that.

[GreenEnvy]

I turned vegetarian at 6 years old. Everyone said it was just a phase that I'd forget about, but I didn't. I simply came to the conclusion that if you love animals then you don't eat them. A few days after I turned vegetarian my mum made me some pre-made pasta thingy that had ham in it, but the pieces of ham were so tiny that my mum thought I wouldn't notice. However I did notice and became really upset, and so she's never done anything like that since.

I became vegan when I turned 16 after I picked up some "Go vegan" leaflets from a vegan stall in my local town. I never knew the cruelty of dairy until then, and once I did know I couldn't ignore my conscience.

It's so messed up that something I realised when I was only 6 years old, most people never realise in their entire lives.

[sandra]

That is so right GreenEnvy, good on you for going veggie at 6, that's the age my little daughter became veggie too! Now her and my son are both vegan!

[Melanie]

Veggy at 13, vegan at 16 I believe , 18 now

[Pisces]

I was vegetarian at age 16 and vegan since age 17.

[pavotrouge]

I went fully vegetarian when I was 18, but vegan only three months later after years of being on- and off both trains.

[Sluggie]

Veggie at 38, vegan at 40.

I got extremely upset at seeing a dead pig hanging up in a butcher's window when I was a small child, but my parents were evasive about what it was doing there, so the connection with meat didn't burst upon me. My uneasiness at eating animals just grew gradually over the years. It took me an awfully long time to grow up.

[RJane]

Our whole family went vegan when I was 8. That lasted for 3 years. I went vegetarian when I was 15, fell off at 17, back at 20, vegan at 21.
Super thrilling. I know. Actually, veganism *is* great.

[Jjt]

I tried to go vegetarian when I was in my teens but my dad's freind discouraged me and I went back to eating meat. I became vegan when I was living on my own I think right around the beginning of 20, so I've been vegan for about two years.

It's interesting because I used to have a bad attitude about vegans and looked down on them. One of my bosses was a vegan and wasn't as understanding as I would be now, but I still tried to assure my boss I cared about animals. Then one of my co-workers was vegan and I didn't have the best attitude toward that person about veganism either.

I don't remember how the revelation came about, but it involved reading that book called "mad cowboy". It was about this guy who used to be a cattle rancher but now he's a vegan. Anyway I know something happened before that, because I went to go get the book because I felt convicted about it i think.

Anyways I think that God made me vegan to teach me a lesson and because it's defenitely good to be vegan anyway.

[Vegan630]

veggie at 15 and vegan at 16, almost 17 now . i idolize all of you in this forum, you are amazing <3

[sandra]

I idolize you Vegan630! I wish I'd been vegan at 16!