My mother brought me up to always love and respect animals. My father had similar attitudes and also brought me up to love nature and the environment. Still, everday I was given meat and never truely told were meat came from. When I was 8 years old the foot and mouth crisis hit the UK, and the news was full of video clips of cows being slaughtered and sheep being rounded up to be killed and set on fire. Then I realised were meat came from. I remember I gathered all my stuffed toy animals together because I was scared someone was going to come and slaughter them At the point I stopped eating meat, with no support what so ever from my seemingly 'animal loving' parents. In fact my family gave me the whole 'you wont get enough nutrients and you'll be ill'. So I was on and off with being vegetarian as I had to eat what my mother brought for me. As I got older she did start to be supportive of vegetarianism and even stopped eating meat herself. I never knew what a vegan was untill I was 13 years old, I read about it online and decided I wanted to try it. My first attempt was not sucsesful, and I kept going in and out of vegan. I then went back to vegetarian as I didn't research veganism enough and didn't plan my meals very well so I had a very crappy vegan diet. A year later, I randomly went onto the vegan society website and saw they did a vegan pledge that offered support and information to help you. I decided to do the pledge for the longest amount of time (30 days). Now I was well prepared I sailed through being vegan and found it really easy. About a week into the pledge I decided I was not going to ever look back, and I was going to live as cruelty free as posible from that point on. I thought it could be tricky as I am a regional level competitive Rhythmic Gymnast, but actually my sport preformance has increased greatly now I am vegan and I'm physically much better than before
Here I am, still doing as I promised myself I feel a much greater sense of connection to the Earth and all it's life! Through being Vegan I have also found Paganism, which has changed the way I live my entire life. I would never look back
Bookmarks