Your personal vegan story

[Lilac Hamster]

Good for you Skajen!

But it is a shame some ppl in your life have been mean and wouldn't it be even better to have some more veggie and vegan friends in real life too? Who needs non-veg friends who are nasty about your veganism?

Are you with a local veggie and vegan group at all for support? Might be worth getting involved in your nearest one.

I'm near the northern border of Surrey (Hampton) and apart from the little group we have here, there is a very good one in the Guildford area, so let me know if you are interested in meeting local vegans let me know, there might be a group near you.

Lesley

[PercysLion]

I became a vegetarian some time ago when I learned about the horrors of animal testing. In attempt to learn more about this practice, I was naturally exposed to vegetarianism. Strangely, I didn't really learn about veganism for sometime after that.

Recently, I spent a day with my sister's friend and her baby. She has a wonderful vegan family and cooked a delicious dinner for me. When her partner came home, he made some amazing vegan cookies.

Seeing how practical, healthy, and (most importantly) animal-friendly the lifestyle is really gave me the kick in the pants I needed. I had been flirting with the idea for some time now and my only regret is not doing it sooner.

[BadBoredBony]

for me it was a slow process... i always despised milk, the smell and taste of it... and my skin would go bad if i had any dairy products, so i cut out dairy milk in my diet from a very early age on ( without 'replacing milk')... i never particular liked the taste of eggs either... when i moved to britain and learned more about vegetarianism and being able to buy a lot of vegan products in supermarkets- it made me more aware of my lifestyle and the way animals are treated... so in the end it was no big deal to leave out meat and to change my cosmetic products and clothes to animal-free ones...

bbb
xxx

[greenworlds]

For me it was one of my brother's who first suggested going vegetarian,I never gave it much thought before then or even had heard of it (18 years). It struck a chord with me and instinctively knew it was a good thing to do, it wasn't until a good few years later that I heard of the vegetarian society and then veganisn. Now I even want as many species as possible to embrace veganism..what a crazy world we live in

[blue-and-yellow]

I'd always hated eating meat but I just continued...for some unexplainable reason. My brother went vegetarian when I was 12. I think it was due to picking up a KFC Cruelty brochure and stickers at a punk festival. After a few months, I went vegetarian too. Purely due to my love of animals and I can't justify cruel and taumenting death and entrapment of animals, or even just death, to satisfy our hunger. There are so many alternatives, being healthier, somewhat cheaper and most importantly cruelty free, why should we have the right to eat animals? Ahh I just don't understand it anymore. I'd considered going vegan for a while but I guess I never really had anything that made it decisive. Then I met John Feldman from Goldfinger and he gave me a Why Vegan brochure and that really just pushed me and made it final, I would go vegan gradually over a period of a few months. That booklet made me cry! I went vegan about 3 months ago, I'm 15 now. And it's cool, people at school think I'm even weirder, but I get to talk to them about and they tend to end up justifying it.

[veganicat]

My vegan story was told on our Vegan Radio podcast. My former partner and now friend and co-host Megan and I went vegan together 10 years ago. Over the holidays we went back to our hometowns (Syracuse & Rochester NY) and interviewed some old friends and influences to see where they are at now, and relive memories of our times with the Rochester Area Vegetarian Society and The Animal Defense League. The show is in two parts and is more about people being vegan over 10 years than just about us, how their lives change as they grow and have children and move forward in their lives.

[pat sommer]

The epiphany was while camping with family in the California chaparral age 11: coyotes howling nearby in the fading sunset, I look down at my salami sandwich and see it for what it is.

I go veggie at 14 after a summer at deer-huntin' friend's family. Was only one I knew and very uncool. Progressed to 'pure vegetarian' and sugar/additive free and socially trapped thru school.
'82 looked down at my breakfast eggs after a miscarriage and knew they had to go. Eighties mostly travelled, lapsed onto dairy drugs drink and bad relationships. met first AR activists in Israel '86 and discovered Peta in'93 while in Bavaria and met other veggies (Brits) and since then living happily animal-free which sure made me a freak in Bavaria! No sweat here in the UK. My 4 year old daughter will have her own battles to face but has seen animals and understands their plight from living in China S Africa Australia US and UK. She is anyone's 'proof of the pudding' that this lifestyle is right.

[Kenetic]

Ok well my story
I'll realized I didn't like to eat flesh of any kind at about 3 years old 9 yes i know it can be hard to believe) my parents didn't believe in vegetarians especially her own son unless they where 'Hippys' so life carried on with me being very sick every time I ate, by the time I was 14 my mum decided it was time to cut out trying to force me to eat meat (was forced to eat all that time and rushing to the toilet to be sick after) so I became vegetarian with a big problem to flesh of any kind (taste, smell, look makes me vomit) I still had dairy products and eggs but could not and would not eat any animal flesh including sweets and jellys etc. Now by my own choice I've been vegan for the last 3 months (yes it's taken me a long time but I'm here now). I've lost 1 1/2 stone in 3 months which is good but on top of that I feel better in myself I'm at easy now for the first time ever. Can't think of any more to put for now so hope you like my brief story of my life.
Kevin
ps. hope I haven't bored you or annoyed you

[treehugga]

Of course not. Listening to each others stories is really interesting.

[Cairidh]

When I was 2 I used to go to the fish market with my Grandma every day, and I was eyelevel with the fish, so I realised fish is dead fish and was horrified and stopped eating it.
I'd watched Alice in Wonderland so I knew shellfish were living creatures so I wouldn't eat shellfish.
When I was 4 I would help my Grandpa in the garden - plant seeds and bulbs and then water them. Then when they grew into vegetables, he would want me to pull them up - and I couldn't do it, I was very upset. So from then on I realised vegetables were dead plants and I refused to eat them.
I would refuse the vegetables in horror then sit and eat a plate of mince and mash because I didn't realise that mash is a plant and mince is a cow.

When I was 10 I went to a dinner party where venison was the main course. Before dinner people teased me about eating bambi, and they talked about a 12 year old boy who had just shot his first stag, and done the ceremony with the blood on the forehead.
There was no way I was going to eat deer! When the plate arrived it looked exactly like every other red meat I'd ever eaten and I realised that meat is a dead animal. I've never eaten meat since.

I stopped wearing leather and silk and wouldn't eat anything containing anything from a dead animal.

You don't have to kill a cow to drink its milk or kill a hen to eat the eggs so I didn't think there was anything wrong with doing so. I thought vegans refused to eat them because it was stealing and I respected that but didn't have a problem with eating them myself.

When I was 11 I realised eggs are chicken embroys so I stopped eating them.

When I was 12 I received some vegan campaign literature through the post, with all the gory details of milk and egg production together with photos - I had had no idea how barbarically the animals are treated or that the calves are killed.

So I stopped having milk and became vegan!

When I was 13 I found out that when grains are harvested they massacre millions of little field mice and voles and things. At first I carried on eating grains but every time I looked at a bowl of pasta or cereal, or a loaf of bread, I would see blood and dead mice and fields of golden grain with a combine harvester going round chewing up mice. So I only lasted a couple of months and then I stopped eating grains.

[veganashtangi]

Even as a child, I was never very fond of meat. Eggs and dairy were an important part of my diet, and so was fish, mainly because my father comes from a region in northern Spain where fish and seafood are fundamental and fishing is a big business (Galicia).

When I was about 14, red meat started to make me sick, and I decided to give it up. I still had some chicken or turkey breast occasionally, though. Veggies and fruit slowly became the base of my diet, as I began to grow some awareness of the benefits of eating well (dropping 30 kilos as a result).

My diet remained unaltered until I turned 21. Then I discovered yoga and found out about ahimsa, the law of non-violence (one of the yamas or codes of behaviour towards other beings and the world). During the following months, I started a transition to veganism, and by my 22nd birthday (that's December 2005) I was already a vegan.

Quitting meat was quite simple, mainly because the resemblance that human flesh bears to animal (I'm studying to become a doctor). Saying goodbye to fish and dairy wasn't hard, either. However, I must admit it took some time for me to get used to cooking (and, particulary, baking). Fortunately, I've come across wonderful recipes and don't miss them at all.

[sugarrush]

When I turned 17, I realized I was having problems controlling my weight (it crashed suddenly) so I turned vegetarian. After a month or so I went back to the omni lifestyle because my high school was vegetarian unfriendly (the only option was disgusting pizza and salad) and I had no other options. When that school year ended I decided to go back to vegetarianism (I was already heading my high schools ecology club and was very aware of the heavy toll ranching was having on our planet). It was a lot easier because I found a health store nearby and discovered gardenburger, morningstar etc. I've always hated seafood and most meats (except chicken and turkey) so it was a pretty easy transition. I tried going vegan several times and failed because I got a substantial amount of my daily calories from dairy. About 3 months ago I went to a University meeting of the People Against Cruelty to Animals and realized not only the many options that are available but the cruelty suffered by these poor creatures so I went fully vegan. Right now I'm in the painful transition state hoping to be 100% cruelty free by this summer (I still have a couple of old leather items that refuse to give out).

[ravenfire]

I was raised on a farm and was brought up seeing the slaughter of all kinds of animals from fish to pigs to cows to rabbits. I was also taught from a young age that this was the natural order of things and completely natural. My family owned a small farm where the animals were completely free-range and just roamed around in large pasture areas. I've been an animal lover for as long as I can remember so I would go out and visit the animals every day. I made friends with them and would start to really care about them. One day I became old enough to realize that I was being fed my friends. I had a problem with this but when I tried to tell my family, I was just given the lecture on how it was all a part of the food chain and completely natural. So I just stopped making friends with the farm animals (which makes me so sad now that I didn't fight harder but I was very young). Once I grew up and discovered that there were people who chose not to eat animals at all (I grew up right outside a very small southern town so there were no vegetarians around at all), I decided to become one of them. Once I became vegetarian it only took a couple of years for me to become educated about factory farms which is when I made the transition to veganism.

Thankfully my family has now converted the farm pasture into horse pasture. Now they buy abused and dying horses, nurse them back to health and find good, responsible owners to sell them to. You wouldn't believe how many people there are out there who buy their kid a horse in the summer, then when winter comes they just leave it in a dying pasture and let it starve. They're able to save about 80% of them but some of them are just too far gone by the time they get them. It also pisses me off that they have to buy most of the horses from their bad owners but it's the quickest and easiest way to get them and start nursing them back.

My family are still all meat eaters but at least 1. they don't deal in murder anymore and 2. they completely respect my choices and even make sure to cook me and my husband special vegan food for holidays and family gatherings (which is more than my husband's family does).

[Patio34]

In a nutshell, I read The China Study by T. Colin Campbell. Life-changing and life-saving.

[Lorrs]

When my mum was pregnant with me she couldn't walk into a butchers without feeling so sick she couldn't stay inside. When I was wee I was really fussy and wasn't all that keen on meat. When I was 10 I stopped eating red meat due to being fussy and not liking the taste.

When I was 11 I went vegetarian after picking up a copy of "The Teenage Vegetarian Survival Guide" and the more pages I turned the more horrified I got. I finished it in one night and was a vegetarian by the time I was halfway through the book.

When I was 14/15 I went vegan because I was reading more and more and becoming increasingly distressed about the treatment of animals within the dairy industry. There was a stand in Glasgow where I used to pick up animal rights leaflets and give donations and one of them handed me a copy of the Vegan magazine, after reading that I felt fairly confident about going vegan.

When I was 20, I'm not sure why now, possibly convenience and just getting lazy, I went back to being a vegetarian and a year later I started eating meat again. There are plenty reasons for that the main one being I allowed a bully of a boyfriend who I lived with convince me that I should be eating meat and I was depressed as hell, I didn't care about me never mind care about the animals. I now refer to it as my year of meat but even then I was still totally squicked out by meat, I couldn't touch it without gloves and couldn't eat it if it wasn't smothered in some kind of sauce. I remember the boyfriend making me this big slab of steak and taking one look at it and running off to the toilet to puke. I think I made the worst meat eater ever. But even so, going completely omnivore again opened up a range of foods that I hadn't eaten in about 10 years like sweets with gelatin and more junk.

In that year I put on masses of weight and developed digestion problems, I got food poisoning more times than I care to remember. I developed lots of spots on my forehead and my skin and scalp became greasy. My asthma was worse than ever and I had no energy at all.

After I split with that b/f I decided when I was 22 that my new years resolution for 2005 was to go vegetarian and I did and I started to feel lots better. Slowly throughout the year I started to revert back to veganism I wasn't drinking milk or eating eggs and cheese was only eaten if I ate out. I lost about a stone in weight which was good but still got loads to go.

Now I'm 23 and in the past few weeks I decided to go vegan mainly because I want to achieve a healthier and thinner lifestyle but I decided to do it slowly and re-educate myself about veganism. The more I have read about it my concern for the animals has returned ten fold, initially I was going to just be a dietary vegan but I have decided that everything is going vegan from food to shoes to make up and I'm feeling incredibly positive about this.

The last time I did this I went vegan overnight but I decided to do it in stages and wean myself off certain foods, for example I had developed huge chocolate cravings and was eating a bar of milk chocolate every day but I weaned myself off that using dark chocolate suitable for vegans and now I don't bother at all. If I want something chocolatey I make some vegan cocoa with soya milk and that's all I need now.

My diet is about 95% vegan at the moment and I'm going to either throw out, give away or sell on ebay any of the leather items I have accumulated over the past 2 years. I am now using entirely vegan toiletries but have yet to get some vegan make up so that's the next purchase. My official going vegan date is now the 29th of May lol. So I'm not entirely there yet but I will be.

These days the way I see it, it is so easy to be vegan now there is really no excuse not to be any more.

[pat sommer]

hurray, you will never let yourself be bullied again! ...alot of us can relate.

[moonshadow]

i was raised vegetarian. i tried meat once, when i was 8 or 9. it disagreed with my stomach, and came right back up. milk has always made me unwell. the tmi part- after eating milk/cheese/ice cream/etc, i'd always wind up painfully on the toilet... i was about 15 when i made the connection, and the only times since that i've been tempted to try something with milk products in it since, have landed me in the same place. i have to be careful with lactose based meds, too. at the same age i went off eggs. maybe something to do with starting my period at that age?

anyway, i've been vegan since. with only a couple minor lapses, not all on purpose. i got depressed once and went on a binge of ice cream and eggy things like grillers (morningstar vegetarian burgers). i got soooo sick.

anyway, that's basically it. i woke up one day, and i was vegan instead of vegetarian.

i'm raising my daughter vegan, and hope that she embraces the lifestyle. i have a secret hope that my husband will stop eating cheese and milk chocolate, and milky coffee and chai... we'll just have to see what time brings. i don't mind his milk and cheese-- he buys small farm organic, but the milk chocolate is an addiction. he doesn't like factory farming, but still he eats big brand chocolate...

i'd love to have a totally vegan home.

[pat sommer]

lovely daughter! ....email hubbie some links to pcrm.org pages about dairy's link to prostate cancer. That is close to a man's, err, heart.

[codebug]

My personal vegan story is pretty bland, but I need to admit a few things.

First, the normal American diet has always made me sick. I would eat food, and get the worst flatulence possible along with painful stomach cramps as well. But, like most Americans, I loved eating and kept on doing it. Sadly enough, if you look at the antacid business, you'll notice people's normal diet makes most of them sick. "Pop pop fizz fizz, oh what a relief it is!" Why do people contine to eat food when they have to take digestive aids and pain relievers? I was fortunate that I loved sports, so I spent a lot of time exercising and was pretty slim considering how much I ate. I ate 7 full plates of food when I was at a Las Vegas buffet at age 19 and weighed 135 pounds.

Even though I ate the normal meals, I did not eat like everyone else. I don't like mayonnaise, gravy, dressings, etc. Usually, butter was about all I would use. I did enjoy the taste of natural foods. Generally, I only ate the really bad stuff as a treat. Most of the time, I preferred subway and the healthier meals, which kept my stomach happy.

I dated a vegetarian when I was 19. She was healthy and beautiful. I did not think of becoming a vegetarian at the point.

I met people, around age 24, who read books about the horrors of the meat industry and became vegetarians. They explained to me how it all worked. One of them even let me taste Smart Dogs, which tasted good, too. She was healthy and beautiful, too. I still didn't convert.

I finished college late in life and my last class was environmental science. This book explained the environmental impacts of meat eating and the ethical problems with raising animals to eat. It is really taxing on resources (water, transportation, etc.) to raise a cow just for food. You could raise more grains and feed that to more people instead. I learned at that point how selfish eating me is. I still didn't convert. The book generalized that 2000 lbs of grain feed one cow, but you could give ten people 20 lbs of grain to eat instead.

Sometime after I left home at age 18, I began to notice that the quality of food seemed to really suck. I used to love the Hershey bar. It tastes like chocolate flavored wax to me in my young teens. I used to love chips ahoy cookies, but they tasted like sugary paste, with no texture. It seems as if the food industry is starting to push low grade, high sugar, high fat synthetic junk on us all. It doesn't seem like real food. I began a slow descent into disliking the quality of the food we commonly find on the market. I also began to resent the food producers for selling me so much crap.

Also, I developed GERD/GEORD in my mid twenties. I didn't like any of the medications. So I began cutting back on the bad things and picking what I thought was healthier alternatives. My reflux got to the point where I couldn't take it anymore; I was refluxing lightly acidic water. The stuff wasn't working.

Lastly, I was sick of the food poising from meat. I used to dine out at least once per week and would get food poisinging at least once a month. I switched to grilling my own meats and that saved me for a slight while. Within the last two years, I was getting sick from the meat I cooked myself. I had figured the restaurants were just not cleaning very well, but I handled the meat well and was still sick. So, I began suspecting the meat producing industry.

I am in my mid thirties now. I watch alternative media (Freespeach TV) and they usually run the same arguments about being vegetarian. I watched the PETA videos about animal cruelty over the last few years, and still didn't convert. I had been considering veganism over the last 3 - 4 years.

The really sad thing about veganism is that I defended vegetarianism/veganism ever since I took that environmental science class on the basis that humanity would be better served by skipping meat. Sadly enough, I agreed with vegans, but didn't convert.

Finally, I just couldn't stand the awful sick feeling food was giving me. I began eating at the salad restaurant in the final weeks before going vegan. I had seen Supersize Me, read Fast Food Nation, and still did not switch. But, armed with all that data helped set off a light. I watched the PETA video Meet Your Meat. A light finally went off about why food was making me sick. The food industry is cruel, and they are serving sickend animals to everyone. It is no wonder why so many reports keep coming out about food poising and how much E coli and other bacteria are still left in meat.

Following that, I still didn't swear off meat. I first switched to soy milk about a month ago. My acid reflux disappeared the first day. My acne cleared up after a week, but I still had mild reflux and stomach pain. Milk was really the big problem with my diet. I then tried some meat analog products about 2 weeks later. That helped push my stomach problems to near oblivion and my feeble mind truly realized humans should not consume animal products. I still had some minor reflux and was curious to know if I could eliminate it all. I had suspected my final bits of reflux were due to the non-organic chemicals in the foods I was eating. I began shopping for vegan and organic food products. That did the trick. I am healthy again.

I apologized in my intro message for never seeing the picture sooner. I did plenty of research on the Internet and read how humans have a hard time digesting meat and can get all nutrition entirely from plants. Today, I am sickened when I see meat and finally I am genuinely saddened about the sensless slaughter. I am still upset with myself for needing my own personal health problems to help me see the light. I became antiwar after leaving the military because I didn't like the thought of people suffering, but it took way too long to feel that way about all life forms. There was an episode of Star Trek where the Betazoid lost her power, and Picard truly didn't want to harm the lifeform dragging the Enterprise to danger, just to save his own self. That is they way humanity needs to be.

Many people feel bummed after becoming vegan because, as I have, they realize the senseless slaughter should end. However, I feel veganism will become the next resource revolution since meat eating is not sustainable. We have hybrid cars, energy efficient bulbs, alternative energy sources, etc. Efficiency in food will become mandatory as water/land and other resources become scarcer due to the world trying to satisfy the bloodlust of the omnivores. A vegan world is the next logical step for mankind.

One final note: I have discovered the organic cookies and soy/rice creams in Wild Oats and they are friggin' delicious!! I can now enjoy cookies and ice cream again.My personal vegan story is pretty bland, but I need to admit a few things.

First, the normal American diet has always made me sick. I would eat food, and get the worst flatulence possible along with painful stomach cramps as well. But, like most Americans, I loved eating and kept on doing it. Sadly enough, if you look at the antacid business, you'll notice people's normal diet makes most of them sick. "Pop pop fizz fizz, oh what a relief it is!" Why do people contine to eat food when they have to take digestive aids and pain relievers? I was fortunate that I loved sports, so I spent a lot of time exercising and was pretty slim considering how much I ate. I ate 7 full plates of food when I was at a Las Vegas buffet at age 19 and weighed 135 pounds.

Even though I ate the normal meals, I did not eat like everyone else. I don't like mayonnaise, gravy, dressings, etc. Usually, butter was about all I would use. I did enjoy the taste of natural foods. Generally, I only ate the really bad stuff as a treat. Most of the time, I preferred subway and the healthier meals, which kept my stomach happy.

I dated a vegetarian when I was 19. She was healthy and beautiful. I did not think of becoming a vegetarian at the point.

I met people, around age 24, who read books about the horrors of the meat industry and became vegetarians. They explained to me how it all worked. One of them even let me taste Smart Dogs, which tasted good, too. She was healthy and beautiful, too. I still didn't convert.

I finished college late in life and my last class was environmental science. This book explained the environmental impacts of meat eating and the ethical problems with raising animals to eat. It is really taxing on resources (water, transportation, etc.) to raise a cow just for food. You could raise more grains and feed that to more people instead. I learned at that point how selfish eating me is. I still didn't convert. The book generalized that 2000 lbs of grain feed one cow, but you could give ten people 20 lbs of grain to eat instead.

Sometime after I left home at age 18, I began to notice that the quality of food seemed to really suck. I used to love the Hershey bar. It tastes like chocolate flavored wax to me in my young teens. I used to love chips ahoy cookies, but they tasted like sugary paste, with no texture. It seems as if the food industry is starting to push low grade, high sugar, high fat synthetic junk on us all. It doesn't seem like real food. I began a slow descent into disliking the quality of the food we commonly find on the market. I also began to resent the food producers for selling me so much crap.

Also, I developed GERD/GEORD in my mid twenties. I didn't like any of the medications. So I began cutting back on the bad things and picking what I thought was healthier alternatives. My reflux got to the point where I couldn't take it anymore; I was refluxing lightly acidic water. The stuff wasn't working.

Lastly, I was sick of the food poising from meat. I used to dine out at least once per week and would get food poisinging at least once a month. I switched to grilling my own meats and that saved me for a slight while. Within the last two years, I was getting sick from the meat I cooked myself. I had figured the restaurants were just not cleaning very well, but I handled the meat well and was still sick. So, I began suspecting the meat producing industry.

I am in my mid thirties now. I watch alternative media (Freespeach TV) and they usually run the same arguments about being vegetarian. I watched the PETA videos about animal cruelty over the last few years, and still didn't convert. I had been considering veganism over the last 3 - 4 years.

The really sad thing about veganism is that I defended vegetarianism/veganism ever since I took that environmental science class on the basis that humanity would be better served by skipping meat. Sadly enough, I agreed with vegans, but didn't convert.

Finally, I just couldn't stand the awful sick feeling food was giving me. I began eating at the salad restaurant in the final weeks before going vegan. I had seen Supersize Me, read Fast Food Nation, and still did not switch. But, armed with all that data helped set off a light. I watched the PETA video Meet Your Meat. A light finally went off about why food was making me sick. The food industry is cruel, and they are serving sickend animals to everyone. It is no wonder why so many reports keep coming out about food poising and how much E coli and other bacteria are still left in meat.

Following that, I still didn't swear off meat. I first switched to soy milk about a month ago. My acid reflux disappeared the first day. My acne cleared up after a week, but I still had mild reflux and stomach pain. Milk was really the big problem with my diet. I then tried some meat analog products about 2 weeks later. That helped push my stomach problems to near oblivion and my feeble mind truly realized humans should not consume animal products. I still had some minor reflux and was curious to know if I could eliminate it all. I had suspected my final bits of reflux were due to the non-organic chemicals in the foods I was eating. I began shopping for vegan and organic food products. That did the trick. I am healthy again.

I apologized in my intro message for never seeing the picture sooner. I did plenty of research on the Internet and read how humans have a hard time digesting meat and can get all nutrition entirely from plants. Today, I am sickened when I see meat and finally I am genuinely saddened about the sensless slaughter. I am still upset with myself for needing my own personal health problems to help me see the light. I became antiwar after leaving the military because I didn't like the thought of people suffering, but it took way too long to feel that way about all life forms. There was an episode of Star Trek where the Betazoid lost her power, and Picard truly didn't want to harm the lifeform dragging the Enterprise to danger, just to save his own self. That is they way humanity needs to be.

Many people feel bummed after becoming vegan because, as I have, they realize the senseless slaughter should end. However, I feel veganism will become the next resource revolution since meat eating is not sustainable. We have hybrid cars, energy efficient bulbs, alternative energy sources, etc. Efficiency in food will become mandatory as water/land and other resources become scarcer due to the world trying to satisfy the bloodlust of the omnivores. A vegan world is the next logical step for mankind.

One final note: I have discovered the organic cookies and soy/rice creams in Wild Oats and they are friggin' delicious!! I can now enjoy cookies and ice cream again.

[jennyL]

I watched the movie earthlings

[veggirl77]

Hi! (I'm new here)

I became vegan at 12. I began thinking about what I was actually eating
when I was eating that McDonalds hamburger at around 10......decided I did not want to eat meat, but did not know how to go about telling my parents. I did not know anyone who did not eat meat. I am Catholic, and the lent before my 12th birthday I decided I would give up meat, eggs, cheese, milk.........and tell my parents I was doing it for lent and then just never go back to eating it.

It did not go over too well. My parents panicked and when they could not get me to go back to my meat eating diet, they took me to a psychiatrist!! I was SO upset that they could not understand me and where I was coming from. They never did try to understand me or see the compassionate person I was, even at such a young age.

The doctor told my parents that I was either depressed over something, or had an eating disorder!

The next few years were horrible. They tried to force me to eat meat and every dinnertime was a nightmare.

I stuck to my guns though. I have been a vegan now for 35 years (I"m 47), had 7 healthy kids (3 over 9 1/2 lbs, and 4 over 10 lbs.......and my normal weight is 115 at 5'5) My mom panicked with ever pregnancy, thinking I would have a child with something wrong with it.

Instead I had 7 great pregnancies, and rather easy births.

However, my husband at the time, father of all 7, would not let me bring my kids up vegan, since he was not and felt the children should be able to make their own choices as I did. So, I have 7 meat eat kids, which bothers me terribly. I talk to them all the time though and hopefully they will learn frome example.........I can only hope : )

I do want to say, and I'm sure all who read this will agree, that being vegan is SO much more than a way of eating. It is a way of looking at the world, a much deeper level of thinking and feeling. I respect all life, from the tiniest creature, to a tree, to a human being. I am a Christian, so that plays a huge part in my thinking as well.

Anyone who is just thinking about becoming vegan or just starting to make the commitment, fill your head with all the knowledge you can about it. Read, read, read! That's what I did. Read anything I could get my hands on so that I could learn to live without meat.

You will face a lot of people who think you are crazy, but let them. I'm happy with the person I am. I am compassionate and sensitive and caring, appreciate nature and really stop to "smell the roses".

Just in case you are wondering............35 years later.........my mom says to me on the past Memorial day, while she was eating her big hamburger........"don't you ever get a craving for a big juicy hamburger?!"

LOL..........they'll never get me! : )

[FogStruck]

I've always felt that eating meat was wrong. I've never been able to look at raw meat, or eat it if I thought about where it came from. When I was 8 I decided to become a vegetarian (knew nothing about veganism at that point). This lasted three days. I broke my wrist while sledding and my mom made some instant soup, just to get something into me before heading to the emergency room. Half way through I realized it contained cow. That was the end of that.

About a year ago I started thinking about vegetarianism again. So, I checked out a stack of veg*n/ animal right books at the library, thinking to at least start doing some research (on beholding my pile, my mom said: "I don't want you to read those if they'll keep you from eating meat." ). Well, I did read them, and concluded that I had to become vegan.

That weekend my mom went out of town, and upon being asked by Dad what I would like to do, I said that I would like to plan and cook some vegan meals (I learned that kale cooks a lot faster than tofu ). On returning, Mom had a fit. I ended up eating meat for another two days. Once she became somewhat reasonable again, it seemed that her arguments were 1: It would be too much work, and 2: It would be impossible for the whole family to convert ( I don't know where she got the idea I was trying to pressure them into veganism). She came around (I gave her Help! My Child Stopped Eating Meat) and I've been happily vegan ever since.

[Hetfield]

Good Morning All,

I said at the start of the year that I would try to go vegan by my birthday which is today and I have so thought I would write my story which is not particularly exceptional but it just sort of reaffirms what I am doing.

About 10 years ago I turned veggie (almost vegan) for health reasons - having read fit for life (Harvey Diamond). I immediately felt a zillion times better but always intended to return to meat as I had been a big fan of meat and dairy and had absolutely no interest in animal welfare. When I came to try meat again I could not face it and so remained veggie but continued with dairy and eggs altho no fish. I sort of had inklings over the years that I should be looking into animal welfare but denial is a very powerful thing. After reading fit for life I thought that veganism was the healthiest way but sort of thought it was very restrictive and you vegans were a load of extremist militant tree hugging types!

For some reason this year I decided to stop talking about things I would do and finally put my money where my mouth is and just get on with it - so I have passed my motorbike test, turned vegan, stopped asking for birthday presents and get family to donate to oxfam or wherever, organised to get a tattoo and made the decision not to have kids - and still got 6 months of this year to go!!!!!

I have, unlike many, no sentimental attachement to animals at all but find I am more and more against cruelty (particularly unnecessary cruelty) whether it be to animals or people. So although I turned vegan for health reasons it is certainly the animals cruelty element that would stop me returning to eating animal products. I have been truly horrified at what I didn't know about the meat and dairy industries or rather what I chose to ignore.

Actally being vegan is quite easy - although it took a good month of research to get to grips with. Attitudes to veganism have been a surprise (not a pleasant one) but am certainly old enough and ugly enough to stick up for myself. My partner is totally supportive and is a vegetarian/vegan in training, my family just think I'm odd anyway so nothing new there. The surprise is my very health conscious brother - his comment was - why would you do that to yourself? and my otherwise open minded politically aware good friends whose comment was - don't even try to convert us - I hadn't and wasn't intending to!!!! Oh well I am leading by example!!!

That's all really, I am very happy as a vegan for all the reasons you already know. Would also like to take this opportunity to thank you all for your contributions to this site which has helped me enormously (and entertained me for hours too!) and especially to Korn for his level headed intelligent answers to serious questions.

Wishing you a happy day
Hetfield

[rid the cancer]

since about the time i got into punk rock (about 14, 15) i'd been exposed to the idea of animal rights and i knew about how animals suffered in slaughterhouses and in factory farms, though for some reason the idea never really clicked with me. i tried to go vegetarian in high school several times, but i got really hungry and didn't know what else to eat since there was practically nothing in my house that didn't have meat. however, even back then, i knew it was wrong and that i was only eating meat because it was convenient for me and i liked the taste.

going to college really opened my eyes to the idea of veganism. mostly the reason why i considered it was because i hold a deep resentment towards non-thinkers and people who are politically apathetic, and i saw a lot of this in my fellow students. i always wondered why, and i started thinking about my lifestyle choices. that was the beginning of my venture into veganism. around january of 2005, i made the decision to try my damndest to stay vegetarian, which it did, because four months later, i became vegan.

i was watching a peta video of the raccoons (i think it was raccoons) being beaten and skinned alive, and it made me cry like i had not cried before. it also made me very angry, and i realized that there was no difference between this sort of injustice and the sort of injustice inflicted on animals that i ate, so i vowed that i would go vegan cold turkey (no pun intended) even if it meant i would starve, because at the time, i had a hard time finding vegan food. thankfully, my health has only improved since then and i am still as passionate about veganism as the day i converted.

[CatBellies]

I’ve been animal & animal rights obsessed for my entire life, but I didn’t make the switch to vegetarian until a summer vacation when I was a middle schooler. My family went up to Iowa and spent some time with my dad’s parent’s on the farm (by this time my grandparents just raised Standardbreds and crops) and my grandpa was renting some of his land to a guy who wanted pigs. When I saw the pigs I desperately wanted to send them to some happy haven full of warm fuzzies, but realized that they would instead end up in the meat aisle, so I decided enough was enough. On the drive back home we stopped at a McDonald’s for lunch and I remember I was extremely nervous about telling my parents about wanting to become a vegetarian. I was eating a cheeseburger while I explained (in my long, rambling fashion) my decision to Mom. She gave me the ok, convinced Dad, and I was good to go, on the condition that I could NOT become a vegan. Fast forward to Junior year of high school. I had cut back dairy in all situations where it wouldn’t be a fuss purely because I had decided it was unhealthy for humans to consume other species’ milk, and I minimized eggs because I had cracked open two that had blood in them (eww). My brother had been telling me every time we talked (he’s off at college) that I just had to watch Napoleon Dynamite. So I finally did. Anyone else who saw it might remember the seen in the egg factory? Yeah. That was it for me. The fact that the cramped cages and picking up a chicken (I think he held it upside down by the legs, but I have a horrid memory) in whatever manner the chicken was picked up that somehow managed to offend me was normal and acceptable inspired the switch. So I e-mailed my mom (we never discuss big issues without e-mailing our points first as we tend to get off topic) and she decided I was nutritionally careful enough to make the switch, and I've lived veganly ever after.

[sarahblue]

I became vegan because of animals. I've always been an animal lover, but I was blind as to how animals (all of them) are actually treated. Last October I wanted a companion for my dog, so my boyfriend and I went to the pound and got a stray mutt. When I walked into the pound and heard all of the dogs crying and barking, the sense of sadness and loneliness and despair from all of these animals completely broke me down. That was definitely a life changing event. At that moment I vowed to never buy a dog from a breeder or a pet store.

Fast forward to April of this year, and I was driving home, and I came up behind a car, and 4 dogs were being pushed out of the door. The car just sped off, and I was too shocked to do anything but go to the dogs to see if they were all right. I took them all home, found homes for 3 of them a week later, but no one wanted the skinny, scruffy, black dog that didn't look like any particular breed. She became my special girl, the one that no one wanted, but I did. So I kept her for myself.

So now I have 4 dogs. I have a huge backyard, but my house is somewhat small, so having more isn't very ideal, for me or the dogs. But there will always be room for me to temporarily take care of a dog I might find on the street, and I can take as long as I need to find the dog a good home.

Ever since then, my eyes were opened to how cruel humans can actually be. I still didn't realize the full extent until I went on PETA's website and saw the most horrifying videos I've ever seen in my life. The experience I had with dogs in the past year pushed me to research on animal cruelty, and that's what made me to go to PETA's website. Dogs, racoons, cats being skinned alive for their fur, cows and pigs being strung up by their feet and having their throats and tendons slashed, chickens having their beaks cut off and being boiled alive, these images have permanently etched themselves into my brain and they will haunt me every day for the rest of my life. How could I possibly be a participant in this gruesome barbaric practice, and at the same time be horrified by it? I couldn't.

So that's when I became vegan. Cold turkey.

[treehugga]

You sound like a wonderful caring person sarahblue. We need more vegans like you in the world

[Holly78]

I became vegan in November 2005. I had already been vegetarian for 5-6 years previously because of animal rights and it sounds terribly ignorant, but I really didn't know about the suffering involved in - e.g - the dairy industry.

I happily ate eggs and dairy because I believed 'it didn't harm the cow to give milk' and thought that they needed to be milked! Similarly I believed that chickens were not killed for their eggs and they would only go to waste if they weren't eaten. Oh the shame!

I then got to know a vegan who enlightened me about some key facts and I did a lot of research myself - read lots of books, checked out VIVA's and Animal Aid's websites etc, joined this great forum...and never looked back.

[Haniska]

i grew up in wyoming. if there's a worst place to be vegan... i was not vegan in high school but i hung out with vegan straight-edge kids. they were the unhealthiest people ever. when i read "why vegan?" & told them i was becoming vegan, they said "DON'T DO IT, it sucks" & i tried it & it sucked. .

I can't get over that quote.

[Sproutpout]

Unfortunately Fruitbat's story rings true for me too. I was badly bullied in primary school by a ridiculous amount of kids, i remember one time after school I had about 8 or so on me. My dad was late picking me up and drove towards my school only to find me running towards him crying covered in spit.

The bullying stopped after that year because I moved onto High school/College. I made some good friends however I took advantage of now having control over what I ate at lunch and used to get hamburger and chips, curry chips, or go mad on the vending machines and buy 2 packets of crisps and chocolate bars (all in the one go) Many people would say I was treading a thin line on the healthy weight perhaps a little over. But I was never a big big person. Just under 10 stone and at 13yrs old or so, I told my mum I wanted to lose weight. I tried weight watchers, slimfast you name it and had dinners of salads, soups, quiches, omlettes, pasta. All sort of healthy things and dropped burgers for sandwiches at school. I dropped to 8 stone and I was happy.

I'd always loved and cared about animals and after reading articles on the internet I told my mum I wanted to try being vegeterian. She was OK with it and so was my dad, I could still pretty much ate what I did before. Except my dad insisted I still ate Tuna and Cod for protein. I wasn't really educated on how to get enough protein at that age so i agreed.

(Sorry this is so long!!)

Anyways I still lost weight and lost and lost. It got really bad one summer when I used to lock myself in my room and play the computer and not eat anything. Things went black, my heart raced and I couldn't walk up the stairs without stopping midway for a breather. My teachers notified my parents when i went back to school. They already knew but the phonecall made them phone for help. I was in therapy for nearly 3 years after that. At 5 stone and dropping I was admitted to hospital and blackmailed to eat with threats of a tube going into my stomach.

Along the way though, understandably I wouldnt eat eggs or cheese or drink milk because I was scared to death of the fat and calorie content so I suppose you could say I was vegan since the beginning of my illness. Minus the can of tuna my dad used to force on me every month or two, which the dogs appreciated when i gave it to them.

Anyways sorry about the long story. Mines not a very happy one. When I turned 18 last year the therapy stopped by law and i refused to go voluntarily. I still have anorexia and probably will for the rest of my life, it has destroyed me. I (to the amazement of my teachers) just about passed my GCSE's and barely my A Levels.
I'm a happy vegan and have been properly for over a year now, though at 19 yrs old and 6 stone (it fluctuates so rapidly)
I'm learning Japanese which is my dream come true and planning a visit. Hopefully in the long run to live there. I have got rid of all my old leather clothes and follow a diet which I now believe is NOT for my benefit but for the animals. Though living on fruit and vegetables it's scary to think of what my calcium and protein levels are.

Im sorry i took up so much time and space with this i just wanted to share my experience.
Thanks for your time,
J

[fiamma]

Thanks for sharing your story Sproutpout, I'm glad things are getting better for you. I'm envious of you learning Japanese - it's something I'd love to do, and a place I'd love to visit! You could do the JET programme and go and teach there, I think it would be a great experience. Anyway, thanks again for sharing your story and welcome to the forum.

[pat sommer]

Take good care of yourself, Sproutpout. It looks like you have a bright future
.... and the animals need folks like you!

[Ceshtanen]

Wow, there are really some fascinating stories here, makes me feel boring in comparison. lol

I've been an animal lover for as long as I can remember. There are pictures of me as a baby curled up asleep with my likewise sleeping kitten Mousie. The first time I ever stood up for an animal though, I was seven.

There was a beautiful long-haired orange tabby cat named Tigger that lived with my dad(my parents were divorced at this time, mom was the person with dogs, dad was the one with cats), and it was mostly him that I was going to visit if I'm going to be honest. Well...neither of my parents are too bright when it comes to animals, no one thought of neutering tigger...and it was a beautiful fall day so the window was open, just a screen between him and the outdoors.

Now a girl cat in heat comes up to the window and starts doing that pitiful meow that they all do, and Tigger looked like he was about to tear through the screen to get to her. I was terrified that if he got out I'd never see him again. So I told him, "Tigger no! Get down!" He was a wonderful kitty who listened to me, he turned around, jumped out of the window--only I was in the way. His claws sliced my scalp causing me to need 24 stitches, and have my waist length hair shaved off. I've got permanant scars on my chest and arms too--It all totalled to around 50 stitches.

My parents had a fit, were angry at the cat and wanted to have him "put to sleep". I argued with them(while having a doctor stitching me up, which must've been hard for the doc now that I think about it), and my dad saw my point first. Then they wanted to give him away to someone else that didn't have kids, because he was "dangerous for children". I yelled and yelled at them telling them Tigger was a good cat, he was listening to me and I was just in the way, that cats can do stuff on accident too. To calm me down they agreed to just declaw him(if only I'd known how much this was going to hurt him...but my parents assured me that it wouldn't hurt him at all).

We skip foward a bit. I skip school on dissection days starting at 11 years old, I instead go to the woods and write in my journal, stories about worlds different from this one where people don't have to eat animals to live(always in a sci-fi setting, because at this time I wholeheartedly believed I would die if I didn't eat animals--omni parents suck.)

Then we skip foward a bit more. I'm thirteen and volunteering at the local SPCA. I love animals of all kinds by this time and am the only volunteer who'll touch any of the reptiles(except the frogs, most people were alright with them). I find out a couple of weeks after I've started volunteering that not all euthanization is humane, in fact, sometimes it involves drowing a littler of kittens. I wasn't supposed to know this though. I quit volunteering. I offered to take in any snakes they couldn't find homes for.

Then we get to my fourteenth year...I'm a vegetarian because I've read quite a lot and I'm rather fond of leaning on a cow and talking to her. I'm taking care of 21 snakes(one boa even slept with me at night), 7 cats, and various rodents--my mom is ok with this. She supports me being a vegetarian too, which I find weird because a few years ago she hated it when I tried to do anything other than be normal.

I'm sixteen and go to visit my father in Florida, I haven't seen him since I was nine--I wasn't even sure if he remembered my name. My best friend has just committed suicide a few months earlier(he was gay, his family was not happy with that), and my life is in shreds. I want my fathers approval desperately, and since he's not letting me have any food at all while I'm there(for 18 days)unless I eat meat, I give in.

I don't go veg again until I'm 19. My mother passes away this year at the age of 40. I'd been spending my time home taking care of my little brother and siste--since our dad didn't believe in paying child support while he was in another state, mom had to work to much to take care of them. I have no where to go, so I go back to my father. They put the pressure on, and once again I'm eating meat. I also have to get a job within two days of my mother passing away--but there's nowhere to run.

At megacon down here in Florida almost two years ago, a friend I'm with runs into an old friend of hers. He and I hit it off very well, and he happens to have been a vegetarian for a few months. Within days the two of us are dating, and I'm a vegetarian again, not taking meat for an answer. I find that with his support I'm stronger in my convictions--my dad and stepmom start going out of their way to accomadate me and my dietary needs.

I have real breakthroughs with my stepmother a couple of months later. She wants to lose weight, to eat healthier. I haven't convinced her to be a veggie yet, but when she goes out to eat, she often opts for the veg choice--and they eat out about five nights a week. She even went to the lengths of getting them to sell veggie dogs at a fundraiser they had at work(mind you, she works for city lawyers..*shudders*), and then a couple of months later makes tacos for the whole office that they all rave about...and then she tells them that the secret to her hamburger meat having such good flavor is that it's not meat at all. lol

Several months ago both my fiance and I cut eggs out of our diet, we knew it was disgusting, but we said we'd still eat cheese until a good fake cheese was available.

I won't say this is my first attempt at veganism--it's not. It seems that I have to try everything a couple of times first. As people were saying before, it has to click. I tried to become vegan for the right reasons before, but didn't really fully comprehend it all. Then a couple of weeks ago, without anything to trigger it at all, I started seeing the cheese on top of my enchiladas as little shreds of veal. Nevertheless the thought made me literally sick.

That's when things clicked for me. How dare I value the happiness of my tastebuds over another living beings life? I ask people the same thing all the time, and by consuming any animal product at all, I was still killing intentionally. I stopped, I never want to again. Those who can't speak for themselves have always had me to speak for them, and now I can do so without any guilt or chip on my shoulder(other than the fact that I was so knowledgeable and took this long anyway).

Tonight at dinner I spent about 30 seconds explaining the cheese=veal thing to our regular waitress, who is used to our weird vegetarian orders, but was completely new to the vegan concept. She looked pretty grossed out when I explained to her exactly the conditions the calfs are kept in, finishing up with a, "So I decided not to have baby for dinner tonight." My fiance', the hardcore cheese lover who'd already had a cheesy meal planned out, changed his mind instantly and said, "Um, same as hers for me too."

I think he'll be vegan with me in about a week. Now to just get the omni in the house to go veg--he's been my best friend for about five years, and moved here to go to school. Since he's jobless now, and probably won't have time for one for a few more months, I have the money, therefore control the food in the house. *evil laughter*

For those who wish to know the current status of animal companions...we also share our home with five dogs(three of which are puppies that we dug out of a collapsed building one sunday evening), and five cats(one of which who loves salads and veggies so much I swear she wants to be a veg). These are all strays that were rescued, the youngest feline being only a week old when she came to us, and involving many, many, many bottle feedings. I'm glad for such a big place(thanks to my father-in-law to be for renting it out cheap) and a well paying job...but I find that when I'm doing alright by the world, it does very well by me.

(sorry, I'm always pretty long-winded, with a hobby like writing novels, it's to be expected)

[Sproutpout]

Thanks everyone for your strong support, it's probably very insulting to most of you to hear how i became vegan, but I honestly believe that I refuse to eat animal produts for the right reasons!

I went to lunch today with an asian guy (he asked me before you ask lol) but kept asking about veganism (which i was more than happy to explain) he was very surprised at what I eat but when i asked what his favorite meal was....( I was expecting some sort of chicken dish) he said HORSE MEAT I was utterly disgusted and understandably refused lunch and drank for the rest of the day.

It's times like these I'm utterly thankful I live by a guilt-free diet!
Minus the cigarettes and alcohol....

[nickn505]

I've been vegan for about a month now.
I'm a philosophy student enrolled in a class with Dr. Steve Best. He's a very outspoken human and animal rights activist and he's even banned from a few european countries. Anyways, I was critical of his way of thought but once he brought in a guest speaker -Gary Hirousky (sp?) it changed me forever. I had even made chilie that day before class and made left overs but after that class I never ate meat again a few days after that I kicked the dairy habit. I realized that my way of life up to now was wrong and it's the right ethical choice to be vegan. My best friend has even become a vegetarian (he refuses to be vegan though ).
That's pretty much it, and I've decided to never again live an exploitive lifestyle. I love life too much

[Steph]

.
I'm a philosophy student enrolled in a class with Dr. Steve Best. He's a very outspoken human and animal rights activist

nickn505, hello! Just wanted to say hi and that I did a search on Dr. Steven Best, thank you, I'm glad I did! I did not know of him before, now, I know much more of him and what his beliefs are. I will be purchasing his books soon (specifically, "Terrorists Or Freedom Fighters?: Reflections on the Liberation of Animals"), we need more people to hear his voice, whether we agree or disagree, it is always good to hear different sides of the spectrum.
thanks again,
Steph

[pat sommer]

Wow, Ceshtanen, it's true what they say about tough lives make great stories... with a happy ending, thank goodness!

About the Guilt-Free Diet that Sproutpout mentions... I still have guilt: my vegan marg detroys Orangutan habitat, my soya drink tetra-pak is non-recyclable, my spanish strawberries are drying up wetlands...
We are all just doing the best we can given that we are all flawed humanbeings. Personally, I wouldn't fuss anymore over a horse-eater (non-factory farmed) than I would over a fish-and-chips lover. Ya, it's gross but suffering is suffering and I can't call myself lilywhite over my choices

[Michael Benis]

Pat,

some local recycling schemes take Tetra-Paks. Magpie in Brighton is one of them. I'm not sure about Bath, but it might be worth asking around.

Cheers

Mike

[pat sommer]

and I have a bushel-load of carrier bags to recycle...
I'll keep looking, Thanks Michael.

[Annie]

I just became a vegan 5ish days ago actually...

I have always loved animals but have also always been a huge meat eater (loved steak and chicken). Then I picked up a book called "Skinny Bitch" thinking it would just be about nutrition and give me a few tips on how to lose some weight.

I got to the chapter called "You Are What You Eat" and it described what goes on behind slaughter house doors and talked about what goes on with milk and eggs.

I cried while reading that chapter and for a good half hour or so after that. I realized if I loved animals so much I should really stop eating them and the things we, as selfish humans, are stealing from them.

I did some research on veganism after that and it only re-enforced why I was giving up meat and other animal products.

[Soul Rebel]

My wife and I hardly ate meat to begin with so I decided to take it a step further and cut it out all together. I really didn't have a reason to do so as I was very uneducated about vegetarians and vegans. I decided to read a book so I picked up Diet for a new America from the local library not knowing the impact it would have on me. The day I stared reading that book is the day I became vegan. The book literally had me in tears. I am now in the proces of reading his new book The Food Revolution and it too is very powerfull. I never realized how uneducated I really was about what my family ate. I really was brainwashed by the meat companies like the books say. Now I don't take anything for granted and stive to think before I do.

[carivegan]

wow. mine is a bit of a sad & confusing story.. i was in building 2 on 9/11/2001. i remember that day, but not the months after. i lost almost 40 lbs. in a week due to shock, and was COMPLETELY out of my mind. if my friends had told me to go rob a bank, i literally would have done it.

luckily they did not!

but when i started coming around in late november, i noticed severe changes in myself & could not pinpoint. i kept saying things like 'yeah, i am a different person now after what i have been through' and all that stuff, but it was more.

in a bar in williamsburg, brooklyn on the night of september 20, 21, or 22nd (no one is really SURE), my friends convinced me to go vegan & after a 10 year habit, to quit smoking. from what i hear, i did both of those, on the spot, that night.

***(disclaimer: these were two things i had been talking about doing, not them pushing views)

so i really WAS a different person when i came around! i did not really know/remember i took all those months off and joined a gym! i looked great, felt better than ever, and was sooo happy to not be addicted to anything anymore! at the perfect time, i felt completely empowered!

weird, but true!

[veganlinda]

My turning vegan was from slow germinating seed of connectivity. When I was about 4 my brother curled up on his bed naked (we shared bunkbeds) with his head between his knees and his arms at his sides and said 'look at me, I am a chicken' from then on I felt uncomfortable about meat and had dreams where people were eaten as if they were meat. Having said that I didn't turn veggie until I was 16 and it took another 11 years before I made the leap to veganism partly through finding vegan literature and partly from meeting Vegcurry and his vegan friends. It seems so natural and normal that I am constantly surprised that others don't 'get it' and either don't care or don't want to know about what they eat.

[veganlinda]

Hi Carivan, scary times .... glad you made it through and are happy n healthy now ...

[soychick]

I became vegetarian after viewing pictures of tortured chickens and animals on farms and cows in dairy farms. It was a commercial on MTV that prompted me to look up the website. I always knew the conditions were not the best, but I never knew how bad it was/is for these poor animals. Being an animal lover, I couldn't live with myself or claim to be an animal lover knowing the torture these animals are put through to feed people. I became a vegetarian( sometimes a pesco-vegetarian) at that moment because being Japanese, I thought I could never give up sushi.

2 months later, I gave up fish, eggs and dairy. Correction - I stopped eating animal products all together. I didn't give it up, because I'm not missing out, its my choice. I didn't want to be promoting an industry that harms animals. At that point, I stopped purchasing any products with animal skins as well.

I have been vegan now for almost a year and I must say the happiest I have ever been. I'm at peace knowing that I help save the lives of animals and don't promote violence.

[inkedmiss]

For me the turning point was reading something on Viva website (I think it was) and it said every 12 seconds a pig gets its throat cut ...

I have always been a huge animal lover and pigs were always my fave. It seemed wrong to claim to be an animal lover then eat them and I stopped there and then.

I have a daughter of 19 and she had a similar experience, actually she saw something on a myspace profile, went from a link to a link - got very upset by what she saw and hasn't eaten meat or dairy for a month and I am so very proud of her.

[Cherry]

My turning vegan was from slow germinating seed of connectivity

I was speaking to my sister a few days ago about veganism. She is convinced that it stems back to when we were in France when I was about 5. She said that she recently had a vivid flashback of me being presented with a plate full of sea food, me bursting into tears, and Dad shouting at me. I was the kind of child who patted snails and liked watching woodlice, so I can imagine that all the dead prawns and things on my plate would have been quite disturbing. I don't even remember it though.

[Woody]

I

[sjne01487]

It all happened to me in 1993 when i saw images of bears incarcerated in tiny cages in China. I had nightmares for 3 nights and decided to try and help those beautiful Moon Bears. I took petitions in the streets of Newcastle and three months later went to Norway to do the same thing. One year later I went to Sweden to carry on my work and that is where I met my wife to be. We met by chance one year later and after that we got together and eventually married. We were both animal rights activists and she convinced me to go vegan, that was in 1995. The health benefits have been enormous and I feel good knowing I am not contributing to animal suffering. Unfortunately I am no longer with my Swedish wife, but my work goes on to help animals and spread the vegan word.

[Memma33]

I saw 'lamb brains' as a product on a woolworths shelf while shopping with my mom in the meat department when I was 12. Once I realised what meat actually was (animals!!) I vowed not to eat meat again. My family were against it, but I never backed down. I'm now almost 22 and became vegan last year because I have always poorly understood it and it kept coming up (on sites, etc). Once educated on the crueltly of battery hens, dairy cows I transitioned.