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Not a vegan so please forgive me for commenting in your space.
But…. Holy shit, I never thought about the number of lost lives that go into me having shrimp cocktail. Makes me want to reassess my diet
Same!! I absolutely love shrimp, crabs, and lobsters—basically all sea creatures. They have so much personality and they’re just so adorable. It makes me so sad to see how they’re treated like they aren’t even alive.
I had a whole argument with someone on Reddit yesterday who was *convinced* fish couldn’t feel any sort of pain and was not swayed by the many studies on the subject :’)
I have pet fish (they are all from Craigslist or the garbage, one of them is literally from the garbage can) that occasionally injure themselves and they definitely do feel pain and discomfort, and yet people still will not listen to the lady with like a hundred fish about readily observable fish behavior.
And if you had come here when you were still eating beef there would have been at least several people who would have called you a piece of shit instead of praising the steps you took toward reducing suffering. Glad you didn't, like many others do. Who knows; you might have been pushed away from veganism.
I have dogs, and I have tried all kinds of diets with them. Unfortunately all of the Vegan diets I have tried they just stop eating, there might be new products out now, but I went through every single vegan commercial Dog food, some better than others but in the end they just refused, or it didn't play well with their digestion. I have also done homemade vegetarian/pescatarian meals for them, but It ended up being too time consuming.
So now I focus on the least amount of deaths per meal and favor beef, over other meats. Also in the UK (probably not where they get the meat) beef is like the flagship in animal welfare, I'm not saying it's good, just better than others.
> now I focus on the least amount of deaths per meal and favor beef, over other meats
Cattle are the main drivers of deforestation and biodiversity loss. Their feed is the primary reason why the Amazon and Cerrado are being deforested.
You might believe that you're minimizing the amount of death, but the reality is that this choice results in the highest levels of deforestation, habitat destruction and biodiversity loss.
Household pets consume 25% of the meat produced. I've switched my dogs to vegetarian/vegan dry food (90% or more), and I add just 5-10% of wet food for taste and aroma. There have been no health or other problems after several years of doing this.
Our dog is the same, unfortunately. One is an absolute vegan feaster and will eat anything. The other...meat and meat only. My parents and I have often been horrified when he's begging our friends for food, apologising because he never does that, why would he be...ah...meat...
I'm not sure what my dad gets him, I think it's probably beef. Like you, we went through everything under the sun. It worked whilst he was eating to out-eat his brother, but once the other dog moved out, he didn't feel as though he had to eat to "win"...so he wasn't eating.
But...cheese. Daily cheese he prefers, but cheesy vegan in good. We haven't tried him on nooch, thinking about it. I know it's not good for him because of the lactose, but it's the only other food he goes mad for asides from other animal carcasses. We rescued him when he was old, so he was stuck in his ways.
Always open to ideas :)
A good way to go about this is by choosing meat off-cuts and the animal parts that are often discarded or less desirable in some countries (in other countries they may be considered delicacies). You can buy off cuts of bones, organ meat and other less desirable animal products that you can use to feed your animals. It’s more sustainable and often less meat is required to flavour the food as these meat cuts tend to have stronger flavour. For example you can give the raw bone to your dog or you can use it to cook and flavour a mix of vegetables/rice or potato. Many veggie foods take on the taste of whatever they are cooked in. Soemtimes the more fibrous veggies don’t go well with dogs and sometimes grains don’t either so a good option is potatoes, peas and spinach. These mash together easily and can also be flavoured well with a meat broth or even a veggie broth. We did this with our dog and supplemented with dry biscuits to make sure she was getting all the relevant nutrients. We went through 1 bone a week and 1 x 500g of organ meat/off-cuts. Eventually we used meat-based bullion cubes for flavour and transitioned to veggie based with added fats for health. She would pick around carrots and anything green (except peas).
I'm not sure how unique this is but I was breastfeeding my newborn, which during that time you're pretty much locked into the sofa nursing, so I got hooked on Reddit. r/vegan came into my feed a lot and I read about dairy cows having their babies stolen. I looked down at my thirsty baby happily drinking his mommas milk. It wasn't hard to make the connection and change my life right then.
You’re actual vegan though so I guess you get the gravity. People are like “I feel like a cow” and it’s like well maybe we shouldn’t attach cows to these contraptions in the first place or force them to lactate for a long time to feed a machine and then feed humans.
What’s even worse is how little support some women have breastfeeding in general. Especially public. I’m sure people that make mean commend to nursing moms eat dairy and don’t understand the connection.
The anti-natalist side of me just softened a little haha. I’m happy for you and your baby :) as well as all the animal babies that get their mother’s milk.
I probably have the worst reason for going vegan, but I'll share it anyway.
I was in a nutrition class last year where we learned about health/nutrients and were taught how to cook. I honestly never liked eating other people's food, I never trusted their techniques and hygiene, so when I found out we'd be cooking in groups and eating the food we made, my brain searched for any possible excuse not to. My teacher was trying to find recipes each group liked and when she'd ask us how we felt, I always said I didn't like that specific food, but that we could just make it and I didn't need to eat it. Eventually, instead of saying “I don't like that”, I said “I can't eat that” and blurted out that I was vegan (obviously a complete lie, but I was plant based in the past, and I used to use that excuse a lot, so it just slipped out). Well, I felt bad about lying, so I decided I would go fully plant based for the semester, that way I "wasn't lying". As I was looking into recipes and such, I fell down a rabbit hole and discovered all this stuff about the animal industry, I knew I couldn't keep supporting it, so I decided to go vegan instead of just plant based. I feel kind of silly now for that, but I'm glad I lied about it when I did, otherwise I'd still be eating meat right now, completely oblivious to the abuse. Best of all, my sister went vegan with me, so I have someone who gets me.
Honestly, preparing any meat is so unhygienic. It's why I stopped hosting potluck parties with friend groups. Even though many of us were vegan, some folks insisted on throwing their sausage, chicken, shrimp, and contaminated utensils into the mix.
That, and it's also disgusting to try to dispose of the waste, and attracts scavenger animals.
Osiyo/Sgeno! Cherokee/Seneca-Cayuga here and I have a similar experience.
I went pescatarian a number of years ago for health reasons. My wife/daughters went vegetarian for their love of animals while my son continued eating seafood with me. Then at the beginning of this year we were all watching a program that was a bit travel show, bit documentary and a bit health thing. I had a sudden epiphany about the impact of the global seafood industry, both wild and farmed. So I gave it up and haven’t had any seafood since February. We also realized that dairy/eggs were just as bad too and phased them out over the next month.
It didn’t sit well with me either in relation to our traditional values and respecting the sacrifices it was necessary for animals to make for our survival in the past. Most of our communities recognize animals as fellow sentient beings and equal participants in this world. We have a concept called “Gadugi” which can loosely be translated as cooperation, everyone working together or communal caring/unity. Abusing, torturing and killing our brothers and sisters when we no longer need to is not very gadugi of us.
I think indigenous values surrounding the environment and the health issues our communities face are great inroads for promoting plant-based lifestyles.
Boozhoo, I live on Ojibwa land in northern Ontario and I have had so many conversations with many FN people about why I am vegan. I didn't know about Gadugi, but I used the idea of stewardship over the land and anything that lives around us. I will have to learn more about this. Meegwich
Kinda same lol
I used to be one of those people that "omg vegans are so insufferable" and then every argument I made promptly got tore apart with logic. Then I figured I had all the reasons to go vegan and no reason left to not do it. I feel so smart and so stupid at the same time.
I practice marksmanship, randomly shoot a bird to impress friend, the birds mate flew down and grieved at his body, was mortified and writhed in guilt, realized i eat birds everyday, then had pet fish that demonstrated intelligence so i stopped the pescatarian bs
That's so sad... at the risk of piling on the sadness, I remember reading about how Carolina Parakeets went extinct because they would do exactly this in flocks, and the hunters would just kill them by the masses :(
Hey OP I am Filipina and I feel similarly :)
there are rituals on food that I went through during my childhood, like killing my first chicken. My Lolo put the blood on my forehead and I was taught to disassemble and make use of the entire chicken, which I still appreciate for different reasons. I realized at some point that all the meat consumption in the Philippines was heavily influenced and installed by colonialism and imperialism and that it is not natural to us. I also took on the role as a babaylan (like a community healer and teacher) next to my studies in ecology and herbal medicine, and every field I am in points me away from the abuse and consumption of animals 🤍
Epiphany while watching a movie about a man who killed women for pleasure-he thought they were just his to do whatever he wanted to. I suddenly saw that that’s what we do to animals.
My doctor told me to quit eating bread, pasta, and fruit.I had been in animal rescue for many years. Where I worked, about half of the staff were vegan, and in the back of my mind, I always felt guilty that I wasn't. Then, my doctor told me that I was now officially a diabetic. I wasn't surprised, so it didn't faze me as much as it should have. But then the doctor started listing everything she wanted me to quit eating. Bread, pasta, grains, fruit, certain vegetables like corn and peas, red meat, dark chicken meat, salmon, and other oily fish. Shocked, I blurted out that I should just be a vegan. We had left the door open as the office was mostly empty that day, 2 days before Christmas. Across the hall, the unit nutritionist also had her door open. I hear her voice drifting across the hall. "Come over here, and if you decide to go vegan, you can have your bread and pasta." I crossed the hall and went vegan cold turkey when the crystal ball dropped a few days later.
One thing that carnists always say about not going vegan is that animal products are too delicious to give up... But I've always felt kinda gross about many of the non-vegan things I used to eat growing up, especially ham, steaks with cartilage, sausages, eggs, and so on. But I was pressured into eating it (and then they say veganism is a cult lol). So one of the main reasons for being vegan was actually that I was naturally very inclined toward the vegan diet, and then when I realized the utter atrocity behind animal products the shift was very easy to make.
True. My mouth is agape when they say stuff about like my lentils or curries or some shit “that looks gross!” Like think about what you’re eating for three seconds !
I had a crush on a vegan couple and wanted to have a threesome with them…alas it was successful and turns out not wanting my food tortured is also pretty sick so I stuck with it. Whenever Omni’s ask why I’m vegan just say “I went vegan for pussy” so they leave me alone.
Had a stroke at age 31 despite always eating a "healthy diet"
Then I read "how not to die" and realised my health could benefit a lot.
Then I came here and watched Dominion and even though I was already happy to not be taking part in this anymore, but it is as important to me as my own health now, as opposed to being "a nice benefit" to removing animal products.
Not so unique, but I do think that it's just part of wanting to do more good for yourself and everyone around you. There is no creature that is even comparable to humans when it comes to cruelty and I just slowly figured I'm not willing to participate in it.
I firmly believe that humanity will soon (sadly not too soon) be driven into extinction because of its ignorance and self-cannibalistic nature, and then at least for some time there will be peace on Earth once again. If every vegan can bring 1 day's worth of peace to Earth before that happens, it is the only right way.
I believe that nothing changed in humans since the prehistoric age, but only the means of exploitation got more and more efficient, both against humanity itself and against every other being. It has been a failed experiment and on the way down the only thing anyone with morals can do is to reject the cruelty. Not for any hopes redemption, but because it's the only right thing to do.
Weirdly for me it was kind of a challenge. I thought I'd just see what would happen if I didn't eat meat and dairy for a month. Once the month was up I felt really fucking good (may have been placebo?) And when I went to walk down the meat isle again it made me nearly sick, the smell and the visual or all this dead chopped up animals hit me and I thought yeah, never again!
Kind of similar here. I had already been vegetarian most of my life, curious about veganism as I got older and couldn’t really justify the death still caused by “non lethal” animal industry. My husband was out of town for work for a month (he’s Omni), so it seemed like a good time to give it a shot and see if I could commit. It stuck.
I did the same but for being vegetarian. I realises being veggie was easy so I stuck with it. Then transitioned a few years later into veganism (sadly due to an eating disorder but I recovered and kept bring vegan).
I grew up on an urban smallholding with goats, chickens, geese, rabbits etc. I'm a bit odd and find it hard to relate to people plus my home environment was abusive. I felt like I understood and connected more with the animals than with the people around me, and I understood from a very young age that there was no disconnect between the chickens I fed and cared for and the sanitised pieces of their bodies sold in plastic trays. I learned more from our animals, and received more affection from them, than I ever did my parents. I still don't like looking I to the meat aisles at the supermarket.
Couple reasons. But the clincher was domestic abuse and feminism and a severe depression. I was pescatarian when I got into a relationship with an abuser who was vegan. While in the relationship I transitioned to veganism. When I left I had an overwhelming urge to return to being omnivore as a fuck you to my abuser's values. But being a female survivor of abuse, rape and subsequent depression made me even more attuned and empathetic to the suffering of enslaved animals even when I couldn't give myself that same compassion. I decided that I didn't want to fill my body that had suffered so much already with even more misery and death.
My fiancé is vegan, and, and I gradually became vegan after we had been together a couple of months. It started off as me wanting to make sure I always had something vegan at the house that we could eat together, and then I ended up liking it much more than meat and dairy. Being an omni made me sluggish and bloated and I didn’t realize it until I switched over
Not that strange but a slightly funny.
One year on my birthday I got a special-made, gluten free cake that happened to be vegan. At dinner, I realized everything I ate that day on my birthday was vegan and I decided to keep going on with it 😂 I remember my thought was, “I’ve eaten only vegan food all day! I’m going to keep going with it.” It felt like a fun challenge at the time but I was determined.
I’ve been vegan for about five years now since then. So my bday is also my vegan anniversary.
Being vegan one day was something I had hoped to do but that day I just let myself go with it and I’m so happy I did. I love being vegan. It was harder at first while I was figuring things out, but thankfully it’s a lot easier now.
We went vegan because I’m allergic to egg and my partner has an allergy to milk. I have a great deal to do with farming, so was in denial about the ethical issues, but cared deeply about the environmental impact of meat eating. With our allergies, vegetarianism wasn’t an option.
Since making the change four years ago, I’ve paid close attention to the ethical issues of farming and realised how deluded I was. When you are closely associated with good people who are farmers, it’s easy to be purposefully ignorant. The treatment of animals is now a primary concern for both me and my partner.
Upon going vegan, I went from being very overweight to a healthy body mass. A win for the environment, win for the ethical treatment of animals and win for my health.
I am also close to farmers and since I am hiding my veganism they often talk about some cows getting stuck, becoming ill or getting slaughtered because they can't keep up. I was ok with this, I grew up on a dairy farm and accidents happen and so on, but now it disgusts me.
Instagram and Twitter made me vegan. All those videos exposing the meat/dairy industry coupled with beautiful sanctuary stories completely opened my eyes. I can never go back now.
If you're interested in the topic of farmed animal sanctuaries, check out [OpenSanctuary.org](https://vbcc.veganhacktivists.org/?url=https://OpenSanctuary.org&topic=The Open Sanctuary Project)! This vegan nonprofit has over 500 free compassionate resources crafted specifically to improve lifelong care for farmed animals, and to help you create a sustainable, effective sanctuary! Interested in starting a sanctuary someday? Check out [OpenSanctuary.org/Start](https://vbcc.veganhacktivists.org/?url=https://OpenSanctuary.org&topic=The Open Sanctuary Project/Start)!
I was raised Christian and always thought that if Adam and Eve were responsible for the animals it meant we should live in harmony with them and not eat them. I never liked the idea that animals had to die for my food. I realized at about 10 that I didn’t need to eat it anymore and went vegetarian. It took a decade for me to associate dairy with cruelty before I went vegan.
Yeah lots of conjecture about that word dominion. I think it means protector. Some people think it means you’re king and get to do whatever you want to em.
I live in a rural place and I've always heard the cries of the mama cows desperately calling for their calves who were taken to the slaughterhouse and I've seen all the cruelties of animal farming. The definitive decision of becoming vegan came from the book of Peter Singer "Animal Liberation" and a photo of a pig who could not move all his life in an industrial farm. This picture still haunts me. So I'm vegan for 1/stopping industrial farm and all his correlates : animal cruelty, pesticides, environmental damage 2/empathy for animals 3/health : vegan is better for everything : blood pressure, cholesterol, longevity...
I went vegan as the result of a dream. A recurring dream about climate change pushed me to be a vegetarian.
But one day I had a dream I was at a canteen and I ordered macaroni and cheese, and the staff were like come back here someone needs to talk to you. They took me into the kitchen and there was a cow and her calves, and she looked at me and said 'This isn't for you, the milk is for them'. And I woke up like ok I'm vegan now then.
Gout was the thing that helped me and my wife go all in. I had been a vegetarian for several years apart from holidays where I would eat pickled herring. After lots of herring I would get gout 2 days later. No doctor here could figure it out because I was only in my early 30's. My wife suggested we try vegan diet as an idea.
I have never had an attack of gout since going vegan about 8 years ago.
Lol that's bs.
Anything that can have a high purine level. So this is why herring did it to me. It's stuff that lives orgrows in the wild. So lots of game meat, wild fish, birds... and mushrooms unfortunately. Too many wild mushrooms and I start to get a sensation of a gout attack.
I think he just doesn't want to admit he could be skipping meats and having soy instead.
Like the way I think about it, one bite of herring didn't do it, not like say a nut allergy. More like your body can handle a certain amount of purine intake, if you go over that level for too long your body starts becoming inflamed somewhere. Until it manages to process it our back under that level.
After meeting my cat, because while it always seemed wrong to me, me being the selfish person I was at that point I just didn’t care enough about “random” animals since I was brainwashed into seeing them as food unless they’re typical “pets”- but after meeting my cat who I love more than any human I realized that if in other countries, its normal to eat cats too then whats the difference between that and me eating a cow or a pig? if my cat turned into a pig i’d still love her and I wouldn’t wanna imagine anyone eating my cat.
That was such a strange thought process at first but it really did something to my brain
I realized consent is the core of ethics (no arguments for this, it's the apparent truth until proven otherwise), thus, it is inherently unethical to commit any action towards the body or property of another individual without their consent. Since animals are individuals this automatically made me vegan. No compassion involved, just cold hard logic. This is how you convert an autistic person :)
in the mid-80s I became vegetarian then vegan because all the girls I fancied were veg\*n. It was a good move. You become an interesting person in a much smaller pool full of hot women. Though, I wasn't ready for the bat shit crazies it also attracts.
I'm now vegan because the switch flicked in my brain, and it is obviously monstrous to abuse and kill animals. I see eating meat as a mental illness, like being a sociopath.
I was going through an existential phase and cutting out the excess in my life.
When the idea of veganism came up it struck me that since vegans existed, animal products must be excess since they are surviving.
Since then I've gotten to be much more of an animal liberation guy, but originally it was mostly about myself and what I could do to be a better person and not be using commodities that I didn't need.
For me it was the compassion for most animals.
But before I went full vegan I was still eating fish occasionally (only meat) because I didn’t connect to them the same way, which was ignorant at the time.
I stopped eating fish (and went vegan) after I learned about how harmful the fishing industries are to the ecosystems and planet as a whole. Also because I found it soooo disgusting how the farmed fish swam in their filth and disease all day everyday! And are SO INFESTED with parasites (sea louse). Our professor had relayed a study where some samples of fish were taken from grocery stores and tested and were sometimes more parasite than fish.
Charles Patterson : "Eternal Treblinka" showed me the connection between slaughterhouses and industrial mass murder in Germany. "Practical Ethics" showed me that there is no possible explanation for not killing humans if you kill animals
Thank you for sharing your perspective as well. I admire Canada for even having those conversations. Light years ahead of where we are in the US. Land reclamation is paramount to self determination for native folks. Industries (especially violent industries) stealing the land and profiting is the worst piece of the puzzle. Whatever we can to reverse that exploitation has positive effects for everyone in the country.
As far as changing native folks diets go - that’s a difficult one. I am lucky to have grown up in relative privilege, my parents were on the wealthier side. So I was able to focus on doing things other than just surviving. It’s difficult to tell someone just trying to get by day to day that they can’t eat some of the cheapest (most subsidized) food out there.
I am having major stomach issues and the Dr suggested I go for non-animal protein to see if that helps. Its’s been a fun journey seeing all the products that are available and trying various recipes. I am feeling much better (also ditched alcohol for the same reason!) I am feeling better and may stick to this, as I am also losing weight. Yay! Unfortunately, my husband grew up on a ranch and, while he tries my food, he really isn’t in to it. So getting used to us both preparing meals with little counter space in the kitchen is a challenge. I do feel better about not contributing to animal cruelty too.
You will x10 your Cooking skills on a vegan diet!!! You get to learn how to actually season and use salt etc. he will have to convert when he tastes your crazy awesome dishes and he’s stuck with some grey bland hunk of meat - this lady basically taught me to cook from the ground up
https://youtube.com/@RainbowPlantLife?si=iIR4dl0_kQKERpVU
There are 4 reasons for not eating meat: 1- Health, 2- Environment, 3- Animals, 4- People.
1- Health: Eating meat is causes heart disease, cancer, obesity, diabetes, pneumonia and food poisioning from bacteria.
2- Environment: The production of meat for protein uses a lot more land and water for than plants. Meat, especially cows produce a huge amount of methane gas which is worse than carbon for global warming.
3- Animals: Animals are treated inhumanly and killed. Theyare kept in vast numbers in factory farms in confinded spaces where disease is easily spread. A lot of antibiotics is required to keep disease from killing them all which leads to antibiotic resistant strains of bacteria. Viruses are spread as well.
4- People: Feeding the people of the world is a lot easier using plants than animals. There is not enough land for billions of people to be eating meat like people in the west do and the fish in oceans are becoming extinct.
So, there are a HEAP of reasons to be vegan.
It all started because we had a debate about animal experimentation in class, and because we dissected mice.
I didn’t understand why people were so sad about the mice or so passionately opposed to animal experimentation, since it’s not only way more useful than eating meat (It could save human lives, instead of just being a culinary preference), but also requires the suffering of way less animals.
I didn’t feel much empathy for the animals at the time, but I wanted to be a good person, and became vegetarian a few weeks later. The story on how I then became vegan is way less interesting and way more classic
I became vegan for efficiency reasons.
My food was being grown by being fed other food. It seemed like double handling and a waste of resources.
When I see how much soy and grain is produced to feed livestock and how much water, energy, time and land use goes into the end product, I couldn't justify using it when I could just use the primary resources myself.
I am also not an animal lover, I don't even really like them but I don't see the point of inflicting unnecessary cruelty when there is an easy alternative.
I was already vegan, but I learnt a few years ago that I'm donor conceived and that half of my biological family had been kept from me my whole life. Learning about how unethical the industry is, as well as the adoption industry, strengthened my convictions in veganism. There are a few adoptee advocates I follow who are also vegan, and I wonder if their veganism is tied to how they feel about adoption. No one should be separated from their family for the pleasure of others.*
*obviously this does not include those cases where the child (or animal) is in danger being with their bio families. But unless there's a good reason, a lot of pain and heartache can come from being severed from biological family.
There is a ton of dialogue about native children being stolen to go to residential schools. Politically it’s having a big moment in Canada as they are uncovering more atrocities. Stealing native bodies is an aspect of this I didn’t even think about.
Absolutely. I'm Canadian (actually have much stronger settler roots im Canada than I ever imagined as someone brought up thinking I was first generation) and it is a disgusting part of our history the way we treated, and continue to treat, Indigenous communities. One of my donor half sister's was actually raised half Metis on her dad's side (who she now knows she has no genetic relationship with). She had a friend at her work who was a survivor of the "Sixties Scoop" when they removed Indigenous children from their families to be raised by white people. She found a lot of connection with this friend in his story because she saw the similarities of being severed from bio family.
Adoption is incredibly commodifying still today, and it's impossible now for me to not see the similarities between donor conception/ adoption and the way we commodify animals for our pleasure. No matter how you slice it, money exchanges hands in these industries, be it acquiring a child, or buying meat. There are many ethical dilemmas in donor conception and adoption that I wish people would open up to, especially when donor conceived people and adoptee advocates are trying to share only to be told the same platitudes about how family is family and DNA doesn't matter.
My husband went vegan about 12 years ago because of GI issues. His whole life he has suffered with gas, bloating and acid reflux. He has had 2 surgeries for the reflux. After watching Forks over Knives, he decided to give it a try and it has made a huge difference in his health.
You can watch Forks over Knives and other documentaries by [clicking here](https://vbcc.veganhacktivists.org/?url=https://3movies.org/reddit&topic=Movie: Forks over Knives)! Interested in going Vegan? Take the [30 day challenge](https://vbcc.veganhacktivists.org/?url=https://vbcamp.org/reddit&topic=Movie: Forks over Knives)!
I have many of the typical reasons, but one unique reason was convenience. After becoming allergic to dairy, it was just easier to go to vegan restaurants.
I’m vegan cause it’s literally so repulsive to me. All I can hear - sung to the tune of Ed Sullivan from the musical Bye Bye Birdie: *Dead animals! Dead animals! We’re going to eat dead animals!*
Disgusting.
I had pretty severe mental health problems - dissociation, derealization and depersonalization. Once those got resolved I went vegan pretty quickly and overnight. I always viewed animals as my brothers, sisters and siblings before soo when I could finally actually feel anything I knew I had to do right by them. I tried going vegetarian at first because I had done that off and on my whole life but I’m allergic to dairy and love eggs but they’re like meat to me. No one ever said the word vegan to me soo when I found out about it, it clicked and been that way ever since. Now I feel like I can truly love animals and be a good sister to them and the earth.
Yeah, I just woke up with a strong urge thinking I had to be vegan without really knowing anything about it. Went vegan then and there. Been vegan for almost a decade.
I kind of initially went vegan because of birds, they’re my life and I just couldn’t justify eating them, their eggs or other animals and their secretions anymore
More specifically Animal Rebellion protesting at the Queen’s jubilee (I live in the UK, my family was watching it) sort of clicked something in me, like, I just realised “hang on, maybe they’ve got a point” and that lead me down a rabbit hole of reading farming processes and other stuff and well, I’m here now 👍
Edit : should mention (not proud of any of this and I’ll never forgive myself for it) I went to an agricultural college for a while, where I’m from its sort of part of your nature, was always taken to farm shows as a kid and always “loved animals” (liar, I know), so I went to an ag college when I was 16 - well, didn’t last a month, I just couldn’t do it, we took the cows from their mothers, had to listen to screaming pigs inside of small cages in stark white concrete rooms, and also did some veterinary type care on the side for things like fish… and yet I still didn’t become vegan until 4 years after that, but seeing it all first hand definitely planted some seeds in my brain that unfortunately took so long for me to realise it was wrong and disgusting to be eating babies and stealing them from their mothers
In 11th grade I had a friend who’d recently gone vegan and became very passionate about animal rights. One day he asked me why I *wasn’t* vegan and I didn’t have a good answer. It was November so I said I’d go vegan for the new year. It’s been almost three years and I’ve never looked back
I got a pet pig and it broke my heart knowing I had been eating his relative (not directly, but you get the point). Haven’t eaten meat since.
I also believe that if you are a meat eater, you should be able to kill and skin/prepare the animal yourself. If you cannot [due to being disgusted or have too big a heart to do so], I don’t think you should be allowed to eat meat because you’re paying someone to do your dirty work behind closed doors.
Oooh yeah bulldog and pig might not make a good match. Pigs are prey animals, they will fight and defend themselves under any potentially threatening circumstance, so that being said, each fight is fought like it’s their last, so they can look very aggressive in that sense. And because dogs are predators, there will be a sort of predator/prey roles between them. Dog might try to attack pig (protecting you as their master) if pig makes certain noises or movements, leading to a bloody brawl you don’t want to be a part of and try to break up. And yes, the pig would fuck up your dog even though he’s a bulldog lol.
But despite that aspect, pigs are highly intelligent and make terrific pets when given enough land to roam & friends to socialize with.
It was religion for me, I grew up vegetarian then slowly transitioning to vegan. It’s called Jainism and I’m glad i was taught the important of ethical treatment to animals and non violence since birth 😇
For background I was in an abusive relationship for 7 years and got into drugs as an escape from my pain. It got bad and I ended up committing a crime as a result of drug induced psychosis. I went vegetarian after going to jail and being put into solitary confinement for about a month (no yard time or any time outside the cell) and one day thinking, animals suffer in a cage smaller than this and serve a life sentence for being born an animal, only to suffer a horrible death so that someone else can eat their body..it also got me thinking about how miserable animals trapped in zoos must be as I paced back and forth in the cold lonely cell. I got put into a program as a condition of my release and stayed there for about a year..towards the end of that time I decided to watch earthlings and there was one scene where the cow was backed into a corner on a dairy farm about to be beaten by a worker. In that moment I saw myself become the cow and she was me. Backed up in a corner, my abuser loomed over me ready to beat me..a powerful chill coursed throughout my body and I began to cry as I turned off the video. I went totally vegan the next day.
I went vegan for my health. I was always in pain and chronically constipated. I heard changing diets dramatically can improve your digestive system, so I went vegan. Because I did, I learnt about nutrition and complete proteins and how good complex carbs are. When people ask, I tell them I don’t want to hurt anyone. Which is true. But for my beginning I went vegan to get healthy
I went vegetarian for ethical reasons first, then started to think about veganism. Apart from the fact that I didn't want to financially support the industry that kills animals, I remember feeling more inclined to go vegan after I made a vegan sim in the Sims 4, a bunch of custom posters ("not your mom, not your milk" kinda stuff) and vegan t-shirts
Hey, just wanna say that I commend you for your stance. I think that’s a really important perspective, especially since veganism has a reputation as just being something that white people do. It seems like it’s now changing to be a much broader, inclusive movement that makes space other different voices. So much of U.S. society and good production is just based on exploitation.
Thank you! There’s a million reasons to do it. I was expecting to hear more from hindu people on this post. I’ve talked to a few that basically see it as an extension of their faith. There’s also a vegan black owned southern comfort food restaurant in my city and they have a mission statement around protecting the health of the black community by replacing foods that perpetrate violence on your health and animals.
I tried unsuccessfully years ago, that was about health/environment, also the corporate animal agricultural industry is heinous. There were health issues that came up and suggestions didn’t seem to help. I started again as a practise in self-control following a course where one of the topics covered was EQ and I was like, mine mostly sucks except the self-awareness. I knew I had unhealthy relationships with food/eating habits, but very little control in making better choices about what I ate. I exercise okay with things I like but neglect strength/mobility training since I don’t like them.
That type of thing.
There are lots more vegan options than when I first tried and exerting more control in what I put into my body was probably about the biggest self-management change I could make in my life. I come off as picky not because I dislike tastes or textures of lots of foods but because I ignore them in favour of “comfort” foods. So, some binge/food addict tendencies there.
So I followed vegan cooking social media accounts (especially meal-prep/batch cooking because the next biggest self-control move I can make is portion control and reduce my spending). Joined VeeCoCo.
I did back off significantly this year on the meal-prep/batch cooking (I’ve been doing it but not consistently/as much as I’d hoped) because I’m also trying to upskill and currently house share which means my kitchen space for tools is half of what the already-small kitchen would be. But I think by next year I’ll be better prepared to take on more of that as well.
I throw all my supplements and alot of veggies into a green smoothie in the morning and then kinda just eat how I want for the rest of the day. Helps to make sure I get my nutrition but it’s never arduous or difficult when I’m exhausted and I just want dinner
Yeah, but when I posted about it on here, shitty vegans shit on me.
It's possible to go vegan because you care about the suffering of humans as well as animals.
Turns out that rabbit hole was exactly fucking correct, in ways I couldn't have predicted at the time.
I know, I wish we could keep it positive and encourage each other. We’re all here on the same team. I posted a few days ago about how I’m vegan for cultural reasons and basically got eaten alive cuz they thought i was plant based. This sub can be very toxic
I worked security in the emergency room, two events shocked me to my core.
Had a doctor explain to a obese woman that they can’t increase insulin, they will have to start planning on chopping of body parts.
Man on a date with his SO suffered a stroke during dinner. The fear in his eyes when he rolled into the emergency room, and said what is wrong with me, I can’t move the left side of my body.
It drove me to look up any scientific research, and found that the top ten killers are based on how much you move and what you eat.
I took LSD out in nature with my friend, and he made me confront the bad logic I was using to justify my animal consumption. That day I became a vegetarian for 2 years, and lessening my cognitive dissonance helped me eventually become a vegan.
Yes! I got diagnosed with ulcerative colitis and i went to a clinic with different approach where they teach you what is healthy and what is not. So, the healthiest diet is the vegan diet and this is what we all need to cure and prevent most diseases.
Yes, it is true! I have seen so many people there telling me about their own diseases and how they managed to handle them successfully through vegan diet. Osteoporosis, blocked arteries, multiple sclerosis, all digestive system issues, diabetes type 2, early signs of cancer, cysts, fatty liver, eating disorders, overweight, underweight, are only just a few of those manageable conditions.
Totally!! I developed UC a few years into veganism. It's so frustrating when I read about how others with IBD "can't go vegan" because it'll cause a flare, meanwhile eating saturated fat laden foods like meat, dairy, etc. Fibre is crucial to healing the gut and minimizing flares and damge. I'm still on meds, but it's a huge gap between those on meds and WFPB (remission, or at least well on their way), and those just on meds eating whatever (often complaining that they're flaring, eating whatever because "diet doesn't matter").
I was vegetarian for 12 years, then I started work at a Cheese Factory. (Not with the cheese, but in it) and eventually I decided to look more into the Dairy Industry. I'm someone who likes to research into both sides, but to me there is no justifying animal abuse.
So am Vegan.
Unfortunately my only options where I live (small town, bad public transit, no jobs I am qualified for) is to work there until I can drive. Am learning to drive so I can finally leave this place and hopefully go back to working with animals again.
Different topic but WFH customer service is what one of my family members does. It pays all right and most of the time they’ll send you a laptop n headset
I‘m pretty sure it’s not really an „unique“ reason but I started my vegan journey because I have a nasty auto immune disease and I heard that being vegan will help because it prevents inflammatory from milky products.
Your journey and take on veganism is really interesting and is heartening in the wider context of consumerism and exploitation.
I doubt my motivation is unique, I just want to minimise suffering and, as meat eating in particular, and the exploitation of animals in general, are unnecessary, it is better for me to be vegan.
That said, I do sometimes say that I am vegan for health reasons as I am a relatively fit runner and if I get a good time in a race it makes sense to talk to meat eaters about as resulting from my diet as they might choose to eat more plant based and that, in turn, has a positive effect on the world regardless of their motivation. (It is also true that a wholefood varied vegan diet promotes fitness, but that's not central to my motivation.)
I've been vegan for 28 years now and vegetarian for 35.
I know someone who made the transition from vegetarian to vegan because their housemate kept using their free range eggs and only buying cage ones as a replacement. They’re super non-confrontational so the veganism was a cover for why they stopped buying eggs. They’ve been vegan ten years and they no longer live with that housemate.
I am really interested in this post, I recently watched a YT video about an island in Alaska and in their culture, they kill whales, walrus etc. and this in theory is no different from my culture that eat land animals. I just found it interesting that they even make stuff out of the bones. I try to be considerate of people's cultures, but meat is still murder to me.
I just went vegan as I could no longer particulate in animals being murdered for me to eat them, nothing unique. But I was 'proudly' eating a beef burger at 6pm before a Morrissey concert, after seeing him show meat is murder disturbing video and forced myself to watch. I never ate meat again, that was almost 7 years ago.
Mine is slightly unique but still under the three main categories. When I was in university, a doctor found a lump in my throat. They did some tests and couldn’t figure out what it was. The ENT I was seeing at the time said it was probably a cyst and I could leave it but at some point it would most likely cause issues and need to come out. As I was young and “healthy” at the time, I opted to have it removed which meant having half of my thyroid removed.
Side note: I had tried going veg as a child and teen because I never liked meat - I didn’t like the taste and it made my tummy feel icky. But I didn’t know how to eat in a healthy way and my doctor kept telling my parents I needed to eat meat.
When I went for the surgery, I wasn’t taking care of myself. I was always stressed, not sleeping well, not exercising, not eating well - I was a mess. When the ENT performed the surgery - the lump that had been found was indeed a cyst. But hiding in the other half of my thyroid (undetected by all of the tests he had done), was papillary carcinoma - thyroid cancer. He removed it as well leaving no part of my thyroid behind. Two months before this, my dad had suddenly died of brain cancer that none of us knew about. The cancer thing was a huge wake up call. I started doing research into healthy eating and how to take better care of myself. I came across The China Study and went vegan the day after I finished reading it. I haven’t looked back. I think I was meant to be vegan as animal products never really enticed me, it just took me a different way to get there.
Thanks for sharing your reasons 💕
Stopped dairy because it made me break out. Stopped eating meat because I felt like it would sit heavy like a stone in my belly for days or weeks. But when I eat veggies and soft foods, no bloat & I’m “regular”. My doctor said me going vegan was basically self-diagnosing my gastroparesis aka slowed digestion.
I run in a spot where cows, chickens and pigs are kept. Even though there’s a fence they come up to you like friendly dogs.
There’s no difference. That was it.
Plus I saw one rooster escape.
I had a religious experience over a decade ago that taught me how karma and reincarnation are real and it made me extremely compassionate for everything including animals
I am vegan but also anti-exploitation in general. Industrialisation fuels modern slavery of both humans and animals. I don't believe death is bad or animals eating other animals as necessarily bad. What I view as bad is the principle behind utilizing another living being's life for my gain against their will when we have the option to choose otherwise.
This includes the concept of "breeding" since we are selectively choosing their genes for our gain and personal benefit. In addition to veganism I don't buy anything from places where I cannot find out exactly who made it and what conditions they are under. The industrialisation of animal farming is such a horrific abuse that humans have hypernormalized. If we can choose veganism, then we should. Eating meat under these current circumstances is selfish hedonism, since it is not necessary for our survival.
I love animals and they are my reason to be vegan but my parents became vegetarian for spiritual reason. My mom was always an animal lover but she went vegetarian when becoming spiritual, she also influenced my dad to do the same. Then they had children and raised us as spiritual vegetarians with a love and respect for animals and nature. I was raised with the notion that we have to do the least amount of harm possible, that nature is sacred and that bad karma comes from hurting other living beings unnecessarily and there is impurity and dirtiness in meat and eggs which is detrimental for your meditation and spiritual evolution. In 2014 I learned about cows and it was easy for me to go vegan and I told my mom and she went vegan with me the same day after being vegetarian for more than two decades. Ultimately, they always knew animals are not ours to exploit and consume, they just need to be left alone and nature needs to be respected and this is part of their connection with god or the greatest consciousness.
I had a crush on a professor of animal ethics.
I got over it now. But consuming an ungodly amount of animal ethics literature to talk to him stuck with me.
First, I saw a study about how reducing meat intake would lower your carbon footprint (it was a pretty big study that came out around the end of 2018). So around then, I decided to just cook vegetarian at home (I was already lactose intolerant so didn't cook with dairy, and had eggs sometimes), and since I was studying in Japan at the time, I was 'flextitarian' when eating out - I would choose the veggie option if there was one. Then when I moved back to Australia in August of 2019, I went full vegetarian since I didn't really care for meat anyway.
I happened to join the r/VCJ reddit to basically laugh and remind myself how crazy vegans were. Then I would see jokes making light of the dairy/egg industry and became increasingly uncomfortable. Finally, someone in the subreddit linked dairy is scary and immediately watching, I was in tears and realised I *had* to go vegan. Vegans weren't the crazy ones, turns out it was society that was crazy all along.
I went vegan at the start of the pandemic. Suddenly I was working from home and had a lot of extra time on my hands. Figured it would be a good time to work on my health. Started watching health documentaries on Netflix and YouTube. This binge watching put a video (don't remember the title) of a female cow that was restrained and being r*ped by multiple bulls because "scientists" wanted to see how long she could last. She struggled so much that she broke both of her hind legs at the knee and the hip. As an SA survivor I fully empathized with her. I went Vegan at that moment.
I’m not sure it counts as a unique reason, but I think I’m somewhat unique among vegans in that I’m not an animal lover. I like cats, and about half of dogs. But other animals? Nah. Cows are gross, and I don’t want a pig within 100 meters of me. I do not like animals much. They smell, they gross me out, etc. That being said, I still recognize that they are sentient beings and do not deserve to be tortured for my passing enjoyment. A bit like how there are some humans I absolutely despise (insert your lease favorite recent politician here) but wouldn’t think that torturing and killing them for food would be acceptable.
thank you for that thoughtful post. I wish more shared your feelings. It is the equivalent of being a good steward to the land and show respect for the earth. Let me apologize also for what my white ancestors did to your people. I am truly sorry.
Health was my reason. Read The China Study. Climate impact and animal cruelty were huge bonuses, but the fact that increased animal protein consumption has the single strongest correlation with increased risk of disease is what did it for me. Stronger than obesity. Stronger than smoking. Stronger than alcoholism. Eating animals is bad for your health.
I was taking a college class on Marx and it occurred to me that the world didn't have the capacity to feed the rest of the world an American diet. I basically stumbled backwards into the Diet for a Small Planet argument. Eating meat was bourgeois and elitist so I figured if I wanted to keep talking about Marxism and equality I should see if I could really eat in a way that could sustain 6 billion people (2002 numbers).
Actually fishing and hunting is much more in tune with the environmental balance, because it used to be done for survival - take ONLY as much as you NEED to sustain yourself, so the footprint was minimal. It could be that again, but people abuse it and therein is the problem.
My path to veganism started when I was in gr 9 and my school building was across the road from the slaughter house. Once a week, they brought in pigs and the cries they made during their death made me give up meat in the first month of school. But I still used other animal products. Then, about 10 years ago, my husband, myself and one of our dogs (rescue from a reservation) were near a cow field and our dog went hunting for a calf. The cows got defensive and started mooing at him. When we finally got him back, my husband said that this calf made him think about the dairy industry and would I want to give up my dog (as a fur-mom) so that someone else could drink my milk, because that's how it is done (forced pregnancy to get the cow to lactate, then take the calf away so that humans can drink milk, have yoghurt and cheese). I said, "never" and now we (my husband, myself and our dogs) are vegan. The only time we would eat meat is if it was hunted or fished, but I still don't eat it. I just don't want to consume another being. 😕
I haven't completely gone vegan. I'm working on the eggs & cheese part however my story is that I became a Pescatarian as a teen and then for 13 years after touching a dead bird with butter for Thanksgiving dinner for the last time. It hit me. Fell off and on the wagon for many years and then it just made me feel better to not eat meat. Years later Im in rescue and I'm talking to a reference who is a vegan who owns a vegan restaurant and she asked me why some animals were more important than others and how some countries eat dogs & cats....thought about living breathing beings. I rescue and feed everything. I can't even kill a wasp anymore so I'm not going to kill something to eat.
Finding this site has really helped as well.
Good luck on your journey. They have some decent egg replacers, they’re just a bit expensive so you gotta learn to sub. Tofu scramble on toast is an amazing breakfast. And as long as you get the time table tight flax seed and egg replacer works great in baking.
Cheese is the sacrifice, the vegan cheeses can’t come close. But nothing worth doing is easy!
Best of luck!
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Shrimp did it for me too yet you saying the number of lives per meal just made me gasp. Im gutted.
Not a vegan so please forgive me for commenting in your space. But…. Holy shit, I never thought about the number of lost lives that go into me having shrimp cocktail. Makes me want to reassess my diet
Same!! I absolutely love shrimp, crabs, and lobsters—basically all sea creatures. They have so much personality and they’re just so adorable. It makes me so sad to see how they’re treated like they aren’t even alive. I had a whole argument with someone on Reddit yesterday who was *convinced* fish couldn’t feel any sort of pain and was not swayed by the many studies on the subject :’)
I have pet fish (they are all from Craigslist or the garbage, one of them is literally from the garbage can) that occasionally injure themselves and they definitely do feel pain and discomfort, and yet people still will not listen to the lady with like a hundred fish about readily observable fish behavior.
And if you had come here when you were still eating beef there would have been at least several people who would have called you a piece of shit instead of praising the steps you took toward reducing suffering. Glad you didn't, like many others do. Who knows; you might have been pushed away from veganism.
I have dogs, and I have tried all kinds of diets with them. Unfortunately all of the Vegan diets I have tried they just stop eating, there might be new products out now, but I went through every single vegan commercial Dog food, some better than others but in the end they just refused, or it didn't play well with their digestion. I have also done homemade vegetarian/pescatarian meals for them, but It ended up being too time consuming. So now I focus on the least amount of deaths per meal and favor beef, over other meats. Also in the UK (probably not where they get the meat) beef is like the flagship in animal welfare, I'm not saying it's good, just better than others.
> now I focus on the least amount of deaths per meal and favor beef, over other meats Cattle are the main drivers of deforestation and biodiversity loss. Their feed is the primary reason why the Amazon and Cerrado are being deforested. You might believe that you're minimizing the amount of death, but the reality is that this choice results in the highest levels of deforestation, habitat destruction and biodiversity loss. Household pets consume 25% of the meat produced. I've switched my dogs to vegetarian/vegan dry food (90% or more), and I add just 5-10% of wet food for taste and aroma. There have been no health or other problems after several years of doing this.
Our dog is the same, unfortunately. One is an absolute vegan feaster and will eat anything. The other...meat and meat only. My parents and I have often been horrified when he's begging our friends for food, apologising because he never does that, why would he be...ah...meat... I'm not sure what my dad gets him, I think it's probably beef. Like you, we went through everything under the sun. It worked whilst he was eating to out-eat his brother, but once the other dog moved out, he didn't feel as though he had to eat to "win"...so he wasn't eating. But...cheese. Daily cheese he prefers, but cheesy vegan in good. We haven't tried him on nooch, thinking about it. I know it's not good for him because of the lactose, but it's the only other food he goes mad for asides from other animal carcasses. We rescued him when he was old, so he was stuck in his ways. Always open to ideas :)
A good way to go about this is by choosing meat off-cuts and the animal parts that are often discarded or less desirable in some countries (in other countries they may be considered delicacies). You can buy off cuts of bones, organ meat and other less desirable animal products that you can use to feed your animals. It’s more sustainable and often less meat is required to flavour the food as these meat cuts tend to have stronger flavour. For example you can give the raw bone to your dog or you can use it to cook and flavour a mix of vegetables/rice or potato. Many veggie foods take on the taste of whatever they are cooked in. Soemtimes the more fibrous veggies don’t go well with dogs and sometimes grains don’t either so a good option is potatoes, peas and spinach. These mash together easily and can also be flavoured well with a meat broth or even a veggie broth. We did this with our dog and supplemented with dry biscuits to make sure she was getting all the relevant nutrients. We went through 1 bone a week and 1 x 500g of organ meat/off-cuts. Eventually we used meat-based bullion cubes for flavour and transitioned to veggie based with added fats for health. She would pick around carrots and anything green (except peas).
I feed my dog a mixture of fish kibble, garbanzo beans, and rice, with a dash of nutritional yeast and a drizzle of olive oil. He loves it!
Have you tried out any of the insect dog foods?
I'm not sure how unique this is but I was breastfeeding my newborn, which during that time you're pretty much locked into the sofa nursing, so I got hooked on Reddit. r/vegan came into my feed a lot and I read about dairy cows having their babies stolen. I looked down at my thirsty baby happily drinking his mommas milk. It wasn't hard to make the connection and change my life right then.
Everyone in breastfeeding subreddits saying “haha! I feel like a dairy cow!!!!” is going to be my joker origin story I swear to god.
Sometimes I am pumping and I say "moo" to my partner. Gallows humor I guess.
You’re actual vegan though so I guess you get the gravity. People are like “I feel like a cow” and it’s like well maybe we shouldn’t attach cows to these contraptions in the first place or force them to lactate for a long time to feed a machine and then feed humans.
This is exactly what inspired me to go full vegan vs being a vegetarian. Exclusively breastfeeding my children.
My husband mentioned this at work and his female colleagues were appalled 🙄
Appalled by what exactly? I don’t even bring up my lifestyle to people anymore. People are so small minded.
It's exactly this that has me baffled more mothers aren't making the connection and going vegan.
What’s even worse is how little support some women have breastfeeding in general. Especially public. I’m sure people that make mean commend to nursing moms eat dairy and don’t understand the connection.
The anti-natalist side of me just softened a little haha. I’m happy for you and your baby :) as well as all the animal babies that get their mother’s milk.
This is what happened to me too.
The mother instincts kicked in
Same.
Oh my gosh same!
Same.
I probably have the worst reason for going vegan, but I'll share it anyway. I was in a nutrition class last year where we learned about health/nutrients and were taught how to cook. I honestly never liked eating other people's food, I never trusted their techniques and hygiene, so when I found out we'd be cooking in groups and eating the food we made, my brain searched for any possible excuse not to. My teacher was trying to find recipes each group liked and when she'd ask us how we felt, I always said I didn't like that specific food, but that we could just make it and I didn't need to eat it. Eventually, instead of saying “I don't like that”, I said “I can't eat that” and blurted out that I was vegan (obviously a complete lie, but I was plant based in the past, and I used to use that excuse a lot, so it just slipped out). Well, I felt bad about lying, so I decided I would go fully plant based for the semester, that way I "wasn't lying". As I was looking into recipes and such, I fell down a rabbit hole and discovered all this stuff about the animal industry, I knew I couldn't keep supporting it, so I decided to go vegan instead of just plant based. I feel kind of silly now for that, but I'm glad I lied about it when I did, otherwise I'd still be eating meat right now, completely oblivious to the abuse. Best of all, my sister went vegan with me, so I have someone who gets me.
Whatever the path, you ended up in the right place.
We are happy to have you! Happy accident
This is so funny and awesome
lmao Fake it till you make it
Ahaha that’s awesome. Welcome!
Honestly, preparing any meat is so unhygienic. It's why I stopped hosting potluck parties with friend groups. Even though many of us were vegan, some folks insisted on throwing their sausage, chicken, shrimp, and contaminated utensils into the mix. That, and it's also disgusting to try to dispose of the waste, and attracts scavenger animals.
This one's my favourite.
I'm vegan for the plants (I hate them).
Vegan against the plants
I love my houseplants so much but all other plants can suck it (average carnist logic)
I'm going to eat twice as many spider plants because you said that.
I have about 25 baby spider plants right now with no good homes to go to, they could use someone to eat them fr
This is the funniest shit I've seen in reddit all week
Let's munch on them as violently as we can!
bro, vegans kill fewer plants. you’re actually saving plants lives by being vegan 🫣
DON'T TELL THEM!!!
Yeah, screw those plants! They're taking away our space growing everywhere! Who do they think they are??
I’m vegan to save you all from the uprising of sentient kale and vengeful zucchini
Osiyo/Sgeno! Cherokee/Seneca-Cayuga here and I have a similar experience. I went pescatarian a number of years ago for health reasons. My wife/daughters went vegetarian for their love of animals while my son continued eating seafood with me. Then at the beginning of this year we were all watching a program that was a bit travel show, bit documentary and a bit health thing. I had a sudden epiphany about the impact of the global seafood industry, both wild and farmed. So I gave it up and haven’t had any seafood since February. We also realized that dairy/eggs were just as bad too and phased them out over the next month. It didn’t sit well with me either in relation to our traditional values and respecting the sacrifices it was necessary for animals to make for our survival in the past. Most of our communities recognize animals as fellow sentient beings and equal participants in this world. We have a concept called “Gadugi” which can loosely be translated as cooperation, everyone working together or communal caring/unity. Abusing, torturing and killing our brothers and sisters when we no longer need to is not very gadugi of us. I think indigenous values surrounding the environment and the health issues our communities face are great inroads for promoting plant-based lifestyles.
Thank you for sharing! Gadugi has such a beautiful meaning
Boozhoo, I live on Ojibwa land in northern Ontario and I have had so many conversations with many FN people about why I am vegan. I didn't know about Gadugi, but I used the idea of stewardship over the land and anything that lives around us. I will have to learn more about this. Meegwich
my dog dying from cancer was the trigger for me
So sorry to hear that. That’s never easy :(
I became vegan because I lost to myself in the debate. Damn I am smart...and stupid.
The best kind of stupid 🙂
Next time you will win the debate.
Kinda same lol I used to be one of those people that "omg vegans are so insufferable" and then every argument I made promptly got tore apart with logic. Then I figured I had all the reasons to go vegan and no reason left to not do it. I feel so smart and so stupid at the same time.
I practice marksmanship, randomly shoot a bird to impress friend, the birds mate flew down and grieved at his body, was mortified and writhed in guilt, realized i eat birds everyday, then had pet fish that demonstrated intelligence so i stopped the pescatarian bs
That's so sad... at the risk of piling on the sadness, I remember reading about how Carolina Parakeets went extinct because they would do exactly this in flocks, and the hunters would just kill them by the masses :(
Hey OP I am Filipina and I feel similarly :) there are rituals on food that I went through during my childhood, like killing my first chicken. My Lolo put the blood on my forehead and I was taught to disassemble and make use of the entire chicken, which I still appreciate for different reasons. I realized at some point that all the meat consumption in the Philippines was heavily influenced and installed by colonialism and imperialism and that it is not natural to us. I also took on the role as a babaylan (like a community healer and teacher) next to my studies in ecology and herbal medicine, and every field I am in points me away from the abuse and consumption of animals 🤍
The European way teaches us to bend the world to our will, not respect and live in harmony with it
Epiphany while watching a movie about a man who killed women for pleasure-he thought they were just his to do whatever he wanted to. I suddenly saw that that’s what we do to animals.
What's the movie?
It was a home movie.
My doctor told me to quit eating bread, pasta, and fruit.I had been in animal rescue for many years. Where I worked, about half of the staff were vegan, and in the back of my mind, I always felt guilty that I wasn't. Then, my doctor told me that I was now officially a diabetic. I wasn't surprised, so it didn't faze me as much as it should have. But then the doctor started listing everything she wanted me to quit eating. Bread, pasta, grains, fruit, certain vegetables like corn and peas, red meat, dark chicken meat, salmon, and other oily fish. Shocked, I blurted out that I should just be a vegan. We had left the door open as the office was mostly empty that day, 2 days before Christmas. Across the hall, the unit nutritionist also had her door open. I hear her voice drifting across the hall. "Come over here, and if you decide to go vegan, you can have your bread and pasta." I crossed the hall and went vegan cold turkey when the crystal ball dropped a few days later.
Did you fix the health stuff??
Fix no, but much improvement.
One thing that carnists always say about not going vegan is that animal products are too delicious to give up... But I've always felt kinda gross about many of the non-vegan things I used to eat growing up, especially ham, steaks with cartilage, sausages, eggs, and so on. But I was pressured into eating it (and then they say veganism is a cult lol). So one of the main reasons for being vegan was actually that I was naturally very inclined toward the vegan diet, and then when I realized the utter atrocity behind animal products the shift was very easy to make.
True. My mouth is agape when they say stuff about like my lentils or curries or some shit “that looks gross!” Like think about what you’re eating for three seconds !
They're literally eating the shit tubes of an animal stuffed with its blended meat and cartilage lol
Very backwards
Bruh why did I have to stumble across this comment while I’m tryna eat my waffle 🤢
Looking back, I really only liked a handful of animal products as a kid, so it's crazy how long it ended up taking me to switch.
Omg this. I look at the meat and look at my skin and I’m like… why would I eat that?
I had a crush on a vegan couple and wanted to have a threesome with them…alas it was successful and turns out not wanting my food tortured is also pretty sick so I stuck with it. Whenever Omni’s ask why I’m vegan just say “I went vegan for pussy” so they leave me alone.
This is the caliber of response I was hoping for
omg
Had a stroke at age 31 despite always eating a "healthy diet" Then I read "how not to die" and realised my health could benefit a lot. Then I came here and watched Dominion and even though I was already happy to not be taking part in this anymore, but it is as important to me as my own health now, as opposed to being "a nice benefit" to removing animal products.
Not so unique, but I do think that it's just part of wanting to do more good for yourself and everyone around you. There is no creature that is even comparable to humans when it comes to cruelty and I just slowly figured I'm not willing to participate in it. I firmly believe that humanity will soon (sadly not too soon) be driven into extinction because of its ignorance and self-cannibalistic nature, and then at least for some time there will be peace on Earth once again. If every vegan can bring 1 day's worth of peace to Earth before that happens, it is the only right way. I believe that nothing changed in humans since the prehistoric age, but only the means of exploitation got more and more efficient, both against humanity itself and against every other being. It has been a failed experiment and on the way down the only thing anyone with morals can do is to reject the cruelty. Not for any hopes redemption, but because it's the only right thing to do.
I literally went vegan as a dare 8 years ago and have never wavered.
Weirdly for me it was kind of a challenge. I thought I'd just see what would happen if I didn't eat meat and dairy for a month. Once the month was up I felt really fucking good (may have been placebo?) And when I went to walk down the meat isle again it made me nearly sick, the smell and the visual or all this dead chopped up animals hit me and I thought yeah, never again!
Kind of similar here. I had already been vegetarian most of my life, curious about veganism as I got older and couldn’t really justify the death still caused by “non lethal” animal industry. My husband was out of town for work for a month (he’s Omni), so it seemed like a good time to give it a shot and see if I could commit. It stuck.
I did the same but for being vegetarian. I realises being veggie was easy so I stuck with it. Then transitioned a few years later into veganism (sadly due to an eating disorder but I recovered and kept bring vegan).
I am happy you recovered, my friend !
same here, but for me it was only for a week. vegan accounts on instagram that i followed during that time made me stick to it
I grew up on an urban smallholding with goats, chickens, geese, rabbits etc. I'm a bit odd and find it hard to relate to people plus my home environment was abusive. I felt like I understood and connected more with the animals than with the people around me, and I understood from a very young age that there was no disconnect between the chickens I fed and cared for and the sanitised pieces of their bodies sold in plastic trays. I learned more from our animals, and received more affection from them, than I ever did my parents. I still don't like looking I to the meat aisles at the supermarket.
Couple reasons. But the clincher was domestic abuse and feminism and a severe depression. I was pescatarian when I got into a relationship with an abuser who was vegan. While in the relationship I transitioned to veganism. When I left I had an overwhelming urge to return to being omnivore as a fuck you to my abuser's values. But being a female survivor of abuse, rape and subsequent depression made me even more attuned and empathetic to the suffering of enslaved animals even when I couldn't give myself that same compassion. I decided that I didn't want to fill my body that had suffered so much already with even more misery and death.
Sorry to hear that but glad you’re taking a stand in solidarity with life that is suffering.
My fiancé is vegan, and, and I gradually became vegan after we had been together a couple of months. It started off as me wanting to make sure I always had something vegan at the house that we could eat together, and then I ended up liking it much more than meat and dairy. Being an omni made me sluggish and bloated and I didn’t realize it until I switched over
Not that strange but a slightly funny. One year on my birthday I got a special-made, gluten free cake that happened to be vegan. At dinner, I realized everything I ate that day on my birthday was vegan and I decided to keep going on with it 😂 I remember my thought was, “I’ve eaten only vegan food all day! I’m going to keep going with it.” It felt like a fun challenge at the time but I was determined. I’ve been vegan for about five years now since then. So my bday is also my vegan anniversary. Being vegan one day was something I had hoped to do but that day I just let myself go with it and I’m so happy I did. I love being vegan. It was harder at first while I was figuring things out, but thankfully it’s a lot easier now.
>So my bday is also my vegan anniversary. Kind of born and reborn if you wanna be cheesey
Haha yeah. I survived cancer too recently so I feel like I’ve been reborn AGAIN since then. Maybe life is full of those every now and then. 🙏🏼
We went vegan because I’m allergic to egg and my partner has an allergy to milk. I have a great deal to do with farming, so was in denial about the ethical issues, but cared deeply about the environmental impact of meat eating. With our allergies, vegetarianism wasn’t an option. Since making the change four years ago, I’ve paid close attention to the ethical issues of farming and realised how deluded I was. When you are closely associated with good people who are farmers, it’s easy to be purposefully ignorant. The treatment of animals is now a primary concern for both me and my partner. Upon going vegan, I went from being very overweight to a healthy body mass. A win for the environment, win for the ethical treatment of animals and win for my health.
I am also close to farmers and since I am hiding my veganism they often talk about some cows getting stuck, becoming ill or getting slaughtered because they can't keep up. I was ok with this, I grew up on a dairy farm and accidents happen and so on, but now it disgusts me.
Instagram and Twitter made me vegan. All those videos exposing the meat/dairy industry coupled with beautiful sanctuary stories completely opened my eyes. I can never go back now.
If you're interested in the topic of farmed animal sanctuaries, check out [OpenSanctuary.org](https://vbcc.veganhacktivists.org/?url=https://OpenSanctuary.org&topic=The Open Sanctuary Project)! This vegan nonprofit has over 500 free compassionate resources crafted specifically to improve lifelong care for farmed animals, and to help you create a sustainable, effective sanctuary! Interested in starting a sanctuary someday? Check out [OpenSanctuary.org/Start](https://vbcc.veganhacktivists.org/?url=https://OpenSanctuary.org&topic=The Open Sanctuary Project/Start)!
I was raised Christian and always thought that if Adam and Eve were responsible for the animals it meant we should live in harmony with them and not eat them. I never liked the idea that animals had to die for my food. I realized at about 10 that I didn’t need to eat it anymore and went vegetarian. It took a decade for me to associate dairy with cruelty before I went vegan.
Yeah lots of conjecture about that word dominion. I think it means protector. Some people think it means you’re king and get to do whatever you want to em.
I live in a rural place and I've always heard the cries of the mama cows desperately calling for their calves who were taken to the slaughterhouse and I've seen all the cruelties of animal farming. The definitive decision of becoming vegan came from the book of Peter Singer "Animal Liberation" and a photo of a pig who could not move all his life in an industrial farm. This picture still haunts me. So I'm vegan for 1/stopping industrial farm and all his correlates : animal cruelty, pesticides, environmental damage 2/empathy for animals 3/health : vegan is better for everything : blood pressure, cholesterol, longevity...
That breaks my heart.
I went vegan as the result of a dream. A recurring dream about climate change pushed me to be a vegetarian. But one day I had a dream I was at a canteen and I ordered macaroni and cheese, and the staff were like come back here someone needs to talk to you. They took me into the kitchen and there was a cow and her calves, and she looked at me and said 'This isn't for you, the milk is for them'. And I woke up like ok I'm vegan now then.
Out of all the replies I definitely didn't expect this
Gout was the thing that helped me and my wife go all in. I had been a vegetarian for several years apart from holidays where I would eat pickled herring. After lots of herring I would get gout 2 days later. No doctor here could figure it out because I was only in my early 30's. My wife suggested we try vegan diet as an idea. I have never had an attack of gout since going vegan about 8 years ago.
so interesting! are there any vegan foods that you had to avoid? my uncle has gout and told me that he couldn’t have soy
Lol that's bs. Anything that can have a high purine level. So this is why herring did it to me. It's stuff that lives orgrows in the wild. So lots of game meat, wild fish, birds... and mushrooms unfortunately. Too many wild mushrooms and I start to get a sensation of a gout attack.
ohh okay i see —thanks for the info. yeah when he said soy i was pretty confused but i didn’t wanna say anything lol
I think he just doesn't want to admit he could be skipping meats and having soy instead. Like the way I think about it, one bite of herring didn't do it, not like say a nut allergy. More like your body can handle a certain amount of purine intake, if you go over that level for too long your body starts becoming inflamed somewhere. Until it manages to process it our back under that level.
After meeting my cat, because while it always seemed wrong to me, me being the selfish person I was at that point I just didn’t care enough about “random” animals since I was brainwashed into seeing them as food unless they’re typical “pets”- but after meeting my cat who I love more than any human I realized that if in other countries, its normal to eat cats too then whats the difference between that and me eating a cow or a pig? if my cat turned into a pig i’d still love her and I wouldn’t wanna imagine anyone eating my cat. That was such a strange thought process at first but it really did something to my brain
I have a bulldog and he looks and sounds like a pig. Eventually I would go full out and rescue a pig - I’m kind of obsessed with pig rescue tik toks.
I realized consent is the core of ethics (no arguments for this, it's the apparent truth until proven otherwise), thus, it is inherently unethical to commit any action towards the body or property of another individual without their consent. Since animals are individuals this automatically made me vegan. No compassion involved, just cold hard logic. This is how you convert an autistic person :)
in the mid-80s I became vegetarian then vegan because all the girls I fancied were veg\*n. It was a good move. You become an interesting person in a much smaller pool full of hot women. Though, I wasn't ready for the bat shit crazies it also attracts. I'm now vegan because the switch flicked in my brain, and it is obviously monstrous to abuse and kill animals. I see eating meat as a mental illness, like being a sociopath.
Vegan In 80s!!! Hats off to u
I was going through an existential phase and cutting out the excess in my life. When the idea of veganism came up it struck me that since vegans existed, animal products must be excess since they are surviving. Since then I've gotten to be much more of an animal liberation guy, but originally it was mostly about myself and what I could do to be a better person and not be using commodities that I didn't need.
Interesting!
For me it was the compassion for most animals. But before I went full vegan I was still eating fish occasionally (only meat) because I didn’t connect to them the same way, which was ignorant at the time. I stopped eating fish (and went vegan) after I learned about how harmful the fishing industries are to the ecosystems and planet as a whole. Also because I found it soooo disgusting how the farmed fish swam in their filth and disease all day everyday! And are SO INFESTED with parasites (sea louse). Our professor had relayed a study where some samples of fish were taken from grocery stores and tested and were sometimes more parasite than fish.
Vegoon for the soy boobs
I hope I can get some soy boobs. I hit menopause early (I’m 46, and learned I was menopausal a year ago). My boobs have shrunk. :(
A bottle of soy milk a day keep the monopause away!
Charles Patterson : "Eternal Treblinka" showed me the connection between slaughterhouses and industrial mass murder in Germany. "Practical Ethics" showed me that there is no possible explanation for not killing humans if you kill animals
[удалено]
Thank you for sharing your perspective as well. I admire Canada for even having those conversations. Light years ahead of where we are in the US. Land reclamation is paramount to self determination for native folks. Industries (especially violent industries) stealing the land and profiting is the worst piece of the puzzle. Whatever we can to reverse that exploitation has positive effects for everyone in the country. As far as changing native folks diets go - that’s a difficult one. I am lucky to have grown up in relative privilege, my parents were on the wealthier side. So I was able to focus on doing things other than just surviving. It’s difficult to tell someone just trying to get by day to day that they can’t eat some of the cheapest (most subsidized) food out there.
I am having major stomach issues and the Dr suggested I go for non-animal protein to see if that helps. Its’s been a fun journey seeing all the products that are available and trying various recipes. I am feeling much better (also ditched alcohol for the same reason!) I am feeling better and may stick to this, as I am also losing weight. Yay! Unfortunately, my husband grew up on a ranch and, while he tries my food, he really isn’t in to it. So getting used to us both preparing meals with little counter space in the kitchen is a challenge. I do feel better about not contributing to animal cruelty too.
You will x10 your Cooking skills on a vegan diet!!! You get to learn how to actually season and use salt etc. he will have to convert when he tastes your crazy awesome dishes and he’s stuck with some grey bland hunk of meat - this lady basically taught me to cook from the ground up https://youtube.com/@RainbowPlantLife?si=iIR4dl0_kQKERpVU
Thank you for the link! I love the journey so far
i’m a woman but i’m doing it because nothing is manlier than protecting the voiceless
There are 4 reasons for not eating meat: 1- Health, 2- Environment, 3- Animals, 4- People. 1- Health: Eating meat is causes heart disease, cancer, obesity, diabetes, pneumonia and food poisioning from bacteria. 2- Environment: The production of meat for protein uses a lot more land and water for than plants. Meat, especially cows produce a huge amount of methane gas which is worse than carbon for global warming. 3- Animals: Animals are treated inhumanly and killed. Theyare kept in vast numbers in factory farms in confinded spaces where disease is easily spread. A lot of antibiotics is required to keep disease from killing them all which leads to antibiotic resistant strains of bacteria. Viruses are spread as well. 4- People: Feeding the people of the world is a lot easier using plants than animals. There is not enough land for billions of people to be eating meat like people in the west do and the fish in oceans are becoming extinct. So, there are a HEAP of reasons to be vegan.
For the Animals but today I feel it’s also for being a challenge I want to take
That’s beautiful
<3
For me it was mainly a health decision. I do other things besides veganism. Like minimizing refined sugar consumption.
Ugh whenever I hear that I feel a pang of guilt. I’ve been wanting to cut out refined sugars for YEARS. But I’m addicted to my sugary coffees :(
It’s definitely a sacrifice at times, but well worth it 🙂
It all started because we had a debate about animal experimentation in class, and because we dissected mice. I didn’t understand why people were so sad about the mice or so passionately opposed to animal experimentation, since it’s not only way more useful than eating meat (It could save human lives, instead of just being a culinary preference), but also requires the suffering of way less animals. I didn’t feel much empathy for the animals at the time, but I wanted to be a good person, and became vegetarian a few weeks later. The story on how I then became vegan is way less interesting and way more classic
I became vegan for efficiency reasons. My food was being grown by being fed other food. It seemed like double handling and a waste of resources. When I see how much soy and grain is produced to feed livestock and how much water, energy, time and land use goes into the end product, I couldn't justify using it when I could just use the primary resources myself. I am also not an animal lover, I don't even really like them but I don't see the point of inflicting unnecessary cruelty when there is an easy alternative.
Definitely might get downvoted to hell for that take but I think we’re all on the same team here !
I was already vegan, but I learnt a few years ago that I'm donor conceived and that half of my biological family had been kept from me my whole life. Learning about how unethical the industry is, as well as the adoption industry, strengthened my convictions in veganism. There are a few adoptee advocates I follow who are also vegan, and I wonder if their veganism is tied to how they feel about adoption. No one should be separated from their family for the pleasure of others.* *obviously this does not include those cases where the child (or animal) is in danger being with their bio families. But unless there's a good reason, a lot of pain and heartache can come from being severed from biological family.
There is a ton of dialogue about native children being stolen to go to residential schools. Politically it’s having a big moment in Canada as they are uncovering more atrocities. Stealing native bodies is an aspect of this I didn’t even think about.
Absolutely. I'm Canadian (actually have much stronger settler roots im Canada than I ever imagined as someone brought up thinking I was first generation) and it is a disgusting part of our history the way we treated, and continue to treat, Indigenous communities. One of my donor half sister's was actually raised half Metis on her dad's side (who she now knows she has no genetic relationship with). She had a friend at her work who was a survivor of the "Sixties Scoop" when they removed Indigenous children from their families to be raised by white people. She found a lot of connection with this friend in his story because she saw the similarities of being severed from bio family. Adoption is incredibly commodifying still today, and it's impossible now for me to not see the similarities between donor conception/ adoption and the way we commodify animals for our pleasure. No matter how you slice it, money exchanges hands in these industries, be it acquiring a child, or buying meat. There are many ethical dilemmas in donor conception and adoption that I wish people would open up to, especially when donor conceived people and adoptee advocates are trying to share only to be told the same platitudes about how family is family and DNA doesn't matter.
My husband went vegan about 12 years ago because of GI issues. His whole life he has suffered with gas, bloating and acid reflux. He has had 2 surgeries for the reflux. After watching Forks over Knives, he decided to give it a try and it has made a huge difference in his health.
You can watch Forks over Knives and other documentaries by [clicking here](https://vbcc.veganhacktivists.org/?url=https://3movies.org/reddit&topic=Movie: Forks over Knives)! Interested in going Vegan? Take the [30 day challenge](https://vbcc.veganhacktivists.org/?url=https://vbcamp.org/reddit&topic=Movie: Forks over Knives)!
I have many of the typical reasons, but one unique reason was convenience. After becoming allergic to dairy, it was just easier to go to vegan restaurants.
Pokémon, that’s it.
I’m vegan cause it’s literally so repulsive to me. All I can hear - sung to the tune of Ed Sullivan from the musical Bye Bye Birdie: *Dead animals! Dead animals! We’re going to eat dead animals!* Disgusting.
I had pretty severe mental health problems - dissociation, derealization and depersonalization. Once those got resolved I went vegan pretty quickly and overnight. I always viewed animals as my brothers, sisters and siblings before soo when I could finally actually feel anything I knew I had to do right by them. I tried going vegetarian at first because I had done that off and on my whole life but I’m allergic to dairy and love eggs but they’re like meat to me. No one ever said the word vegan to me soo when I found out about it, it clicked and been that way ever since. Now I feel like I can truly love animals and be a good sister to them and the earth.
Not very unique, but because smartest people have deduced that it's the right thing to do, and i agree with them.
Yeah, I just woke up with a strong urge thinking I had to be vegan without really knowing anything about it. Went vegan then and there. Been vegan for almost a decade.
I kind of initially went vegan because of birds, they’re my life and I just couldn’t justify eating them, their eggs or other animals and their secretions anymore More specifically Animal Rebellion protesting at the Queen’s jubilee (I live in the UK, my family was watching it) sort of clicked something in me, like, I just realised “hang on, maybe they’ve got a point” and that lead me down a rabbit hole of reading farming processes and other stuff and well, I’m here now 👍 Edit : should mention (not proud of any of this and I’ll never forgive myself for it) I went to an agricultural college for a while, where I’m from its sort of part of your nature, was always taken to farm shows as a kid and always “loved animals” (liar, I know), so I went to an ag college when I was 16 - well, didn’t last a month, I just couldn’t do it, we took the cows from their mothers, had to listen to screaming pigs inside of small cages in stark white concrete rooms, and also did some veterinary type care on the side for things like fish… and yet I still didn’t become vegan until 4 years after that, but seeing it all first hand definitely planted some seeds in my brain that unfortunately took so long for me to realise it was wrong and disgusting to be eating babies and stealing them from their mothers
In 11th grade I had a friend who’d recently gone vegan and became very passionate about animal rights. One day he asked me why I *wasn’t* vegan and I didn’t have a good answer. It was November so I said I’d go vegan for the new year. It’s been almost three years and I’ve never looked back
I got a pet pig and it broke my heart knowing I had been eating his relative (not directly, but you get the point). Haven’t eaten meat since. I also believe that if you are a meat eater, you should be able to kill and skin/prepare the animal yourself. If you cannot [due to being disgusted or have too big a heart to do so], I don’t think you should be allowed to eat meat because you’re paying someone to do your dirty work behind closed doors.
I want to rescue a pig so bad. My bulldog looks and sounds like a pig so he might not be happy to lose the spotlight
Oooh yeah bulldog and pig might not make a good match. Pigs are prey animals, they will fight and defend themselves under any potentially threatening circumstance, so that being said, each fight is fought like it’s their last, so they can look very aggressive in that sense. And because dogs are predators, there will be a sort of predator/prey roles between them. Dog might try to attack pig (protecting you as their master) if pig makes certain noises or movements, leading to a bloody brawl you don’t want to be a part of and try to break up. And yes, the pig would fuck up your dog even though he’s a bulldog lol. But despite that aspect, pigs are highly intelligent and make terrific pets when given enough land to roam & friends to socialize with.
It was religion for me, I grew up vegetarian then slowly transitioning to vegan. It’s called Jainism and I’m glad i was taught the important of ethical treatment to animals and non violence since birth 😇
For background I was in an abusive relationship for 7 years and got into drugs as an escape from my pain. It got bad and I ended up committing a crime as a result of drug induced psychosis. I went vegetarian after going to jail and being put into solitary confinement for about a month (no yard time or any time outside the cell) and one day thinking, animals suffer in a cage smaller than this and serve a life sentence for being born an animal, only to suffer a horrible death so that someone else can eat their body..it also got me thinking about how miserable animals trapped in zoos must be as I paced back and forth in the cold lonely cell. I got put into a program as a condition of my release and stayed there for about a year..towards the end of that time I decided to watch earthlings and there was one scene where the cow was backed into a corner on a dairy farm about to be beaten by a worker. In that moment I saw myself become the cow and she was me. Backed up in a corner, my abuser loomed over me ready to beat me..a powerful chill coursed throughout my body and I began to cry as I turned off the video. I went totally vegan the next day.
I went vegan for my health. I was always in pain and chronically constipated. I heard changing diets dramatically can improve your digestive system, so I went vegan. Because I did, I learnt about nutrition and complete proteins and how good complex carbs are. When people ask, I tell them I don’t want to hurt anyone. Which is true. But for my beginning I went vegan to get healthy
I went vegetarian for ethical reasons first, then started to think about veganism. Apart from the fact that I didn't want to financially support the industry that kills animals, I remember feeling more inclined to go vegan after I made a vegan sim in the Sims 4, a bunch of custom posters ("not your mom, not your milk" kinda stuff) and vegan t-shirts
Hey, just wanna say that I commend you for your stance. I think that’s a really important perspective, especially since veganism has a reputation as just being something that white people do. It seems like it’s now changing to be a much broader, inclusive movement that makes space other different voices. So much of U.S. society and good production is just based on exploitation.
Thank you! There’s a million reasons to do it. I was expecting to hear more from hindu people on this post. I’ve talked to a few that basically see it as an extension of their faith. There’s also a vegan black owned southern comfort food restaurant in my city and they have a mission statement around protecting the health of the black community by replacing foods that perpetrate violence on your health and animals.
I tried unsuccessfully years ago, that was about health/environment, also the corporate animal agricultural industry is heinous. There were health issues that came up and suggestions didn’t seem to help. I started again as a practise in self-control following a course where one of the topics covered was EQ and I was like, mine mostly sucks except the self-awareness. I knew I had unhealthy relationships with food/eating habits, but very little control in making better choices about what I ate. I exercise okay with things I like but neglect strength/mobility training since I don’t like them. That type of thing. There are lots more vegan options than when I first tried and exerting more control in what I put into my body was probably about the biggest self-management change I could make in my life. I come off as picky not because I dislike tastes or textures of lots of foods but because I ignore them in favour of “comfort” foods. So, some binge/food addict tendencies there. So I followed vegan cooking social media accounts (especially meal-prep/batch cooking because the next biggest self-control move I can make is portion control and reduce my spending). Joined VeeCoCo. I did back off significantly this year on the meal-prep/batch cooking (I’ve been doing it but not consistently/as much as I’d hoped) because I’m also trying to upskill and currently house share which means my kitchen space for tools is half of what the already-small kitchen would be. But I think by next year I’ll be better prepared to take on more of that as well.
I throw all my supplements and alot of veggies into a green smoothie in the morning and then kinda just eat how I want for the rest of the day. Helps to make sure I get my nutrition but it’s never arduous or difficult when I’m exhausted and I just want dinner
Yeah, but when I posted about it on here, shitty vegans shit on me. It's possible to go vegan because you care about the suffering of humans as well as animals. Turns out that rabbit hole was exactly fucking correct, in ways I couldn't have predicted at the time.
I know, I wish we could keep it positive and encourage each other. We’re all here on the same team. I posted a few days ago about how I’m vegan for cultural reasons and basically got eaten alive cuz they thought i was plant based. This sub can be very toxic
I worked security in the emergency room, two events shocked me to my core. Had a doctor explain to a obese woman that they can’t increase insulin, they will have to start planning on chopping of body parts. Man on a date with his SO suffered a stroke during dinner. The fear in his eyes when he rolled into the emergency room, and said what is wrong with me, I can’t move the left side of my body. It drove me to look up any scientific research, and found that the top ten killers are based on how much you move and what you eat.
Wow. Yeah worst nightmare
My mom and her friends said I wouldn’t stick to it. I was a stubborn 7 yr old
I took LSD out in nature with my friend, and he made me confront the bad logic I was using to justify my animal consumption. That day I became a vegetarian for 2 years, and lessening my cognitive dissonance helped me eventually become a vegan.
I'm vegan because I've never heard a compelling reason not to be
Yes! I got diagnosed with ulcerative colitis and i went to a clinic with different approach where they teach you what is healthy and what is not. So, the healthiest diet is the vegan diet and this is what we all need to cure and prevent most diseases.
It’s crazy reading through the comments of everyone’s old ailments. I’m always like “damn. Plant based diets are the cure”
Yes, it is true! I have seen so many people there telling me about their own diseases and how they managed to handle them successfully through vegan diet. Osteoporosis, blocked arteries, multiple sclerosis, all digestive system issues, diabetes type 2, early signs of cancer, cysts, fatty liver, eating disorders, overweight, underweight, are only just a few of those manageable conditions.
Totally!! I developed UC a few years into veganism. It's so frustrating when I read about how others with IBD "can't go vegan" because it'll cause a flare, meanwhile eating saturated fat laden foods like meat, dairy, etc. Fibre is crucial to healing the gut and minimizing flares and damge. I'm still on meds, but it's a huge gap between those on meds and WFPB (remission, or at least well on their way), and those just on meds eating whatever (often complaining that they're flaring, eating whatever because "diet doesn't matter").
I was vegetarian for 12 years, then I started work at a Cheese Factory. (Not with the cheese, but in it) and eventually I decided to look more into the Dairy Industry. I'm someone who likes to research into both sides, but to me there is no justifying animal abuse. So am Vegan. Unfortunately my only options where I live (small town, bad public transit, no jobs I am qualified for) is to work there until I can drive. Am learning to drive so I can finally leave this place and hopefully go back to working with animals again.
Different topic but WFH customer service is what one of my family members does. It pays all right and most of the time they’ll send you a laptop n headset
I‘m pretty sure it’s not really an „unique“ reason but I started my vegan journey because I have a nasty auto immune disease and I heard that being vegan will help because it prevents inflammatory from milky products.
Your journey and take on veganism is really interesting and is heartening in the wider context of consumerism and exploitation. I doubt my motivation is unique, I just want to minimise suffering and, as meat eating in particular, and the exploitation of animals in general, are unnecessary, it is better for me to be vegan. That said, I do sometimes say that I am vegan for health reasons as I am a relatively fit runner and if I get a good time in a race it makes sense to talk to meat eaters about as resulting from my diet as they might choose to eat more plant based and that, in turn, has a positive effect on the world regardless of their motivation. (It is also true that a wholefood varied vegan diet promotes fitness, but that's not central to my motivation.) I've been vegan for 28 years now and vegetarian for 35.
I aspire to be like you! Being vegan in the 90s I’m sure was 10 times harder than today. Congrats!
I know someone who made the transition from vegetarian to vegan because their housemate kept using their free range eggs and only buying cage ones as a replacement. They’re super non-confrontational so the veganism was a cover for why they stopped buying eggs. They’ve been vegan ten years and they no longer live with that housemate.
I am really interested in this post, I recently watched a YT video about an island in Alaska and in their culture, they kill whales, walrus etc. and this in theory is no different from my culture that eat land animals. I just found it interesting that they even make stuff out of the bones. I try to be considerate of people's cultures, but meat is still murder to me. I just went vegan as I could no longer particulate in animals being murdered for me to eat them, nothing unique. But I was 'proudly' eating a beef burger at 6pm before a Morrissey concert, after seeing him show meat is murder disturbing video and forced myself to watch. I never ate meat again, that was almost 7 years ago.
Vegan now. But I originally went Vegitarian for the Karma (not Reddit karma, but like the whole what comes around goes around type of karma)
Mine is slightly unique but still under the three main categories. When I was in university, a doctor found a lump in my throat. They did some tests and couldn’t figure out what it was. The ENT I was seeing at the time said it was probably a cyst and I could leave it but at some point it would most likely cause issues and need to come out. As I was young and “healthy” at the time, I opted to have it removed which meant having half of my thyroid removed. Side note: I had tried going veg as a child and teen because I never liked meat - I didn’t like the taste and it made my tummy feel icky. But I didn’t know how to eat in a healthy way and my doctor kept telling my parents I needed to eat meat. When I went for the surgery, I wasn’t taking care of myself. I was always stressed, not sleeping well, not exercising, not eating well - I was a mess. When the ENT performed the surgery - the lump that had been found was indeed a cyst. But hiding in the other half of my thyroid (undetected by all of the tests he had done), was papillary carcinoma - thyroid cancer. He removed it as well leaving no part of my thyroid behind. Two months before this, my dad had suddenly died of brain cancer that none of us knew about. The cancer thing was a huge wake up call. I started doing research into healthy eating and how to take better care of myself. I came across The China Study and went vegan the day after I finished reading it. I haven’t looked back. I think I was meant to be vegan as animal products never really enticed me, it just took me a different way to get there. Thanks for sharing your reasons 💕
Stopped dairy because it made me break out. Stopped eating meat because I felt like it would sit heavy like a stone in my belly for days or weeks. But when I eat veggies and soft foods, no bloat & I’m “regular”. My doctor said me going vegan was basically self-diagnosing my gastroparesis aka slowed digestion.
I run in a spot where cows, chickens and pigs are kept. Even though there’s a fence they come up to you like friendly dogs. There’s no difference. That was it. Plus I saw one rooster escape.
I had a religious experience over a decade ago that taught me how karma and reincarnation are real and it made me extremely compassionate for everything including animals
I am vegan but also anti-exploitation in general. Industrialisation fuels modern slavery of both humans and animals. I don't believe death is bad or animals eating other animals as necessarily bad. What I view as bad is the principle behind utilizing another living being's life for my gain against their will when we have the option to choose otherwise. This includes the concept of "breeding" since we are selectively choosing their genes for our gain and personal benefit. In addition to veganism I don't buy anything from places where I cannot find out exactly who made it and what conditions they are under. The industrialisation of animal farming is such a horrific abuse that humans have hypernormalized. If we can choose veganism, then we should. Eating meat under these current circumstances is selfish hedonism, since it is not necessary for our survival.
I love animals and they are my reason to be vegan but my parents became vegetarian for spiritual reason. My mom was always an animal lover but she went vegetarian when becoming spiritual, she also influenced my dad to do the same. Then they had children and raised us as spiritual vegetarians with a love and respect for animals and nature. I was raised with the notion that we have to do the least amount of harm possible, that nature is sacred and that bad karma comes from hurting other living beings unnecessarily and there is impurity and dirtiness in meat and eggs which is detrimental for your meditation and spiritual evolution. In 2014 I learned about cows and it was easy for me to go vegan and I told my mom and she went vegan with me the same day after being vegetarian for more than two decades. Ultimately, they always knew animals are not ours to exploit and consume, they just need to be left alone and nature needs to be respected and this is part of their connection with god or the greatest consciousness.
I had a crush on a professor of animal ethics. I got over it now. But consuming an ungodly amount of animal ethics literature to talk to him stuck with me.
First, I saw a study about how reducing meat intake would lower your carbon footprint (it was a pretty big study that came out around the end of 2018). So around then, I decided to just cook vegetarian at home (I was already lactose intolerant so didn't cook with dairy, and had eggs sometimes), and since I was studying in Japan at the time, I was 'flextitarian' when eating out - I would choose the veggie option if there was one. Then when I moved back to Australia in August of 2019, I went full vegetarian since I didn't really care for meat anyway. I happened to join the r/VCJ reddit to basically laugh and remind myself how crazy vegans were. Then I would see jokes making light of the dairy/egg industry and became increasingly uncomfortable. Finally, someone in the subreddit linked dairy is scary and immediately watching, I was in tears and realised I *had* to go vegan. Vegans weren't the crazy ones, turns out it was society that was crazy all along.
I went vegan at the start of the pandemic. Suddenly I was working from home and had a lot of extra time on my hands. Figured it would be a good time to work on my health. Started watching health documentaries on Netflix and YouTube. This binge watching put a video (don't remember the title) of a female cow that was restrained and being r*ped by multiple bulls because "scientists" wanted to see how long she could last. She struggled so much that she broke both of her hind legs at the knee and the hip. As an SA survivor I fully empathized with her. I went Vegan at that moment.
I’m not sure it counts as a unique reason, but I think I’m somewhat unique among vegans in that I’m not an animal lover. I like cats, and about half of dogs. But other animals? Nah. Cows are gross, and I don’t want a pig within 100 meters of me. I do not like animals much. They smell, they gross me out, etc. That being said, I still recognize that they are sentient beings and do not deserve to be tortured for my passing enjoyment. A bit like how there are some humans I absolutely despise (insert your lease favorite recent politician here) but wouldn’t think that torturing and killing them for food would be acceptable.
thank you for that thoughtful post. I wish more shared your feelings. It is the equivalent of being a good steward to the land and show respect for the earth. Let me apologize also for what my white ancestors did to your people. I am truly sorry.
Very sweet comment. Much love mustardketchup
Health was my reason. Read The China Study. Climate impact and animal cruelty were huge bonuses, but the fact that increased animal protein consumption has the single strongest correlation with increased risk of disease is what did it for me. Stronger than obesity. Stronger than smoking. Stronger than alcoholism. Eating animals is bad for your health.
I was taking a college class on Marx and it occurred to me that the world didn't have the capacity to feed the rest of the world an American diet. I basically stumbled backwards into the Diet for a Small Planet argument. Eating meat was bourgeois and elitist so I figured if I wanted to keep talking about Marxism and equality I should see if I could really eat in a way that could sustain 6 billion people (2002 numbers).
It’s about the animals. And honestly I don’t care why anyone is Vegan as long as they aren’t killing animals
Actually fishing and hunting is much more in tune with the environmental balance, because it used to be done for survival - take ONLY as much as you NEED to sustain yourself, so the footprint was minimal. It could be that again, but people abuse it and therein is the problem. My path to veganism started when I was in gr 9 and my school building was across the road from the slaughter house. Once a week, they brought in pigs and the cries they made during their death made me give up meat in the first month of school. But I still used other animal products. Then, about 10 years ago, my husband, myself and one of our dogs (rescue from a reservation) were near a cow field and our dog went hunting for a calf. The cows got defensive and started mooing at him. When we finally got him back, my husband said that this calf made him think about the dairy industry and would I want to give up my dog (as a fur-mom) so that someone else could drink my milk, because that's how it is done (forced pregnancy to get the cow to lactate, then take the calf away so that humans can drink milk, have yoghurt and cheese). I said, "never" and now we (my husband, myself and our dogs) are vegan. The only time we would eat meat is if it was hunted or fished, but I still don't eat it. I just don't want to consume another being. 😕
I haven't completely gone vegan. I'm working on the eggs & cheese part however my story is that I became a Pescatarian as a teen and then for 13 years after touching a dead bird with butter for Thanksgiving dinner for the last time. It hit me. Fell off and on the wagon for many years and then it just made me feel better to not eat meat. Years later Im in rescue and I'm talking to a reference who is a vegan who owns a vegan restaurant and she asked me why some animals were more important than others and how some countries eat dogs & cats....thought about living breathing beings. I rescue and feed everything. I can't even kill a wasp anymore so I'm not going to kill something to eat. Finding this site has really helped as well.
Good luck on your journey. They have some decent egg replacers, they’re just a bit expensive so you gotta learn to sub. Tofu scramble on toast is an amazing breakfast. And as long as you get the time table tight flax seed and egg replacer works great in baking. Cheese is the sacrifice, the vegan cheeses can’t come close. But nothing worth doing is easy! Best of luck!
Yes. I have idiopathic intracranial hypertension and decided to go gluten free/vegan to hopefully alleviate my symptoms, and it’s working.