Today I thought I would share just a little bit about how I came to discover the lifestyle of vegetarianism and eventually veganism. It was about three and a half years ago I found myself far from home in community college. I originally attended this college to take animal science program. Later found out that it was a course more concentrated on raising animals for food, which was not what I signed up for. This should of been a no brainer for me since I lived in the middle of farm state Iowa. I switched degrees and I’m sure everyone can understand the struggle and pressure to choose a degree and then switched and choose a different, change mind, switched, and so on. I finally just settled on getting my Associates in Science and thought I would transfer to a University...because I told myself “I’ll have it figured out by then”...(I never did). At this time I was also interested in everything environmental. My plan at that time was to go into some type of environmental science interdisciplinary course eventually at a university.
One day I was in one of my favorite classes Environmental Science, it was a film day and we were watching the documentary Food inc. Little did I know that ever since that day my life would be changed forever. I was absolutely amazed on how I thought I was doing good to the environment and lowering my carbon footprint by just recycling, taking short showers, and turning the lights off when I left the room. The drastic degree of environmental damage of consuming meat made my tasks of being “environmental conscious” look so minor. I felt that I would be considered a hypocrite if I made such an effort of recycling everything possible to avoid polluting landfills, but ate meat at the same time.
I decided I needed to make some changes for the better, so I went vegetarian. it consumed me, I remember watching endless videos and researching how changing your diet can reduce environmental destruction. My staple college food was mashed potatoes, spinach, and canned black beans wrapped in a tortilla and also Campbell’s creamy potato soup. I was more concerned about the environment, so healthy vegetarian diet really wasn’t on my priority list as long as I wasn't consuming meat.
source: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1286537/plotsummary
I highly recommend this film to anyone and everyone (its on Netflix). It is a good documentary for those who are just beginning their curious journey of where our food really comes from. It is not too overwhelming with information, but it presents a fair amount to give you just a small glimpse of the food industry.
Vegetarian to vegan story will be continued....
Thanks for reading a snippet of my life. I look forward to sharing more!
For any veg out there comment below what sparked your interest in the lifestyle, I’m curious!
Hello again Madi :)
I am really happy to see you are writing about those topics, I share your belief!
Please allow me to share a slightly different point of beginning that brought me to a similar conclusion that you shared here.
My Vegetarian and eventually Vegan diet started about 11 years ago, it was my first trip to india, I was about 22, and was a crazy carnivore in that time, I could eat almost anything and really didnt care how or how well you would cook it, and while backpacking in india on a low budget you often find your self in a quite awkward places to eat, and for the first 3 days i was brave enough to enjoy the culinary assortments of the streets of India, and although cows are sacred in most of the county, you can still find many questionable meet dishes everywhere...
So long story short, I ended up i a very very very hard stomach disorder (lets not dive into scene building here) and after about a week or so of being stuck with my face inside of a bucket, I stopped eating meat and the thing that i noticed right away is that after a week or so i felt i had much more energy after meals, i felt lighter, eating only vegetarian food made my digestive system work a whole lot better and even my toilet visits were much more friendlier :))
Trying to be conscious of what i consume, i later researched and tried to figure out ways to stay sustained and healthy while not eating meat, and as we live in modern days, and you can get any type of food from anywhere in the world (in most western places), it is really not that difficult.
So for me becoming a vegetarian really started as a mistake, I really have to be honest I didn't care about cows that much in that time, I cared about my health....I have been vegetarian ever since...only a few years later i have become vegan, after being exposed to the ugly industry behind it, and perhaps because i have lived close to a family of goats, and really had a connection with them, I could not see any difference between them and the dog I have today.
11 years and I am quite healthy, and have a great menu to enjoy!
So just to sum up, you can still be healthy , eat well, and do no harm to those other amazing creatures.
Great story Madi!
Wow, sounds like you had quit a unique experience with becoming vegetarian and I appreciate you being so open I enjoyed your comment!
I also agree with your statement on how there is no difference between "food animals" and our pets, many people are blind to this idea. Once realized you truly see value in all beings and stop discriminating on their specie type. All beings deserve love and compassion.
I'm glad their are more and more people awakening to this amazing mind set like you!
Keep doing what your doing and thanks for your valuable insight
P.S : And just to be clear...I have nothing about indian food, It is actually my favorite "type" of food...its just the specific street food that I would suggest avoiding unless you have been eating it for most of your life. :) :)
Vegan for a year now! Decided to go vegan after being vegetarian for a couple years..felt like the natural next step
Thats awesome! I've been vegan for 2.5 years now and it was one of the best decisions I've ever made!
WHY I WENT VEGAN. MY VEGAN JOURNEY PART 2!!!
https://steemit.com/life/@madisonranschau/why-i-went-vegan-my-vegan-journey-part-2
I have down this road now for 7 months. good luck on your journey!
Thank you and good luck on yours as well!