I think I'm turning vegan-ese

A Korean-American foodie's journey to veganism.

I wish I could say that becoming vegan was a quick transformation for me and that I became a vegan in one decisive move.  I have read so many stories of the kind.  It sounds so easy and I am envious.   While becoming a vegan is inevitable for me, it is at great personal sacrifice.  As unpopular as it may sound, I do not think meat tastes gross.  I think it is delicious.  My passion is to cook, and therefore to eat.  My friends and family did not think I could become a vegan, sheerly based on my love for cooking.

Nevertheless, veganism is my destiny.  Everything I do, everything I read, leads me down this path.  It is manifesting itself.  I wish it could be a swift change,  but instead it is more like an archaeological dig, slowly and carefully chipping away, then dusting, revealing itself in stages.  I no longer try to force it, or advance it more quickly.  I am just trying to live in the now and accept myself without judgment.  It is a struggle, but it feels more organic to just let it happen.

So, here is my long and sordid story.

DEER ANTLERS AND BEAR PAWS

I dabbled with vegetarianism and veganism when I was 13 through college.  At that time, it was less a matter of animal cruelty, and more motivated by an aversion to the questionable dishes my immigrant Korean mother would prepare.  Permanently seared into my memory is the intense smell and visual of my mother cooking deer antlers, first shaving, then poaching and then cracking them open to access the crystallized bone marrow.  She served the marrow crystals to my father in Cognac to help lower his blood pressure.  On another occasion, I opened a pot at home and found what I swear looked like a bear's paw.  While probably illegal and close to impossible to procure, never put anything past a Korean mom.

Food shouldn't make you sick or feel bad

My mom told me that when I found out meat was an animal when I was around 6 years old, I was never the same. From that point on, my beef consumption was minimal to none. And, luckily, I've always hated fish or anything seafood, with a violent passion. Violent in that if I tasted it on accident, it would induce a serious gagging reflex and sometimes vomit. So, I've always eaten a primarily vegetarian diet. Except for chicken, which I ate sparingly and in phases. Dairy, on the other hand, didn't have the same affect on me, given that it didn't require killing an animal. It was a huge part of my diet until a little over a year ago. Throughout my life, I've consumed ice cream and ranch dressing in frighteningly large quantities.

As I grew a little older, and became more aware of how food made my body feel, I started to think that there was something wrong with eating dairy. It just didn't feel right anymore. Cheese especially began to make my stomach ache and made me so lethargic after eating it. So, I've known for maybe 5-7 years that I would eventually be vegan. I knew it was something I wanted and that it would happen because it just made sense. I've read enough about nutrition and the human body throughout my life to know that a plant based diet has been scientifically proven, over and over, to be the key to a healthy and disease-free life. I also just knew how I felt after eating a plant based meal vs. a meat based, cheesy meal. There was always a world of difference. So why did it take me so long to make the decision and take the leap? Human behavior is to blame, I suppose. Habit, fear of change? Probably both. Also, I've never in my life been able to be on a 'diet'. The psychological implications of certain foods being off-limits or a restriction of how much I could eat just made me obsess about it, resulting in failure. I didn't want to do this until I knew I could be successful. It was very important to me and I didn't want to try and fail over and over again and create negative associations.

Being the change I want to see

I am a life-long vegetarian, my parents became vegetarian during WWII. I have never eaten meat knowingly, and was always quite happy being vegetarian as a child. I was never tempted to try meat. I loved animals and made the connection between killing and meat.

A lot of the food I grew up on was vegan: pulses, nuts, tinned delights such as Nuttolene (you can still get it here in the UK, it is still lovely!). There was no distinction in our household between a meal that was vegan and one with cheese/eggs. Although, given a preference I would probably have chosen the macaroni cheese over the red lentil, lemony splodge! I loved cooking as I grew up and probably used more and more dairy and egg products as my cooking skills developed.

I have been running a vegetarian and vegan guesthouse in Cornwall, UK for six years, and have become comfortable cooking vegan meals for many of our guests. Yet vegans always made me a bit uncomfortable, there was the reminder that I was not really letting myself know the full horror my dairy and egg consumption was supporting. I recall saying things like, ‘I know I should become vegan, but I’m not about to’ to guests, and closing any conversation that might be forthcoming quickly.

I am an avid user of Facebook, and was ‘friended’ by several animal rights activist vegans in 2009. They posted difficult to watch and upsetting videos. I got angry with these people and contacted one and then ‘hid’ his posts for a while. Then, I forced myself to watch one, just a simple video of a cow waiting to go into the abattoir to be killed, trying to turn around, entitled ‘I am scared’. It brings tears to my eyes just to type that out. I decided, instantly, to try being vegan, just for a week, September 2009. I then carried on, day by day once the week was up, ‘I can have the stilton tomorrow if I want to’ etc. I now rarely even think about it.

A quiet vegetarian

Always being a supportive yet concerned parent, my mother made an appointment with my pediatrician when I suddenly declared myself a vegetarian at age 11 in 1984. I felt victorious when I heard my doctor respond, “Well, she’ll be healthier than the rest of your family.” On the way home, my mother stopped by the local bookstore and purchased Diet for a Small Planet by Frances Moore Lappe. Despite my physician’s professional opinion, she was terrified that my new diet would be gaping with nutritional holes.

Admittedly, my self-imposed dietary restrictions meant I would subsist on Morningstar Farm’s “Grillers” (the original veggie burger) and cheddar cheese—lots and lots of cheddar cheese—which wasn’t the best way to eat. But I was swearing off meat because I couldn’t stand the thought of eating anyone, not because it was a healthier diet.

It came easily to me. I found that all I had to do was think a little bit harder about what I was putting into my mouth. I started reading food labels and navigating restaurant menus and that was that—I never looked back. However, I quickly discovered that no matter how comfortable I was with my dietary decision, others around me were not. In fact, I was regularly interrogated and challenged by anyone who discovered I was a vegetarian, despite the fact that I was a quiet one.

Most responded as if I had attacked them personally, as if my taking advantage of meat-free food options was a direct comment on their carnivorism, despite the fact that I never (ever!) broached the subject without invitation. I suspect the judgment they were feeling was from within; and if I could make even one person stop and consider the way they were eating, I was willing to have that uncomfortable conversation.

I am still a vegetarian, but I have evolved beyond Grillers and cheddar cheese. It has been a process, a natural progression. I stopped eating animals when I was a kid because I love animals. I have recently stopped eating animal products because I could no longer talk myself into believing that nobody has to die in exchange for a glass of milk and that eggs could never become chickens because they are not fertilized. The health factor is still an added benefit for me, a freebie.