Diving into veganism

Last night I told a friend that if someone told me a year ago that I’d become a vegan, I wouldn’t have believed them. Just a little over a month ago, I was eating cheese, yogurt, eggs, chicken and fish regularly, and red meat on a less frequent basis.

But this past October, I read something that made me reconsider the way I eat. Specifically, it was an excerpt from Jonathan Safran-Foer's book Eating Animals. His widely recognized assertion that animal agriculture is responsible for more environmental devastation than any other factor made me basically sit up and take notice.

I do consider myself an environmentalist. I drive a hybrid car, I recycle everything, I try to be thoughtful about what I purchase and how I consume. Except I hadn’t yet made the connection, or more aptly, the disconnection - between continuing to eat animal products (even though I was eating mostly organic) and helping to repair or stop the destruction of the environment. Until that article. At that point, I started to investigate things a little further.

I discovered that turkeys raised for meat (and poultry altogether) are one of the least humanely treated animals and are also extremely dissimilar from their natural genetic form. I insisted that my family get a free-range, organic, “heritage” turkey for Thanksgiving. But honestly, I felt a little bad and guilty about eating the turkey on Thanksgiving. I didn’t wholeheartedly enjoy it.