The slow road

The story has been told that a piece of beef was the first solid food my little paws reached for. And up until about 10 years ago, I didn’t think a meal was complete without a big, honkin’ piece of cooked flesh. I honestly thought that in order to survive, one had to consume animal protein. That is what we have been programmed to believe. However, this is clearly a myth proliferated by ______ (fill in the blank with any industry driven by profits from meat and dairy consumption). This “myth” has been countered by science. Not a bunch of hemp-wearing, kumbaya-singing, paint-splashing, hippies. Science. In fact, the ‘protein myth’ should be referred to as the ‘protein scam’ because not only do you not need animal protein, it is unhealthy and dangerous. But this essay is not about that. I’ll leave that up to the China Study. This is about my long, ever-winding, sometimes backtracking, still-in-progress, road to veganism.

If you would have told me eight years ago that I would ever utter that previous sentence, I would have laughed at you and then snapped-into-a-Slim-Jim just to spite you. I grew up on meat in central Oklahoma in the 80’s and 90’s. Bologna, salami, hot dogs, pork chops, KFC, steak, jerky, nuggets, burgers, chili, Spam, you name it. I don’t recall hearing the word “vegetarian” until at least high school and “vegan” was just another word with the same meaning…Crazy-ass, tree-hugging, hand-holding, weirdos. You get the picture. Eating meat was “normal” and everyone else was cuckoo. 


The first time I actually met (and liked) a vegetarian was my best friend in graduate school (and still to this day – Hi Leslie!). I remember interrogating her FBI-style on many occasions about this lifestyle choice. I was shocked to learn she made this decision sometime in high school (High school! The biggest decision I made in high school was what to wear on a daily basis). Leslie would entertain my litany of questions with the patience of saint. And I, being the tried and true devil’s advocate that I am, would pose every argument possible. She never budged. I never budged…or so I thought. 

Veganism on a dare

Before totally committing to becoming a vegan back in 1990, I'd tried being a vegetarian a couple of years earlier after reading The Jungle, Upton Sinclair's 1906 expose on the meat-packing industry and the conditions of the wage slave immigrants that worked in that industry and going out with a gal who was a vegetarian. 

As the twentieth anniversary of Earth Day approached in 1990, there were more and more magazines and articles on what a meat based diet does to the environment and I read up on this quite a bit. At the same time, I was going through an early mid-life crisis: I was 28 years old and had no real idea of where my life was going, but I wanted to affect a change in my life in some capacity. So now equipped with information about how being a vegetarian could actually change the world (or a small segment of it - one step at a time) I decided I was going to not be a slave to my meat craving palate and commit to making this change. 

When I first became a vegetarian, my long time friend Joel (who was also my roommate at the time) asked me why I didn't just go the vegan route instead of just being a vegetarian, and as I had already read some of why being a vegan is even more environmentally helpful (the dairy and egg industry with their factory farms and the horrid conditions they subject animals to) I took his "dare" and went from meat eater to vegan almost overnight (I was maybe a vegetarian for a couple of weeks before becoming a vegan).

A vegan, and an animal activist

I was heavily involved in animal welfare for my first three years of animal activism starting in 1978, and rapidly got involved in anti-vivisection. But I still ate meat. Here I was, doing what I could to save animals and then eating them. Someone at that time said to me, “What? You save dogs and cats, but you eat cows and pigs”? That question changed my life. It made all the sense in the world. It wasn’t even a year before I decided to go vegan. That made even more sense.

Being from an Italian family I must admit cheese took about a week to give up. And I don’t miss it either. Never liked eggs, milk or meat anyway. As a very poor kid growing up in Brooklyn and New Jersey I never ate meat until I was about 11 years old. We couldn’t afford it.

Back then, my mother (I didn’t have a father) would make some kind of cheap cut of meat once every two or three weeks, and I hated it. I would fill my mouth with this fleshy matter and then go and spit it out in the toilet. My mother quickly caught on to what I was doing and yelled at me. When I told her it felt like I was eating flesh she backed off from preparing meat again—at least while I was around. Truth is, she didn’t like meat either.

No one in my family ever liked fish, even though we were surrounded by three fish markets: The Sodano’s; Piccolo’s chicken market (where at the age of ten I committed my first animal liberation—it was a chicken); and Johnny the butcher’s shop with the goat’s head hanging in the window. Thank goodness for the six bread and pastry bakeries around us. At least those smells were pleasant, and no one died in the process.

Die kuh

I announced my vegetarianism at recess in the fourth grade after writing a love poem about cows in German class. It was the year 2000 on Valentine's Day and Frau Fuchs assigned us to write a poem about someone we love. The only thing I wished to declare my love for was the cow, or die Kuh.

My friend, Julia, joked that if I loved cows so much, I shouldn't eat them. I completely agreed. So Julia and I both decided to make the switch from steak to soy, bacon to beans, turf to tofu! After the first week or so, I was feeling great. Why I hadn't attempted this earlier is beyond me. It came so natural, so easy. I had never enjoyed eating meat and I was glad to never eat it again. It's been ten years since then and I haven't touched meat since. (Julia didn't last long. She was quickly eating meat again.)

My mom stocked up on Boca burgers and other effortless microwavables for my newfound eating habits. For a while, I was living on grilled cheese and sugary breakfast cereals. Admittedly, not the healthiest. But I was a 10 year-old novice, living with hardcore meat lovers. Eventually, I began eating fruits and salads. When I grew tall enough to reach the stove and old enough to handle fire, I added an occasional home-cooked tempeh or tofu dish, grilled vegetables, soups, stews, potatoes.

I decided to take it further and stop drinking milk. I have tried the milk alternatives and they are much tastier that cow's milk. Even further I found delicious soy yogurts that I mix with fruit and granola. Then I made my way to the butter, mayonnaise, ice cream, sour cream, egg and even honey alternatives.

But I was about to face a challenge that I still struggle with today: cheese. Oh, how could I ever give you up, Cheese?! Every now and then I indulge in some animal produced cheese. One day I'll have my own cows and goats so I can make my own cheese without guilt. Until then I've got to keep trying. Better to keep striving than give up.

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.

Life.Is.Beautiful

When I turned vegan, my whole life changed. I had been vegetarian for a few years already. That decision was based on a desire to protect animals, and I had heard snippets about veganism from various sources for a long time. I wasn’t able to go all the way until one day my best friend asked me to accompany her to Red Mango (a frozen yogurt chain). I went with her and we sat down and then I looked at the yogurt she had ordered: fully realizing now what it was, where it came from, and the animals that were harmed in getting it to her plate. That, coupled with a horrendous visit I had to an animal market in Ecuador a few months before, absolutely sealed the deal. I was done.

Then, I was better. In every single way.

Let's start with physically. I feel more comfortable in my own skin. My hair looks and feels so healthy. My nails are much stronger than they ever were when I was eating dairy. They don't break at all. And my skin! I still have scars from teenage acne and bruises, but my skin is glowing and healthy and not dry or rough, and I QUIT BREAKING OUT. How come no one ever told me getting rid of dairy would do that?! I don't need as much sleep. I have much more energy. I also just sort of "settled" at this perfect balance and harmony with my body physically to where it sort of knows what's good and what's not. If I spent a night eating lots of junk food and doing horrible things before, my body would have a meltdown. Now, it sort of just bounces back quickly to balance, as does my mind. Which leads me to....

Mentally. This is the biggest. I struggled a lot for the better part of my childhood and adolescence with depression and other issues. Everything seemed to be really hard. Now...stuff just...slips away. I feel lighter. I don't get mad as easily, or at all. I used to have a crazy hot temper, and now I just feel calm and peaceful. And happy. I know, if you aren't vegan, you are reading this and thinking, this girl is freaking nuts. Even if you are vegetarian, you don’t know yet how much of a huge impact cutting out dairy can have on your body and mind. But it's like a personality transformation...one that's here to stay because it's not based on drugs or anything artificial. I feel so happy, so grateful to be alive, and I think it's because my body isn't trying to process all the negative intake. Not to mention, the days that I eat macro or raw...I cannot stop smiling.

Can't quite say why I stopped eating animals

I don’t remember the tipping point. I adored animals as a child; my first word was my grandma's dog's name, Cha-Cha. But the death of animals was all around me. I spent the early part of my life not far from a meat-packing plant. My grandma worked there for a time. The smell of death wafted through the neighborhood, and on her. It's an unforgettable stench.

My father was a hunter. It wasn't unusual to come home from school and find deer hanging from our garage rafters, dripping blood all over the cold cement floor. My dad shot squirrels, birds, fish, frogs, creatures I can't even remember. We ate them all. (Forced.) He even shot our pets in the backyard when it was time to put them down. But we didn’t eat them. Though, I don’t know why. What’s the difference really? I was a reluctant meat eater as a young girl. I had my suspicions.

My recollection is fuzzy because it’s been about 22 years since I’ve eaten an animal. One day I just stopped. I don’t recall the last animal I ate. I can’t say why I made the decision. I didn’t read something that changed my mind. I had never met a vegetarian in my life. It wasn’t for animal rights (that came full force two years later). I wasn’t informed about the cruelty of factory farming. It wasn’t for the environment. This was the 80s—no one cared. And it wasn’t for my health. Back then people actually thought eating animal protein was necessary and nutritious.

If I had to put my finger on it, looking back, I think the answer as to why I stopped eating animals was for my spiritual growth. I believe it was my Higher Self nudging me that I could do better. That I could grow more. How can I know love if I am consuming the energy of fear and terror? How can I know peace if I am choosing to partake in cruelty and violence? How can I help the world to heal if I am complicit in its dark ways? These weren’t conscious thoughts then, but they’re conscious now.