Bonjour! I’m back again. After a wonderful weekend of gardening and seeing ANDREW BIRD and an orientation trip reunion and an outing club meeting, and then half a week of more outing club meetings, an Amnesty International meeting, an EnviroCo (environmental coalition) meeting and, of course, class, I’m here to write another post. I’m gonna write about veganism, because it’s been a defining point of my life ever since I became vegetarian about ten years ago.
When I became vegetarian at the ripe old age of nine, I vaguely thought about not eating cheese and eggs. Once I learned about factory farms, I knew immediately that I could never eat meat again. I didn’t fully connect the cruelty of factory farms to dairy and eggs because I guess I just didn’t think about their status as animal products that much. They were just food to me, and after all, Lisa Simpson, my primary motivator for vegetarianism, didn’t go vegan.
Fast forward to 2008. When I was a freshman in high school, I tried to be vegan for a bit. It didn’t work. I can’t remember exactly why, but I’m pretty sure it had something to do with the fact that I was eating in a dining hall, since I couldn’t tell if foods were vegan or not and I became overwhelmed by all the non-vegan deliciousness that surrounded me. So, I quickly gave up. I’m also going to mention that for the first time since I went vegetarian, I ate meat. This was before my attempted veganism. After hanging out with friends and seeing them eat meat, I decided, “f*ck it, I want some meat,” and I went through a short-lived period of omnivorousness. I quickly returned to my vegetarian ways, attempted veganism, and went back to being vegetarian again.
Fast forward again to later 2008. I became vegan for real over the summer, and despite many bumps along the way (most baked goods are unfortunately not vegan) I became a full-fledged vegan. I read nutrition labels and ingredient lists voraciously, baked myself vegan desserts almost daily (usually healthy vegan desserts, though, like whole wheat oatmeal cookies and muffins made with whole wheat and apple sauce), cooked up colorful veggie stir fries, and begged my parents to take me to Whole Foods frequently. I always think back to the summer of 2009 when I was fully immersed in my veganism. I was happy and healthy. My skin was clear, I ran five days a week, I biked to and from my job on an organic farm, and I began an interest in hiking and other outdoorsy activities. I broke my veganism for a week, when I went hiking with my dad and my brother, because I didn’t want to inconvenience them. I went right back to being vegan as soon as we got home, though.
Now, I made it through that wonderful summer (I think of it as the best summer of my life, not just because I was vegan, but because I was living every aspect of my life in accordance with my ideals. I worked on an organic farm, I stopped wearing makeup, I was active, and I was happy,) and then I returned to school for my junior year of high school.
After joining the cross country team, I got shin splints after our first race and couldn’t run anymore. To be honest, I was never that dedicated to begin with. I hated racing, because I just like to run for the sake of running and clearing my head. Racing put way too much pressure on me and made running less enjoyable. So, I stopped running, and in November of 2009, I quit being vegan. My sister convinced me to start eating egg whites from free-range eggs, which (in my opinion) are healthy and cruelty-free. Now, I know all about how free range isn’t really free range, but when we were talking about it, we meant eggs that were produced without cruelty.
I’ll always remember the moment that I stopped being vegan. I took some free range eggs from the shelf at Trader Joe’s (they probably were produced with cruelty, but I didn’t want to think about that), and headed straight to the cheese puffs. Aside from the cheese puffs, I ate pretty healthily for an ex-vegan. Breakfast was a banana with peanut butter and a bowl of yogurt, or yogurt and cereal mushed together. Lunch was still a salad, and dinner was whatever my mom made.
My mom is the most wonderful woman I know, because she has put up with my changing diet constantly and makes me food according to whatever I label myself as. When I go to her house for dinner, she asks me “are you vegan today?” and I usually answer yes, even though sometimes I’m not. Even before I was vegetarian, my mom would make me and my siblings fried tofu sticks and healthy whole grain cookies (with chocolate chips, so we would eat them), and taught all of us the importance of healthy, wholesome food. She supported my vegetarianism whole-heartedly, and has cooked me vegetarian food for dinner ever since I first became vegetarian almost ten years ago.
Now, back to my journey away from veganism. As I said, I ate pretty healthily for the most part after I stopped being vegan. However, the unhealthy food started to sneak in. I would start eating ice cream for dessert, and I would snitch my dad’s Shoprite cookies daily. My acne came back, I gained weight, and I was never as happy as I was during the summer.
It only got worse. Once I got my license, one of my best friends and I started hanging out constantly since we could finally get to each other’s houses without working around our parents’ schedules. We would go to the grocery store for donuts and kit kats, and while she could eat just a little bit of the junk food, I had no self control. I started binging on sweets, and soon I had gained ten pounds since I stopped being vegan.
Over the summer, I kept hanging out with my friend and I kept eating unhealthily. I started wearing makeup again, because we liked to go and meet boys and get attention. I “forgot” about the cruelty involved with makeup, the animal testing and the unknown chemicals contained in all my different powders and potions. I just wanted to look pretty and get male attention. I started to think in terms of what would make me happy, which usually ended up being looking pretty and eating junk food. The thing is, these habits just made me feel worse. There was always, and there still has been, a nagging sense of guilt about the products I’m buying.
A couple weeks ago, I went to the school store to buy “nice” shampoo that was tested on animals. I was sick of having hair that wasn’t as shiny and pretty as other girls’, just because I was nice enough to not buy products tested on animals. I actually thought to myself, what’s the point in caring about animal rights if no one gives you credit for it? Now, I know that’s silly. I know that the reward is in knowing that you’re not causing harm to another living being. But in my desperation for friends and male attention, since I was just starting college, I threw my morality out the window and gave in to mainstream society because I was sick of being the only one brave enough to stick up for animal rights. By doing so, I became another one of the masses, too scared to stick up for animal rights. It was foolish, but pretty soon after I realized my errors and put my shampoo out in a hall with a note on it, describing my moral reasoning for not using it. Someone else has that shampoo now, and part of me hoped that by reading about why I couldn’t use it, no one else would want to either. I guess I was wrong, but oh well. At least now the shampoo isn’t going to waste.
So, now we’re at my senior year. I kept binging on sweets and I kept gaining weight. I kept thinking about how shitty I felt, and how I was getting fat and why was I such a failure for stopping being vegan? Why couldn’t I just stop eating so much junk food and go back to my old healthy ways? I kept beating myself up for not being vegan, for binging, for not being in touch with my morality. I realize now that that is an unhealthy attitude. If I don’t value myself highly, how will I do what’s right for my body?
So, the binging on sweets and the self-destructive attitude continued. Now, I have gained 25 pounds since I first stopped being vegan, and it’s been making me feel like shit ever since. I know that being vegan won’t fix my self-esteem issues and can’t instantly bring back that happiness I felt two years ago, but I do know that being vegan is what’s right for me. I was truly happy when I was vegan, because I was living in accord with my ideals. I wasn’t harming animals, I wasn’t harming the planet, and I was healthy. Really, truly healthy. I want to be able to rock climb and hike and swim and kayak and canoe and climb mountains, and I want to do all these things without lugging around an extra 25 pounds. I want to go to the dining hall and eat a meal without getting dessert. I want to feel as happy as I did two years ago, and I know that veganism is the only way I can be that happy. My desire to go vegan again and to lose those 25 pounds isn’t just because I want to lose weight and look good. It stems from a desire to do right by the animals and do right by the planet, and ultimately, to do right by myself.
