as i mentioned in my last entry, i've made the decision to become a vegan. i wanted to spend an entire entry discussing why i've made this choice to inform you about the lifestyle and show it's no snap decision and delving into my feelings about the whole thing, which are mixed.

first thing first. for those of you who are unfamiliar with the term, a vegan is someone who eats no meat or animal products whatsoever, including milk and eggs. or, as one person put it to me, 'a vegetarian, but worse.' being a vegan is more than how you eat, though; it's a whole lifestyle. a complete vegan wouldn't use any animal products at all, including wool and leather for clothes, beauty products, etc. as i'm sure you can imagine, life as a vegan in a country heavily dependent on animal products is not exactly easy.

despite the difficulties, i've decided to become a vegan mostly out of ethical reasons. as i said in my last entry, it started when i read a book called diet for a new america by john robbins. i highly recommend this book to anyone - i think whether you decide to continue eating meat or not, you ought to have all the facts. from the first part of the book which discussed the treatment of animals in the meat and dairy industries, i knew i'd never be able to look at a hamburger the same way again. just a few examples:

chickens are kept in large numbers and in extremely close proximity to one another. unable to establish a pecking order as they would in the wild or even move freely, the birds go berserk. they fight each other and often grow cannibalistic. if the conditions cause the birds to kill one another obviously there's a profit loss, so instead of improving their situation the birds are debeaked, a terribly painful process. since the birds cannot hardly move, many times their feet grow around the wires in the bottom of their cages and they cannot make it to the food. the male young of chickens raised for eggs are taken from birth, chucked into a bag en masse and suffocated. these birds will probably never experience the light of day or anything resembling natural conditions. their lifespans are cut dramatically short, and they are fed hormones to get the most weight gain or egg production in the shortest amount of time. by the time the birds are slaughtered, the vast majority have some form of cancer or pneumonia. yummy.

pigs, sociable animals with higher iqs than dogs, are treated with similar respect. they are kept in stalls that leave them no room to walk around. they are often fed their own manure and other unhealthy and unappealing concoctions. like chickens they become violent under these conditions and turn on each other, starting with biting each other's tails and completely tearing open their backsides. so pork farmers chop their tails off. again they rarely have the opportunity to experience natural sunlight or express any of their instinctive desires.

cows' young are taken from their mother at birth because to suckle would damage the unnaturally large udders developed for increased milk production. these naturally docile and sedate animals will become violent trying to find and nurse their young. you probably know veal is made from baby calves, but what you probably don't know is that the meat is so white and tender because these young animals are not allowed to move a muscle. they never walk, let alone romp and play. they are kept in a stall that is completely restrictive of all movement. the poor animals cannot even lie down comfortably. also, their need for iron is completely denied, and workers make sure the calves have no access to metal on the doors or even their own urine to get any supply of iron at all. calves are killed for veal at four months. adult males have their testicles removed, an excruciatingly painful process, because without the influx of male hormones the beef tastes better. like chickens and pigs, all natural urges are supressed and they are often deathly ill by the time they go to slaughter.

the treatment of these animals amounts to a complete disregard for life. intelligent creatures are treated with absolutely no respect or care, as if they were machines created for us to use as we see fit. it is absolutely disgusting. these animals will never know anything of the natural world their instincts cry out for.

the hormones and antibiotics these animals are fed and the pesticides that get into their food not only cause the animals pain and poor health, but they also remain in their flesh when they reach your dinner table. your meat is contaminated with all sorts of substances linked to cancer. 95% of the pesticides humans ingest come from meat, milk and eggs. that's because these substances become more concentrated as they climb the food chain. somewhat surprisingly, very little pesticide residue remains on your produce, and most of it is eliminated by simple washing. many many health problems we accept as a way of life - heart disease, cancer - can be virtually erradicated by eating lower on the food chain.

and even if our meat and animal products were completely free of these substances, a lot of research shows that a diet high in meat and dairy isn't all that healthy. meat and dairy products are high in saturated fat and cholesterol, where a diet completely free of these would be healthiest. there are very few fruit and vegetable sources high in saturated fat including coconut and palm oil, and none contain cholesterol. the meat/protein connection is a myth. the first thing anyone says when i mention i'm becoming a vegan is 'make sure you get enough protein.' the average vegetarian gets 150% of their daily protein needs. it is not hard to come by on such a diet. you know how they (read the dairy industry) always tells you you need three glasses of milk a day? what other species would drink another species milk? and what other species would drink milk past infancy? the idea that we need milk and dairy products is a fallacy. in fact, getting that much milk takes calcium away from your bones. plenty of vegan items are high in calcium. the one and only nutrient needed that cannot be found in a vegan diet is b12. truthfully though, b12 isn't actually found in meat, but on the bacteria in meat! if you ate vegetables with the soil still on them, then you'd have a source of b12. for me, i'll probably just find a good supplement.

the final main reason why i decided to become a vegan is because of the wastefulness of the meat and dairy industries' production methods. i don't have the numbers in front of me, but a staggering amount of our country's fossil fuel, water and grain resources go to these industries. i'm talking something over 50%. it's disgusting when you read the facts. so you can only imagine the changes if by some miracle the entire country were to switch to a vegan diet tomorrow. enough grain to feed the world. no water crises. decreased dependence on foreign oil. it's incredible just how much our society revolves around the production and use of animal products today.

though it must seem i've talked about this forever, this is just a fraction of what you ought to know about where your food comes from. i encourage you to do some research into this yourself. you will be surprised, you will be horrified. but however you choose to eat, i will respect it if you're informed.

because too many of my family members would rather not be informed. they don't want to hear it. they don't want to think of their food as once being alive. they say i read too much. it's better not to know. oh, i really cannot stand the ignorance - ignorance by choice. plus they all think it's either hilarious and ludicrous, or at least i'm being silly and this is temporary. so it's frustrating.

i've been doing this for a little over a week now, and i'm finding it incredibly difficult. eliminating meat from my diet is no problem. but milk and eggs? take five minutes and look at the list of ingredients in a few things around your kitchen. everything seems to use animal products! even vegetarian vegetable soup, it turns out, has some use for egg whites in it. it's so hard to find things to eat, and, i must say, it's quite depressing. we finally had our family christmas with my older siblings. while they ate mashed potatoes, stuffing with giblet broth, broccoli bake, glazed and buttered carrots and pumpkin pie along with their turkey, i just had a heaping plate of pasty stuffing made only with water and plain broccoli. of course that was my choice, but i almost wanted to cry.

of course, it's a crazy american concept that food should be a form of entertainment or something. it's meant for nutrition, that's all. so i guess that's just something i'll have to get over. it just seems like until i can cook delightful vegan dishes and desserts for myself, it's always going to be about what i can't have.

in the eight days that i've been trying to eat vegan, i haven't yet gone a whole day successfully. each day i have eaten something that i knew must have some milk or eggs in it. and i always feel tremendously guilty about it. but then i have to ease up on myself a little and think that i'm holding myself to a little too high a standard. i have to eat something, and i don't have the money to buy all my own food at a natural food store. i had trouble finding things to eat at gilman before this decision, and now my options are at least cut in half. if they only serve one vegetable each meal it's probably buttered, and when they serve pasta it's often got cheese on it. the fact is, unless i want to eat nothing but salad and dry cereal, i ought to eat these things. so i'm kind of disappointed to say this, but maybe i tried to do too much too soon. maybe it is impossible to try to reach the vegan ideal with someone else cooking for you. so maybe you can't quite call me a vegan, maybe until i'm on my own and cooking tofu dishes you'll have to call me a lacto-ovo-vegetarian-aspiring-to-be-a-vegan-and-cutting-down-on-animal-products-whenver-possible. or a vegan for short ;). luckily, though, julie, a friend of mine who's moving back to marietta, has been trying out the vegan lifestyle for a couple months now and lani is interested in it too. hopefully with some peer support and maybe a couple people to combine funds for vegan foodstuffs with it will be easier. i guess i'll just do the best i can.