How it all started

Vegan: a strict vegetarian; a person who does not eat animals (including aquatic animals) or their excretions.  Vegans eat a plant-based diet.

A group I am in was putting together a cookbook for a fundraiser.  I'm not one to follow recipes much, but decided to try a few new things, and maybe come up with something new for the cookbook.  I made chicken enchiladas to share with a friend.  They turned out pretty good.  I used the pre-cooked, cubed chicken, though, because I don't like dealing with the slimy raw meat. 

Then I was browsing at the library, and found Alicia Silverstone's The Kind Diet in the new books section.  The same day, I also checked out the new Better Homes & Gardens Cookbook.  The Kind Diet was full of vegan recipes (free of all animal products) that included lots of Japanese ingredients that would be easy for me to get.  I looked at casseroles in the Better Homes & Gardens Cookbook, and decided they were too meat-heavy for my liking.  I decided to look into more vegetarian and vegan cookbooks at the library.

After reading more of The Kind Diet, about how horribly animals are treated on farms and in slaughterhouses, I chatted with a neighbor about it.  I told her I was getting disgusted with the idea of eating meat and animal products.  She pointed me to the "Meet Your Meat" video on YouTube, saying if I watched it, I'd lose my appetite for it all.  I thought it would be a good idea, because I've tried going vegetarian for stretches of time before, but always went back to my old ways.  It was time to face the facts.  Warning: this video is very graphic and disturbing.

I watched "Meet Your Meat" (only 13 minutes on YouTube) and many related videos over the next few days.  I read other books and articles about factory farming, slaughterhouses, commercial fishing.  I listened to podcasts about it (mainly Vegetarian Food for Thought.)  I lost my appetite and some sleep!  I was deeply saddened, haunted, and horrified by what I learned.  But it's the right time in my life to learn these things.  I wish I'd done it sooner.

So now I am vegan, and don't plan to go back.  I have new vegan cookbooks, and enjoy inventing dishes.  And I mean satisfying, hearty dishes.  Flavorful.  I'm surprised that my friends are so interested in trying my vegan creations, and they request the recipes.  I've learned to have vitamin C-rich foods with my meals to help absorb iron (plentiful in plant foods), and take a reliable vitamin B-12 supplement.  Vitamin B-12 is produced by bacteria, but since we wash produce so much, we don't get much from plants anymore.  Despite eating a lot of food, including calorie-dense foods like nuts, beans, grains, sweet potatoes, maple syrup.... I've lost extra weight without trying.  Best of all, I just feel good about eliminating animal products and reducing at least a little animal suffering.  It's much easier and cheaper than I ever imagined.

My only regret about becoming vegan is that I wish I'd done it long ago.