Vegan Forum

Just curious to here all of your stories...I will start...

Well, I always hated meat, my parents would basically force me to eat it because I needed my protein blah blah...my mom eventually became a vegetarian.(shortly after I became one too) Now the actual story that made me completely stop eating meat was because I was sitting down at my best friend's at the time and her dad was cooking us some breakfast like he always did. You no the usual what meat eaters ate for breakfast; bacon, sausage, eggs ect. Well, after I finished the delicious meal, the father said how did you enjoy that deer? I was in shock......and a little upset, so I went out in the garage and there was the hanging dead deer!!!!!.....After that I became vegetarian..it was a little easier for me though because my mom had already been one. I never agreed with killing animals anyways.....but that is my story.

Now let me here yours

I became a vegetarian when I was 19 years old. Reason: I moved from the city to a rental home on a farm back in NY. One day my mom was crying. I asked her why. She told me that a cow had just birthed a baby and that baby was a male and was taken away from its mom and slaughtered for veal meat. I thought it was the most ing and awful thing I ever heard. And my mom had heard the mother cow crying all day for its baby! Not only that but there was snow at the time and we saw red colored snow! I did not want to eat meat ever again! But what happened was I did not do the vegetarian diet right and got very sick and weak so people convinced me to eat meat again and I did.

Years later at about age 42, I got a diagnosis of high cholesterol. I was told to cut down on meat. I found it difficult as I ate meat most of my life. But I visited some Peta sites about becoming a vegetarian. The horrid photos I saw finally convinced me to no longer eat meat no matter what. And I became a vegetarian for about 10 years and now have recently become a Vegan after reading about mother cows and how they take away those male babies and kill them for veal right away because they are not girls and can't be milk producers! And that brought me right back to that scene on the farm where I lived as a teen and so I am convinced being a vegan is right for me health wise and morally, too.

I can't stand to see how much torture goes on with animals! So I feel okay with my vegan choice. Not to mention that I am the healthiest ever with the vegan diet. No more high cholesterol and I am quite active for a 52 year old, too.

I am not saying that this choice is for everyone and I don't condemn anyone for whatever they eat or don't eat. That is their choice. I just found that the vegan choice works well for me and I have found and even made up lots of delicious recipes and continue to do so. And I feel good about what I eat now without any guilt or shame about how the animals were treated to make my meal. I can enjoy healthy vegan dishes with lots of good flavor.

I think it is important to really make yourself good tasting dishes full of nutrition and then being a vegan is easy and healthy. And then also if you do become a vegan, I think it is important not to condemn others if they are meat eaters. I think it is about being non violent so I feel it would be kind of a violence to put down the meat eaters, too, or give them a hard time. Part of peace is learning to get along with people as well as respecting all life forms including animals. I think if someone saw me as a "violent" vegan, what good would that do? Like if I was bugging people about their meat consumption and being obnoxious. Now when I am calm and just state calmly that I am a vegan, often people ask me about it and want to know more. Then I gladly will share with them and pass on good recipes.

Take care all. Thanks for the question, too. Made me confirm my convictions.

Became vegetarian at 13 because it felt wrong to eat animals. Vegan at 16 because I saw dairy and fur cruelty videos on PETA.

I became a vegetarian during my sophomore year of high school. I was listening to a lot of polital punk rock, and reading a lot about nutrition. I lost 20 lbs. I fell back into eating meat after high school ended.

Then when I was about 20 or 21 I became Vegan for about 2 years. I lost another 20 lbs, putting me at about 123 lbs. I started to develop poor eating habits (i.e. not getting enough food, becoming increasingly concerned with my appearance/ weight.) and decided not to restrict myself anymore until I got over my eating issues.

Once I got better, I didn't call myself vegan, but I hardly ever ate meat, and when I did, I always took issue with it.

Now 27, and weighing 134 lbs, and also not at all concerned with weight loss, I have become vegan again for what I feel are the RIGHT reasons. I just cannot contribute to animal suffering any longer. I purchased loads of fantastic vegan receipe books, have started taking a b vitamin suppliment as well as a plant derived omega 3 suppliment, try to eat only organic/ pesticide free fruits and vegetables, and just try to be extremely consious of the products I buy.

Tomorrow (8/23/10) marks 3 weeks of being 100% vegan for me. I am excited and feel great. I have lost 2 lbs naturally, my clothing is already fitting differently, my skin is tighter and softer, I have a much more calm vibe about me, my nails are growing like wildfire and also feel stronger for some reason, and I've noticed that I heal about twice as fast. I haven't wondered once if this was the right decision for me, I know it was.

Actually I am not yet a vegan but somehow a vegetarian.... I started to be one when I reached college. This helped me improve my lifestyle cause back in college i have to sleep for 5 hours a day only. I need to travel for 4 hours back and forth to school and conduct peritoneal dialysis to my father. This type of lifestyle makes me really weak, but since I switch to no meat diet, I can accomplish all of the task without being so tired.

When I was 11 I wanted to be a vegetarian. I was aware of how animals were dealt with. My parents said no strictly.
They said: "You hate vegetables, and you hardly eat food at all!" They told me that the animals were fine, that everything I read was nonsense. I wanted them to buy vegetarian products for me, but they didn't although I nagged about it.
I didn't eat much for ten days. I became very ill and my parents forced me to eat meat again.

Now I'm 14, and am a vegan. First I was a vegetarian for three weeks, but then I realised that vegan is the right thing for me to be. My mum doesn't support my decision at all, but my dad understands why I'm a vegan and buy vegan products.

I'm a vegan because I find it wrong to eat animals because animals and humans are equal.

I began to feel uncomfortable about eating animals when i was around 8 or 10 years old and realized what meat is made of, but it wasn't till i turned 15 that i was allowed to become vegetarian. Not long afterwards i just stopped eating eggs and dairy after someone made a joke about how they didn't know cheese was a vegetable. I'm still really not sure why i became vegan at that time because i didn't care either way about dairy and eggs.

When i was 18 or so i started to eat some dairy products on occasion, and I went on like that for years eating almost exclusively vegan foods and using soy milk at home when i was cooking for myself but when out with friends or when someone else was cooking I'd eat something with butter or cheese.

Right now, I'm 25 and have been completely vegan for 9 months now and this time it's for life. There just is not a valid reason to continue using animal products. We don't need them and they cause so much pain, suffering and death.

Health reasons. After a lifetime of animal based foods, I finally realized that I had a myriad of health issues that can be attributed to eating meat and dairy.

The final straw was after my gall bladder was removed. I continued to suffer from pancreatitis (inflammation of the pancreas culminating in back pain) and digestive problems. A physician's assistance told me to eat vegan. I tried it and it worked. No more pain. My cholesteral dropped from 300 to 100 in only 3 months.

I could go on and on about my health issues and how my personal profile must certainly have been influenced by my previous diet - appendicitis, tonsilitis, thyroid disease, type 2 diabetes, and finally the gall bladder and pancreas - all caused by eating meat and dairy, I'm sure of it.

My daughter is only 20 and had her gall bladder removed and is type 1 diabetic. She is definitely on board now with a vegan diet and has come up with some terrific recipes that we all love. My wife has been very supportive, so the 3 of us are navigating this new life style together.

We watched "Food Inc" and now realize how atrocious an animal-based diet is. It's unhealthy for humans and a current holocaust against animals. Animal based diets are wrong for so many reasons. But most people think we're the crazy ones.

I became vegetarian at age 9 after my babysitter joked about chickens getting killed. Then, I became vegan a couple of months ago after my (omnivore) friend explained that the production of milk involved baby bulls getting killed.

Hello, I am a follower of PETA. It is animal rights campaigns include ending fur and leather use meat and dairy consumption fishing hunting trapping factory farming circuses bull fighting. And i also don't like to kill the inocent animals for food. There are many vegetables to eat so why should we kill animals.

Hello
My story. as some of the others I have seen here, revolves around my health issues that directly related to my unhealthy eating habits and my desire to not let what happened to some of my family and peers happen to me. With my wife's support and my doctors encouragement I was able to turn my health issues around in an amazingly short amount of time. Looking back on it now I just wonder why I was so resistant to the possibility.

harleyboy--
So, are you vegan?

Hello!

This is my first post and I wanted to share my journey to vegetarianism and veganism!

In 2007 (Jan-April) I took a course in zoology... it was dumbed down for arts students, counting as a science credit. One of the topics we covered was domestication, and we looked at factory farms, things like that... that sparked the idea for me to go vegetarian, but I wasn’t ready to do it overnight. Anyway I basically knew that it would happen at some point soon...

Then in May 2007 I went out west to Alberta to work in a rocky mountain resort! Great! One day I went out in a field of cows in a 4x4. I had never come so close to them before, seeing little babies running to their moms because they were scared of the noise of the vehicle... just being so close to the cows and realizing, “hey! They are sentient beings! Why am I making them food?” After that moment, I decided to be a vegetarian. I cut out chicken and beef basically overnight. I was raised as a Muslim so I never grew up with pig products. The only thing I had a hard time giving up was fish. I continued to eat sushi for two more months (probably only two or three times during that time) and then I gave that up too.

Once I let go of those foods, it was very easy for me to maintain. I didn’t crave them or anything. Then I saw “Earthlings”. Dang. I never cried so much!! I couldn’t even watch the whole film in one sitting, I had to stop and go back to it a month later. If I wasn’t already a vegetarian, that would have convinced me! It did convince me to go vegan...

From there I went vegan on and off... allowing myself to give into cravings when feeling down.

However, I’ve maintained a vegan diet for the last 3 months and have had no cravings whatsoever! I’m feeling great and loving life, happy that no animals have to suffer for me to thrive!

Thanks for having me here

why i became vegetarian? this page : A Visit to a Slaughterhouse

and this is why i became vegan.

When I became a non animal eater is when I saw bloody flesh from road kill one day, I started having dry heaves. Live organic...and off the land, how perfect. Do you notice the changes in male baldness at such early ages? It's from all the pumped up growth hormones added to animals, the body is overwhelmed with hormones. Check out my Bodygenex web sometime.


Enjoy,

Shawn

Really wonderful stories to hear. Interesting

That's really very interesting and thanks all for sharing...

Interesting to read the reply from the person who'd listened to political punk rock and took from that the desire to become vegetarian. I recall the band, Crass, and their consortium of bands, on the Crass label, promoting vegetarian diets. Speaking of Crass, I have the band logo, a stencil of linked snakes, tattooed on my upper left arm. It was my first ink!

I'd become vegetarian for primarily ethical reasons; I've been vegetarian longer than I'd been an omnivore. However, I'd become vegetarian for another reason, too. I'd been on one of those high protein, no carb diets and actually felt queasy and hunger at the same time. I didn't lose the promised 12 lbs( I didn't need to at the time) and was ed. On new years day, I'd become vegetarian...which is a life time commitment.

Now, my diet is primarily vegan. If I do eat dairy, it's primarily icecream. I will eat cheese if it's offered to me, but I don't buy it to have at home. Tons of fruit/ veg , whole grains and legumes comprise the basis of my food intake.