The fountain of youth

Growing up in a meat and dairy consuming society, I remember as a child feeling grossed out by meat, but I never really questioned it. It had been brainwashed into my young mind that eating meat is what we're supposed to do. Questioning the idea of eating meat felt like questioning the idea of taking air into my lungs, as if it were completely normal and natural. 

Every time I ordered a burrito, I would pick out half of the meat because I could see veins and fat, but I always ordered it anyway, because I was "supposed to have all this protein." Somebody forgot to tell me along the way (or perhaps they didn’t even know!) that those beans and veggies had plenty of protein all along. 

As a teen, I struggled with weight and acne. I believed the false victim mentality that so many do, thinking weight issues and disease just ran in my family, so there was not much I could do. You know what else ran in my family? Poor diet and lifestyle choices. I decided to empower and educate myself with reading materials and documentaries. First, I watched the documentary Forks Over Knives, which opened my eyes to the health issues associated with a meat and dairy based diet. And after watching the documentary Earthlings, my decision to choose the vegan path was solidified. I "woke up" to the inexcusable cruelties I had been supporting while consuming animal products. 

I have been a vegan since that day, and it's the best decision I've ever made. I feel better ethically, physically, and look healthier and more youthful in my early 30's than I did in my 20's! When people comment that I look younger than my age, I always give credit to veganism. I began to get so many questions about what to eat on a plant-based diet that I now happily share my vegan experience on Instagram @thewhimsicalvegan.

Betsy's road to vegan: A tale of pain, compassion, and an Italian grandmother

My story begins on a bucolic dairy farm near my home where I spent most of my youth. Too innocent to understand the purpose of farming, I embraced all its animals: I nursed baby goats, tended to cows, assisted with calf births, made forts in cow pastures, and built immunity to the smell of cow dung (blissfully unaware that it lingered and other people had not built up immunity).   I especially had a fondness for a smooth mocha colored cow named Birgit. She had big doleful eyes and creamy fur. 

One day I noticed Birgit was not at her usual station. I dismissed it until I saw the name ‘Birgit’ written on a neat white package stacked in the barn freezer. In my naïve 9 years of age, I convinced myself that perhaps it was a birthday gift for my beloved girl. Right. Sadly, it was time for my first reality check: Grandmother’s Italian meatballs did not come from moonbeams and rainbows.

After my sophomore year of college, I did what every restless 19 year old did in those days – I went to Seattle in search of Eddie Vedder.  I did not find Eddie, but I did meet vegetarians for the first time. It was a more mainstream practice in Seattle than in my native Boston, and I felt a kindred spirit to them. Birgit in mind, I thought, “I can do this too!” So I returned from my summer of grunge as a proud, hygienically challenged, freshly-minted vegetarian.  And so it began.

My Italian grandmother dismissed my vegetarianism as a fleeting college fad and snuck meat onto my plate at every available turn as any Italian grandmother worth her pasta e fagioli would. I became a pro at gingerly scraping off all carnage, praying no meat bits would accidentally evade my scrutiny. I was up against an impenetrable Italian force, but stayed true to my cause. “Va fangul!” she would say. (I am not exactly sure what it means, but I am pretty sure that it doesn’t mean you’re awesome.)

That Italian force tested me again while studying in Italy for my junior year of college. I encountered Italians who were as nonplussed by my vegetarian lifestyle as my gram.  “Sono vegeteriana’ I would say meekly to the formidable woman shoveling meat on my plate with frightening brute force. She would shake her head with derision and pretend she did not hear me.  (Either it was cultural or she was on my grandmother’s payroll. I never found out).  Being vegetarian in Italy was its own mighty challenge.

My vegetarian lifestyle met with other obstacles. I transferred out of my East Coast graduate school because I would not slaughter pigs for research as was expected.  Scientists were not supposed to have a weakness for animals. I witnessed how reducing animals to mechanized component parts opened the door to their objectification: a step toward cruelty. I observed with discomfort how infectious this process can be and how susceptible we are to it, even with the best of intentions.

It was not until researching my book, “Small Footprint Big Impact’ that I learned that the number one cause for environmental problems is our addiction to animal products. Cows release methane, a gas 20 times more potent than carbon dioxide over a 100 year span. Most of the rainforest is converted to land for grazing or for soy and other crops – 90% of which go to feed livestock. This causes an alarming reduction in wild animal species that compete for that land. Most of our energy and water use go to raising livestock. Food insecurity in all parts of the world can be traced back to our unchecked consumption of animal products.

How could I possibly call myself an environmentalist, then turn around and contribute to the biggest threat to the environment? Being a vegetarian was not enough. I had to go vegan. (I can almost hear my grandmother from her grave shouting; Va Fangul!)

Then there were moral considerations for me to ponder.  The extreme cruelty of the farming industry is rarely discussed. It has been consistently sanitized for our convenience. Yes, animals are killed and mistreated, even for eggs and dairy. I agree with Law professor and Philosopher Gary Francione who said, “You cannot speak about nonviolence and stick violence into your mouth three times a day.” Greenwashing with deceptive terms such as ‘cage free’ and ‘free range’ is hardly contested because we do not want to contest them. Naysayers are censored and even prosecuted.  ‘Ag-gag’ laws are fierce and unrelenting.

Given all these factors, a vegan diet for me was inevitable. Sorry gram.  (Va fangul.)

Going vegan has greatly improved our quality of life for my fiancé (who, annoyingly, reached his ideal weight with no struggle at all) and me.  With fresh vigor, my more disciplined half awakens at 5 AM to work out every morning. (I on the other hand, will never wake up at 5 AM for any reason). We are both active, healthy, and our blood levels are normal. Despite popular food myths, we discovered that a vegan diet meets all our nutritional needs and it is becoming increasingly accessible to eat vegan. We drove across country together in December, using an app called Happy Cow to find so many great vegan places in Georgia, Alabama, Louisiana and Texas!

We feel at peace in the knowledge that we are making responsible decisions for the planet and for all living beings. My fiancé and I will continue our vegan lifestyle and continue spreading awareness about animal cruelty. This will last for as long as we have fight in us. And though she would never ever admit it, I know my gram is very proud, and in her own way, showing her support from that great big pasta e fagioli in the sky (which, if done correctly, is vegan).

We believe that until every one of us is free, then none of us are free.

Va fangul

Betsy Jordan, Los Angeles, CA

A work in progress

Okay, let me start out by saying that I have always been a carnivore.  I mean I have LOVED meat my whole life.  Beef in any form was always my favorite.  Short ribs, brisket, burgers, steak, even steak tartar. Not to mention carnitas, bacon, turkey dinner, I loved it all, with no qualms about it.

However, one fine Sunday afternoon I was perusing the cookbook aisle at my local bookstore, (looking for yet another cookbook that I wouldn’t use but preferred to have in the house “just in case”) and my eyes landed on a large, vibrantly-colored vegan one.  On the cover was a woman sitting on lush green grass next to a giant, doe-eyed cow.  She was gazing at it adoringly cradling its sizeable head in her lap. 

It stopped me in my tracks. 

In that moment, it suddenly struck me that all of those beef dishes I loved so much came from a gentle, quiet animal much like this one who lounged so peaceably next to the woman.  The cow reminded me of my dog, Mojo, whom I had loved like a daughter for the past 13 years. It’s not like I didn’t know that my prime rib came from a cow, obviously, but I think I had always subconsciously (and conveniently) separated my love of animals from my love of food, and seeing this cow on a cookbook made those two loves suddenly and unceremoniously collide.  The Big Bang, if you will.  I was this close to sobbing like an abandoned 5-year-old in the middle of Barnes and Noble.

A week later, after eating no meat at all, I sort of started feeling like it wouldn’t really be that horrible to have a cheeseburger. Catching myself backpedaling, it dawned on me that I needed to get real.  Like really real: 

I needed to watch the videos. 

You know what I’m talking about.  The ones that people avoid because they don’t want to know the gory details of how that beautiful rib eye made it to their plate.  I was like, I want to educate myself and watch these videos, and if I feel like I still want to eat an entire pepperoni pizza, at least I’ll do it conscientiously.

But it turned out I couldn’t. 

It turned out that I would never be able to un-see the images of the cruelty these poor, tortured animals are forced to endure.  I mean it was so shockingly monstrous. I could never even have imagined the conditions under which these defenseless animals exist.  They are tortured and then violently murdered.  That is what happens. 

I was horrified.

So, almost two years later (with my now 15-year-old dog), I still don't eat meat. And I only buy farm fresh, local, organic eggs. (Full disclosure, I do cave at brunch and occasionally with my mimosa order an omelet with cheese. I’m a work in progress, ya know?) I also no longer buy leather. I plan on keeping what I have for now, but I've discovered that vegan leather is good quality. Gone is the pleather of yesteryear! 

The truth is that the world looks so different to me now that I've identified eating meat as cruel. I used to salivate looking at a juicy piece of steak, now it looks like a sad, bloody death on a plate. I have always loved animals, now I see a soul in ALL things, even bugs. (You should see me trying to get them out of my house without hurting them! It's definitely a loud, scream-filled production.) Every thing and every one has a right to be here and live their lives. I feel like the goal for human beings should be to try to live in harmony with all living things. The planet and life would be so different. 

I am definitely evolving and I love the idea of being a vegan, but I’m not quite ready to go full throttle yet.  One day I will be though. I just gotta watch those other videos.

Bianca DeGroat, Los Angeles, CA

From shame to harmony

It all started when I was at my first Barnum and Bailey Ringling Brothers Circus demonstration in 2012. I was there to protest the cruel treatment of circus animals. My partner and I had discussed becoming vegetarian in order to change our eating habit to a healthier one, but we hadn’t yet made the leap. 

While I was at the circus demo, I met many vegans and I mentioned to them that I was considering going vegetarian, but at the moment I was still eating fish, some dairy and certified “humane” chicken. I thought I was being more humane towards animals with my diet, but they started talking about the hidden truth of what certified humane meat is and the horrors of the dairy industry. I listened to all of the information, but deep down, I was a nervous about becoming vegan. I thought, “Wow, that’s a hard thing to do.” 

On the second day of the protest as I was holding a sign showing a chained elephant, a few circus-goers walked by me and said, “I bet you still eat meat!” It felt like a big slap in my face. I was ashamed. Here I was telling people to be more humane to animals while I was going home to eat a dead animal that had suffered. That was my wake up call. I went straight over to the vegans that had been telling me about veganism the day before, and I asked them to give me more information on what I can eat and what to do. We talked for two hours. I received the information I needed, and I was ready. 

I think I'm turning vegan-ese

A Korean-American foodie's journey to veganism.

I wish I could say that becoming vegan was a quick transformation for me and that I became a vegan in one decisive move.  I have read so many stories of the kind.  It sounds so easy and I am envious.   While becoming a vegan is inevitable for me, it is at great personal sacrifice.  As unpopular as it may sound, I do not think meat tastes gross.  I think it is delicious.  My passion is to cook, and therefore to eat.  My friends and family did not think I could become a vegan, sheerly based on my love for cooking.

Nevertheless, veganism is my destiny.  Everything I do, everything I read, leads me down this path.  It is manifesting itself.  I wish it could be a swift change,  but instead it is more like an archaeological dig, slowly and carefully chipping away, then dusting, revealing itself in stages.  I no longer try to force it, or advance it more quickly.  I am just trying to live in the now and accept myself without judgment.  It is a struggle, but it feels more organic to just let it happen.

So, here is my long and sordid story.

DEER ANTLERS AND BEAR PAWS

I dabbled with vegetarianism and veganism when I was 13 through college.  At that time, it was less a matter of animal cruelty, and more motivated by an aversion to the questionable dishes my immigrant Korean mother would prepare.  Permanently seared into my memory is the intense smell and visual of my mother cooking deer antlers, first shaving, then poaching and then cracking them open to access the crystallized bone marrow.  She served the marrow crystals to my father in Cognac to help lower his blood pressure.  On another occasion, I opened a pot at home and found what I swear looked like a bear's paw.  While probably illegal and close to impossible to procure, never put anything past a Korean mom.

Food shouldn't make you sick or feel bad

My mom told me that when I found out meat was an animal when I was around 6 years old, I was never the same. From that point on, my beef consumption was minimal to none. And, luckily, I've always hated fish or anything seafood, with a violent passion. Violent in that if I tasted it on accident, it would induce a serious gagging reflex and sometimes vomit. So, I've always eaten a primarily vegetarian diet. Except for chicken, which I ate sparingly and in phases. Dairy, on the other hand, didn't have the same affect on me, given that it didn't require killing an animal. It was a huge part of my diet until a little over a year ago. Throughout my life, I've consumed ice cream and ranch dressing in frighteningly large quantities.

As I grew a little older, and became more aware of how food made my body feel, I started to think that there was something wrong with eating dairy. It just didn't feel right anymore. Cheese especially began to make my stomach ache and made me so lethargic after eating it. So, I've known for maybe 5-7 years that I would eventually be vegan. I knew it was something I wanted and that it would happen because it just made sense. I've read enough about nutrition and the human body throughout my life to know that a plant based diet has been scientifically proven, over and over, to be the key to a healthy and disease-free life. I also just knew how I felt after eating a plant based meal vs. a meat based, cheesy meal. There was always a world of difference. So why did it take me so long to make the decision and take the leap? Human behavior is to blame, I suppose. Habit, fear of change? Probably both. Also, I've never in my life been able to be on a 'diet'. The psychological implications of certain foods being off-limits or a restriction of how much I could eat just made me obsess about it, resulting in failure. I didn't want to do this until I knew I could be successful. It was very important to me and I didn't want to try and fail over and over again and create negative associations.

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. 

Choosing vegan, to honor everything I believe in

Last month I finally chose to walk the vegan road. I use the word ‘finally’ because I feel it has been a slow and gradual progression over the last 15 years.

In 1995 I read the book Fit for Life by Harvey and Marilyn Diamond and was introduced to the fact that humans are the only other animal that drink another animal’s milk. This totally grossed me out and my thoughts immediately drifted to how disturbing and incorrect it is for humans to suck on cow teets. Just because someone has packaged it up in a bottle or carton makes no difference. It’s still milk that has been squeezed from a cow, and in my opinion should only be used for one thing … feeding baby cows. So my milk drinking days ended abruptly. For some odd reason though, I didn’t put cheese in the same category. Strange, I know.

Over the next five years my taste for meat declined. Correction, not so much the taste of it, but more so the flesh component. Have you ever bitten in to a piece of meat and visualized biting in to the arm, leg or torso of an animal, and that the chewy bits of meat is too closely associated with chewing your way through the flesh of that animal? Those type of visualizations also grossed me out and ended my meat eating days, with exception to mince meat in lasagna, spaghetti bolognese and carpaccio (the paper thin raw beef), as these styles of meat required no tough chewing and melted in my mouth.

My fascination for food, health and wellbeing led me to study a 3 year Diploma of Nutrition and it was during those classes that I was exposed to the horrifying documentaries about chickens in battery farms, their ghastly diet, abnormally unhealthy living conditions and outrageous cruelty and suffering. Add to that, the accounts of negative health effects that the consumption of these chickens and eggs were having on the human population. I was so appalled by this information that I have never eaten a piece of chicken since, but somehow I remained an egg eater, as long as they were the biodynamic organic free-range variety.

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).

The enlightened diet

My path to a meat free diet has been long. I grew up on a farm where we raised much of our own food, including beef and chicken. Ours was a hobby farm that my Grandfather bought in the 1940’s (probably to relive his overly romanticized childhood) and was not our main source of income. However, it was still a working dairy farm and my playground as a kid and animal lover.

Our farm animals were both treated well and well loved. For that reason, I never gave much thought to modern day farming until I became pregnant with my daughter and began to obsess about what I would allow into my body, and the bodies of family.

As I educated myself I switched to organic and free-range. For me it was a slow leaning toward vegetarianism, slowly cutting out meat strictly for health reasons. At that time I was still under the delusion that all farms were like ours. I had no moral motivation.

At a certain point in my personal development I intensely desired a big leap in my growth. I wanted to take myself to a new higher level, mentally, physically, and spiritually. It was Kathy Freston’s book Quantum Wellness that was the tipping point for me.

She clearly outlines three compelling reasons for not eating meat:

1.     Physical health – I read about the adverse health effects of sugar, caffeine, gluten, alcohol, and last but not least, animal products.

2.     Environmental impact – I read compelling facts about the amount of grain and water needed to produce even small amounts of edible meat. Grain and water that would be better allocated to starving people in the developing world. Additionally the greenhouse gas produced from so much farming, “A UN report says that almost a fifth of emissions that contribute to global warming come from livestock, including chickens, pigs and sheep, in addition to cattle”. (Quantum Wellness p. 114)

3.     And finally, I read about the absolute horrors of modern day factory farming. We’ve all heard of mad cow disease, which is the result of feeding herbivores a diet of animal byproducts, (disgusting!) and hopefully we’ve all heard about the incredibly abusive ways in which chickens and other animals are raised for our consumption.

A happy vegan

I have tried being a vegetarian a couple of times (I am 11 years old) but it only lasted a week or so each time. I have always loved animals and never wanted to hurt them. I realized that I was taking an animal’s life away just so I could eat meat. I know that I can have a healthy diet without eating meat. Now I am fully committed to being a vegan!

My mom is also vegan, so she helps support me in many ways. We love to cook meals together. I have lots of fun cooking meals myself too. At first there were some foods that were hard to give up, such as ice cream, chicken burritos, eggs, greek yogurt and cinnamon bread. Since I have found vegan alternatives for most of these things, I don’t miss them as much.

I am very happy being vegan and I feel better physically. I know I am making a difference in the world by not eating meat. I am also helping the environment. I am glad I have made the decision to stop eating animals. They should be treated equally with love and care.

Destiny, Los Angeles, CA

my favorite vegan things:

Purely Decadent vanilla ice cream bars

Alternative Baking Company outrageous oatmeal raisin cookie

Luna bars - iced oatmeal raisin and peanut butter cookie

Daiya cheese (great for pizza and grilled cheese sandwiches)

Morning Star Farms vegan veggie burgers

Living in integrity

The first time I stopped eating meat was around the age of nine. I grew up on a farm in Northern California. I have always loved animals and would beg my parents to take in every stray dog or cat I found or that wandered onto our property. So when they brought home baby bunnies, I assumed they were our new pets. I spent time everyday holding them and petting them. Then one day I came home from school to find them being killed for us to eat. I was devastated. I refused to eat any meat that might be my precious bunnies. That was the start of my vegetarian journey.

After a while, I did eventually eat meat again. I wasn’t a big meat eater, but I would eat chicken or fish once in a while. For me the tipping point towards vegetarianism was becoming aware of how the animals are treated, the horrible conditions in which they live and how they are slaughtered. The first time I watched a video showing these conditions, I couldn’t stop crying. I decided then that I would never eat meat again.

After several years of being vegetarian, I made the commitment to become vegan. For the most part I was vegan, but I would eat eggs once in a while, thinking I needed the protein. I also loved cheese and couldn’t imagine not having it. I told myself it was okay to eat those things because the animal didn’t die. But my conscience kept guiding me towards my truth. I became aware of the conditions that factory farm egg laying hens and milking cows live in, and couldn’t deny this truth any longer.

The transition to being vegan has been fairly easy. I just had to find substitutes for the products I ate which had egg or dairy in them. To my surprise, I didn’t miss cheese like I thought I would and I have found some great substitutes.