Becoming a vegan

Reflections on a long wobbly process (plus a bit about how art might fit into the process)

I am an asiring vegan. Unlike a lot of vegans and aspiring vegans, as far as I can tell, I’ve never deliberately watched factory farm footage. I have seen bits and pieces by accident.

But I think that the push to for me become vegan has come more from learning about animals and how they experience the full range of emotions, including joy, and they also experience curiosity and are able to experiment to find solutions to problems. In other words, I suppose, it’s the slow realization and acceptance that animals are persons with inner lives.

In January, I read an article about a cow in Switzerland who has learned to use tools to relieve her itches. Although other animals (besides us) do use tools, cows haven’t been documented doing so before. Does this kind of story have the potential to affect the way people see cows (and other “food” animals) and their intelligence and their existence as individuals with their own desires and preferences? I think, maybe, in the US and UK other western societies, we can’t imagine eating dogs and cats at least partially because we see them as individuals, living as subjective beings, whereas cows are seen as a mass of something like living automatons.

But I am very food-oriented, and I also had to learn that I can still enjoy food and feel satisfied by it. I had to re-learn cooking, in a way. If you’re not relying on animal products to provide most of the flavor, you have to apply yourself to becoming a more innovative – and arguably better – cook!

At the moment, I only buy plant-based groceries and eat only plant-based food at home, but I don’t yet call myself a full vegan, because I’m only 99.9% there (not an exact percentage). But I am becoming vegan only because of the animals and their suffering and the right that I wish they each had, to own their own body. I will get there; I’m closer every day. In the two years since I’ve started being an at-home vegan, I’ve been more flexible while traveling and occasionally when eating at restaurants. That might change with my upcoming travels.

Also, as a side note, I’m not really that interested in health as it relates to veganism. From what I have seen and read, veganism in terms of a whole food diet has the potential to be just as healthy as a whole foods omnivorous one (and dieticians largely agree), but a) I don’t think there’s evidence that it’s automatically more healthy, and b) anyway, that’s not what veganism is about; it’s about the animals and minimizing harm to them. So just to get that out of the way! A lot of people seem to assume first and foremost that my partner and I are doing it for health, but I think my omnivorous diet was equally healthy for my body.

So, as I mentioned, I’m not someone who ever deliberately watches horrific documentaries and footage from factory farms. This might be a flimsy excuse and expose me as a coward at heart (very possible), but the times that I’ve accidentally seen footage, I have not been able to sleep well or get the images out of my head for months afterward. As someone with sleep issues and mental health struggles, I can’t really afford that added disruption. I did go vegetarian for a year or so as a teenager after seeing a documentary that included slaughterhouse footage of cows; but I will write more about that at some point later.

But maybe I would’ve become a vegan earlier if I had watched them and endured those sleepless nights for a while.

I feel conflicted. I’m undecided on whether it’s a good idea to try to persuade people to consider veganism by using such footage, or by talking to them more about how animals think and feel and want to live and have the opportunity to have joy just like us. Factory farm animals live their entire lives without any joy, and that’s something you can point out to people. They only experience discomfort at best and terror and pain at worst. I know this without actually sitting through any footage. However, I guess I wouldn’t know about it if that footage didn’t exist in the first place. Is that irony?

I guess what I’m saying is, I can’t be sure whether the knowledge I have from the bits and pieces I’ve seen and the descriptions I’ve accidentally heard or come across in writing, have influenced me as much as learning more about animals and upgrading my cooking skills.

I do wonder about the best way to do outreach, though. I’ll write more about that in another blog entry. Veganism is not about food or diet; I agree on that 100%. However – and this is a big however – food is so important to us as humans, with our families, traditions, nostalgia and whatever emotions we experience when eating. It’s so important that it’s hard to define its importance. There is something in eating what we are used to eating, what we ate as children, and so on, which includes, for most of us, meat, dairy, and eggs. I don’t think this is true for everyone, but for me there’s still an inner drive to eat meat on special occasions, that I haven’t quite gotten to the bottom of. I have started calling this the “meat mystique” in my head.

I also think people are afraid that the dietary aspect of veganism won’t be filling, tasty, interesting, or give them enough energy for a similar amount of money as they are currently spending.

For this reason, I currently lean toward doing a food-forward outreach. The online vegans I enjoy the most take this approach: showing that they are able to have a delicious diet on a budget, including special occasion meals and treats. This doesn’t mean they don’t talk about the animals and the morals and politics of veganism; they do, and it’s always enlightening and I’m always glad to hear their thoughts and viewpoints. But they do that in the midst of showing their shopping, cooking, and eating. (The Canadian-Korean Rose, who goes by Cheap Lazy Vegan on YouTube, particularly comes to mind).

If you stumble upon this post and find it a jumble of confused thoughts, you are correct. I hope I can clarify more as time goes on.

I want to explore more of my thoughts about animals and veganism with my art. So my next post will be about that. Here’s an oil pastel I did yesterday of a pig spending time in a flowery field. Pigs have never been my favorite animals, not even close, and I want to explore that relative to my not eating them anymore!