It was July 2009 when I became a vegetarian. Due to a prominent birthday, and seeing the movie "Food, Inc" it was a good time for change in my life. Over the past 20+ years I'd attempted to eat a vegetarian diet, and it would usually last a month or so, and I'd go back to carnism. However, this time was different, I knew it in my heart. I knew there was no going back, this time.
After watching "Food, Inc"I came out of the movie theatre thinking 'what can I safely eat??' I began to read labels. To REALLY read labels. I'd spend 2 hours in the grocery store, reading labels. I went to various grocery stores, trying to find foods I felt it was safe to eat. I found that I needed to buy organic whenever possible. Not only to stay away from pesticides and chemical fertilizers but to avoid genetically altered 'foods' as well. Meanwhile I was reading. I read books like "The World Peace Diet" by Dr Will Tuttle, "The Food Revolution" by John Robbins, "The Ethics of What We Eat" by Peter Singer and Jim Mason, "The Face On Your Plate" by Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson, "Animal, Vegetable, Miracle" by Barbara Kingsolver, "In Defense Of Food", by Michael Pollan, "Eating Animals" by Jonathan Safran Foer, "Skinny Bitch" by Rory Freedman and Kim Barnouin, "The Missing Peace" by Tina Volpe and Judy Carman, "Why We Love Dogs, Eat Pigs and Wear Cows" by Melanie Joy.....and more.
At the time I was buying and eating organic dairy products, but the more I read, the more I began to question....and I started contacting the dairy's that my cheese came from, to find out more about the cows....for instance....what happens to the cows when they are 'past their prime' and you no longer use them for milk? I was thinking (hoping) that these places loved their cows so much that they would put them to pasture and let them live out long, happy lives.
Oh Mick, you are so naive!
I found out that the cows on the organic farms go to slaughter just like cows on non-organic 'farms' do.
And of course, they are kept pregnant and their babies are taken from them shortly after birth, and on and on.
And then my little miracle began to happen. Cheese....my beloved cheese, that I thought I could NEVER give up, began not tasting so good. It began to taste like pain and suffering and misery and sorrow. Those were things I didn't want to take into my body, so it wasn't a question of 'giving up' dairy (and eggs too)....like the animals I ate before them, I no longer wanted those things. The change came from inside.
I remember the defining moment. I was reading "Skinny Bitch" and a slaughterhouse worker was being interviewed. I won't go in to what he said, but it was so appalling and shocking to me that I knew there and then, I could not be part of that system any longer.
Compassion was growing in me!
Also, I cannot leave out the fact that my dogs, Joy and Shiloh, are helping me on this path. These two sweet, loving, innocent beings that share my life with me....that have emotions....wants, needs, lives of their own....and they are animals, that in some places, might be someones dinner.
So....given the fact that I live in a place where non-animal foods are abundant, and I'm in a position to procure them at will, and they are more than sufficient to keep me healthy, I have no need to eat animals or their secretions. No need and no desire. And in fact, as time goes on, it becomes more and more unpleasant and painful for me to see others eat them.
As I continue on this vegan path then, I find the need to extend more compassion to those who do eat animals, and who pay for others to give them lives of misery and to slaughter them. I see these people....my friends, my family, and the rest of the "pre-vegan" world....as still asleep. They have not yet awakened. And I see myself as perhaps someone who can gently awaken them. Or not. But I can try, in whatever ways open up to me.
I'm not a perfectionist. I feel that every meal that someone eats, that does NOT contain animals or their secretions, is a step in the right direction. If someone feels best to start off with "Meatless Monday" or "Meatless March" or one meatless meal a day or a week...hey....I'm all for that! Each meatless and/or dairy-less, eggless meal decreases suffering.
Like they say in "Food, Inc", you get to vote three times a day. You vote with your fork.
WE CAN CHANGE. We can give life, instead of taking it. We can decrease suffering.
We can show mercy and live kind.
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