How did you become vegan? I was vegan when I was 10-12 yrs old, but once the Dr. told me I was too young to be doing that, I stopped. Recently, after going to Jamaica, I became vegan again. I saw how many anorexic stray animals, (cows and goats,) there were walking around and that relinguished my passion for animals. I have always been an animal rights activist, but when I was at Bobo Hill, I found out the Rasta's religious reasons for not eating animals and that also motivated me. While I was down there we learned about the dairy farmers taking away from the farmers of Jamaica and other countries, they now are all out of business. What's your story.
im not a vegan (yet??) but i became veggie about a month ago. it was a long slow process for me. i wanted to be veggie when i was younger but because my family not supporting it, i put it outta my mind. it's always been on my mind though. i've had some health probs., saw the benefits in this lifestyle and cut down on meat A LOT.... came here, was reading for a while...got scared off by some people BUT kept up my quest. saw some videos from peta (no comment on them) but i cried and turned veggie that day. i feel much better and hope to further improve in the future.
I begame vegetarian first for environmental reasosn, then I learned about all the truly disgusting anmial conditions and that my environemtalism was not going far enough by just being veggie, so I went vegan. This forum really was what got me interested and made me convert. I want to thank the people here who influenced me 9 months ago! Thanks for showing me the light!
While I was in high school my favorite teacher was a vegetarian. He also had lunchroom duty for years. My mother thought I wasn't eating enough and even called him up to ask that he make sure I ate more...well seeing as he's a vegetarian he sure wasn't going to make me eat any meat (unless I wanted it). Sometime in school, we also learned about Ghandi who was also vegetarian. My great-grandfather's 3rd wife was Asian and cooked great veggie meals sometimes. I loved that grandmother and would try to learn all I could about anything to do with Asia, including cooking,alternative health,religion.. mainly Buddism & Hinduism. Even though a few family members thought the Asian grand-mother was a little strange I considered her my real grandmother (my biological granny died when my mother was little) I was born with heart problems, grew up with scoliosis, & rheumatic fever, so watching what I eat is helpful for me. I went thru periods when I only eat vegetarian food for a long time, but then I'll go thru another period of time where I'll eat meat a few times a week. Right now I'm having milk, lots of cheese,eggs and a friend brought chicken over last night so I had that also. But I rarely have chicken at all.
Well, a while back someone posted a link to a video of what goes on in slaughterhouses; people throwing chickens around like footballs, animals getting thier throats cut, it was awful. So I did a little more research and thought that is was a good idea, but I was convinced that I didn't have the will power. Then I met my girlfriend, who has been a vegetarian for two years. She's not doing it for health reasons, or even for the animals, she just woke up one day and decided to go veggie. And then I thought to myself "if she can do it, I guess I can too". And now I'm a vegetarian. And thank you hipforumers for showing me the way!
I'm not vegan... yet. Anyway going veggie was a very long drawn out process. With many explanations. The offical story: I tried to go veggie at nine, having read about it in a magazine and thought it sounded cool and inspired by a family friend (who is still veggie). My parents tricked me back into eating meat so I gave up because I wasn't really fired up. Then in a class we had to learn about factory farming, watching videos and all that. Combine that with the early stages of questioning the world and what my parents think, discovering these forums and well you can guess the rest. My favourite explanation: 'A fish told me too.' His name was Caspian and he lived in a tank at the end of my desk. It was easy for me to make the connection between the fish on my plate and lil Cass. Then branched out to considering other animals. I now have a rabbit and she is [indirectly] motivating me to take up the issue of animal in laboratories (being against them obviously). The kind of lame: I have a crush on Joaquin Phoenix, who is of course vegan. Pouring over interviews of his yeilded plenty of useful tibbits (By a cool coincidence he was converted by fish) I'm going to time going vegan for October (planning ahead, I should be into it by then) because that's when his birthday is (the 28th, and mine's the 8th) it would be a tribute of sorts. Without him even knowing, see that's how dedicated/pathetic I am. Okay I'll shut up now. TTFN Sage
Hehe, I liked your stories Sage. I'm not a vegan, just a veggie but I'm moving towards veganism slowly. (My mum's only just got used to me being a veggie!) I had thought about being vegetarian at various points in my life, but as a child no one took me seriously when I asked if I could be, and if you can't cook or buy your own food you have to eat what Mum makes. 11 months ago I just decided that I could now cook enough of my own food to be able to stop eating meat, and then when I researched it a bit more I realised I didn't really like the idea of eating flesh anyway, and the animal cruelty just made me angry. With no good reason to eat meat, I went veggie. Summer. xx.
I submitted myself to the initiation ritual and renounced emotions and embraced pure logic. Hang on..... let me check my dictionary again....
I was a vegetarian for about a month beforehand, vegetarianism was pretty much a transition for me. By "anorexic animals" did you mean starving?
I watched the "Free Me" video, saw and read about tons of egg and dairy factory farm stuff, and finally realized "Hey! Why am I still doing this?" Now I'm trying to get over the bump that's in my way : There's milk or eggs in EVERYTHING nowadays. But I can do it.
First i started off as a vegetarian in grade 5. I dont know if iwas just following my sisters at the time, but i do know that i also started not to like the taste of meat, the thought that it was an animal grossed me out. Than i got sick and i wasnt able to eat wheat or dairy, but i still snuck dairy stuff, and i ate fish. Last year i decided i didnt want to eat fish anymore and started to think about becoming a vegan, and during school i officially decided to become a vegan and so know i am!
