My Path Into Veganism
A smidge over seven years ago (so I recently figured out after digging into some old Facebook messages) I became a vegan. There was a moment back in September in 2013 when I realised it was just silly for me not be a vegan, when I was already so committed to everything about veganism, except actually fully committing to it. But that moment was built upon years of shifting behaviour and thought. I know many people find the idea of becoming a vegan daunting, it seems impossible, but it’s not. I hope my story can show that.
My journey down this path began a long time before I even knew the word vegan or even vegetarian. My earliest recollections of any sort of inclination towards veganism are from when I was a very young child. I’m sure shared with many children, once I figured out that eating meat meant killing some lovely animal, I didn’t want to. To counter this my parents told me for a long time that they only got meat from animals that had died from natural causes. I’m sure to them then, and probably now even, this seemed like a harmless mistruth in order to facilitate my eating properly. I thought it an amusing anecdote of my childhood for many years too. But now, reflecting back on that missed opportunity, I can’t help but feel a great sense of betrayal, and a sadness at that lie that infused my younger years — Had my parents thought to step out of their cultural conditioning, to listen to the…
