So I’ve been feeling like I should share my journey here. My journey into veganism. And I’ll admit first off that I’m not perfectly vegan. I try so hard! But I’m also gluten free because of severe intolerance and sometimes I’ll buy a gluten free pizza crust and it’ll have egg in it. Or I’ll get the gluten free toast at breakfast and it probably has eggs in it or comes covered in butter. I do my best at the time. And I am going to be even better from now on. My kid and I made a pact that we will from now on no longer buy anything without checking the label, and we are also going to be making our own bread, buns, pizza crusts, etc. Recently my friend recommended an amazing Gluten free vegan bread company, Happy Campers, from Portland, so I will be reviewing that on YouTube as soon as we receive it. Hopefully today. 🙂
On to my story.
It started for me in high school. I went to a Depeche Mode concert and I was handed a PETA flyer and I was seriously dumbfounded. I had no idea about the cruelty! And all those products that test on animals…! What?!? So I immediately went vegetarian and that lasted for 3 years. But I still ate cheese, which along with peanut butter, was pretty much all I ate. Not healthy or good for animals, but I didn’t know that at the time. I don’t know how I missed the cheese/dairy connection, but I did. I did end up going back to meat after awhile because I allowed myself to be shamed into it. I hated it and rarely ate it.
I was extremely unhealthy for a long time. I was all about trying to destroy myself. I smoked, I drank heavily, I would drink at least a six pack of coke a day, I’d eat only pretzels for lunch. I don’t know how I made it this far. At one point, i woke up. I looked at myself and realized I’d been trying to destroy myself and that I should choose joy and life. Â I realized that I had to make a change. I started with smoking and cut that out of my life. Then the soda. I added in more veggies and less processed foods and less meat. Then in my thirties, I got pregnant. This time I was determined to be healthy and help this baby be healthy. That’s when I started researching health and nutrition and natural healing. I came across this book, “Eating Animals,” by Jonathan safran Foer,
 and it changed my life. No more meat. And I started reading about the health of plant-based diets and I was hooked.
I can now look at someone and tell if they are dairy intolerant. I can see people and tell if they are clogged up with meat. I was about to enter a Naturopathic Doctorate program and I got to see inside a person who had died of COPD. I saw their veins blocked, their intestines stretched and blocked and their toxic liver and lungs. Amazing!
It’s really surprising when you learn how important diet is to health. As in THE MOST IMPORTANT thing you can do for yourself. Wow!
I didn’t enter that program, as I got pregnant again and then moved across the country. But I am determined to find a way to become a healer and an advocate for the vegan way of life. Both for healing physically as well as mentally. We are what we eat. Literally. And I find the corporate ownership of animals to be disgusting. These companies want to find a cheap way to make the most money that they can and they use animals like slaves to do so. We need to stop this. There aro many reasons that veganism is good for us and the planet and the other organisms that exist here with us. So many reasons!
So that’s my story. Why not share yours? We could write a compilation book of shared stories. We need to get the word out.