Turned Vegan

[richarddawson]

I would love to say that I went vegan for the animals and the environment but the truth is my vegan journey was long and started out for selfish reasons. If you told me a few years ago I would become a vegan one day I would probably laugh at the notion. But looking back now I see it was always something that was likely to occur.

It all started in college. I browsed Youtube videos often and it was by reading the comments that I began to hear about a crazy vegan Youtuber who oftentimes made videos where she lambasted people who ate meat on Youtube. She would film entire reaction videos dedicated to the subject. She also had a ridiculous sounding name.

I knew I had to see this for myself, so I endeavored to find her channel and find it I did. I watched what she had to say and found myself outraged.

I really did not like this woman, at all. I thought she was absolutely insane. Everything people had said was true, she reacted to all sorts of YouTubers by watching ‘What I Eat In a Day’ videos and then criticizing people’s meat and dairy eating habits. I thought she was way out of line, extreme and annoying.

But at the same time, as angry as she made me, I couldn’t look away. I couldn’t stand this woman, didn’t have a nice thing to say about her at all, found her content annoying and out of line but yet, I just kept watching.

It became a regular routine for me to sit and watch her videos while aggressively eating chicken sausages. I was going to show her, one way or the other and I got a small bit of amusement knowing that I was eating chicken sauage while she railed about veganism.

The problem was throughout her videos, she would intersperse footage from the factory farm industry. She showed things that the animals went through, some of the routine procedures they were subjected to. And I noticed my first major inconsistency.

Whenever she would show footage of an animal either being slaughtered or being harmed by the industry, I did not want to eat my chicken anymore. I used to simply set it down and place it aside, until the footage was over and then resume afterwards. Then it started to take away my entire appetite for the chicken.

I started doing what vegans call ‘making the connection’. When I saw the chicken on the screen and the sausage in front of me, I no longer saw them as being two separate things. I could not eat the sausage without consciously processing that it was once an animal. And I couldn’t eat the animal without the knowledge that it had probably suffered to get on my plate.

I started to say a prayer for the chicken before I ate.

Around this time, I started to hear about something called the flexitarian diet. It’s a diet where less than 50% of the meals you eat during the week, come from meat. I began to eat this diet and immediately noticed an improvement in how I felt. The flexitarian diet was wonderful for me, I was in amazing physical shape and health, I felt good and I liked what I ate.

But no longer was my focus only on my own health, I started to see the ethical issues within the factory farm industry. I felt good knowing that I was helping save animals and the environment by reducing my meat intake. I felt amazing about it actually and it was a major motivation for me to keep doing what I was doing.

I kept hearing the names of certain documentaries mentioned and decided to check some of them out. I think Cowspiracy was the first vegan documentary that I watched. Afterwards, I went to research whether or not the information within it was accurate and the overall consensus was that, while there were certainly some serious problems with the way the documentary presented some of the data, the overall tone of it was true. Meat consumption has a very high greenhouse gas output and a negative affect on the environment. Reduction in meat consumption can help tremendously.

I also watched Vegeducated, which is still my favorite vegan documentary. This documentary explores the lives of several hardcore meat eaters who have zero desire to go vegan. They were challenged to find out more about the meat industry and afterwards, see if it changed their mind at all. One task they had was to call a major meat supplier and ask them some questions about the treatment of the animals and the conditions they were kept in. They did not like several of the answers provided to them and were disturbed to know what the animals were going through.

The most difficult one I watched was Earthlings. This documentary is extremely well-known among the vegan community. It is, to say the least, extremely difficult to watch. Many people can’t even make it through the entire documentary because it is too upsetting. The documentary discusses the many ways that animals are used as products in our society and showcases footage from inside circuses, fur farms and the factory farm industry. I made it most of the way through before I broke down in sobs and by the end, I was withdrawn and numb the rest of the night and well into the next day.

The combination of crazy Youtube lady, realizing how easy it was to give up meat and vegan documentaries is what pushed me from defensive meat-eater to full-blown vegan.

I still think that the diet advocated by crazy Youtube lady is well, crazy. But I do have to admit that she is the person who made me vegan. And I still watch her videos, all the time.

[Jebus]

Welcome Richard!. I love learning about the different paths that lead people to veganism, and yours is certainly unusual.

I started to say a prayer for the chicken before I ate.

Did you become an atheist soon after becoming a vegan? If so, this seems quite common.

[Jamie in Chile]

A lot of interesting things in this. Not least of which is that a youtube comment was actually useful. That may be a first. Are you willing to disclose which crazy youtuber it was. I think you should tell them that they made you vegan, I bet they would love to hear that.

[brimstoneSalad]

Welcome Richard, great story!
It's amazing how even hate watching vegans can plant a seed.

I think you should tell them that they made you vegan, I bet they would love to hear that.

I think I know the one, I think he shouldn't tell her, her ego is big enough as it is.