Why I became vegan

Way back in high school I just randomly came across vegetarianism while doing homework. Though I’m not entirely sure when that exactly was but after that I told myself that after college and when I get a job, I’ll go vegetarian because I thought it was cool. At that time it wasn’t that shocking to me. That there were actually people who didn’t eat meat. I just thought it was cool. What a naïve teen I was.

But at that time I wasn’t already eating fish.

Actually I didn’t eat a wide variety of meats ever since I was a child. For example, I never ate hotdogs or cured meat, like tocino and chorizo. I couldn’t really explain why, I just didn’t. Except for hotdogs, I never ate them because my grandfather told me when I was very very little that they were made of worms. Then fast forward to college, my grandfather’s words turned out to be true, in some cases at least. Sometimes vermicomposting facilities would outsource some of their vermicomposting worms when they multiplied too fast. Vermi-worms could be put in hotdogs, burgers, meat loafs as filler and additional animal protein. Yeah, pretty disgusting.

Anyway, going back…

A lot of people get really surprised when I tell them that I don’t eat hotdogs. Some even joked about it in a ual way. I always ate something different from my siblings at breakfast time. I didn’t have hotdogs packed as my lunch like other kids. I never thought of it as a bad thing. The same with fish. I used to eat fish a lot when I was really, really young. I still remember my favorite part to be the eyes but when I was 7 or 8 I just stopped eating fish. I can’t exactly remember why. I guess I ate a bad meal??? And never ate fish since then. But I still ate the broth of some fish dishes. When I got into college I told myself that I’m gonna try to eat fish so a day before classes officially started I tried eating a tuna sandwich. Guess what? I got sick and almost threw up while eating it. So that was the end of my attempt to eat fish again. It has been about 12 years??? Since I last ate fish.

A little story time…

A classmate of mine from an art class I took two years ago had a friend that needed to bring someone from the Visayas to her cooking class. Apparently, they were making Visayan dishes and they needed someone to rate the authenticity of the taste compared to the original. So her friend asked me what Visayan dishes I’ve eaten so I gave her a small list. On the day, one of the dishes had fish and the Professor asked me to taste it. But then I told them I was sorry, I didn’t eat fish. And they were mildly shocked. I just thought of course they knew there are people who didn’t eat certain foods, they study that but they were just surprised to actually meet someone like that. I also felt that my classmate’s friend felt bad, she should’ve asked if I had food restrictions. I only tasted the broth from that dish, it was nice. I think it was some sort of east Visayan dish, I have not tasted anything like that before.

That was kind of unrelated but that was a really nice experience. I got to have free lunch. LOL

Moving on…

I think it was around the summer of 2015 that I started to have less interest towards pork. I mean I still liked it then but I wouldn’t eat it if there was a chicken option. Every meal time if there was a chicken dish I liked, I wouldn’t eat pork.

August 2015. The first semester of junior year started. I was enrolled in an Ecological Agriculture course.

A little explanation.

I’m currently an Agriculture major. Before graduating high school, we were asked to fill out these forms about what degree we will be taking up at which university and such and the faculty had to interview us. I wrote Agriculture. And every single one of them asked why I wanted to be an agriculture major. Because it was weird that a girl wanted to get involved in agriculture when it’s a man’s job. Pfft. I just told them about my life hero Dr. Temple Grandin who was autistic but contributed greatly in agriculture. She developed systems of humane slaughter and I just thought that I wanted to make a difference in the world like her. She was amazing. She did so many researches despite having autism. And sure enough they were convinced.

Then two years after graduating high school, I attended my sister’s graduation there. By chance, I met my research adviser and he asked me what degree I was taking. I said agriculture and he was very impressed and told me that he wanted to take agribusiness. I was really happy to hear that. That someone actually supported my choice and didn’t question it. I was even happier because he hugged me three times. I really like that research adviser of mine.

Now, let’s go back… I was enrolled in an Ecological Agriculture course. Our professor was a vegetarian of 15 years and an advocate of Quantum agriculture. So most of our lessons talked about vegetarianism and veganism. We watched a lot of documentaries, films and forums about the animal agriculture industry and its impact on the environment. The core of ecological agriculture is carrying out agricultural activities while preventing or reducing its negative impacts on the environment. I remember receiving that first reading about vegetarianism’s importance in eco-agri on our second meeting and just disagreeing with every statement. At that point, I just kept thinking that it’s possible to be environmentally friendly without becoming vegetarian. Then a few weeks after that, we watched Gary Yourofsky’s The Best Speech You Will Ever Hear but we weren’t able to finish watching because of time constraints. So I watched it on my own since we had to write a paper on it. And I was just so attacked and I felt so conflicted with myself. So I decided to just try it for a few days. Then a few more weeks later we watched Cowspiracy. That movie made me stay. And after I watched Earthlings, I finally decided to stop eating meat permanently.

I watched a few more movies and documentaries after that. We had more lessons discussing vegetarianism and veganism. And every time I got more convinced that it was the right thing to do. I told my dad about it, he was not convinced at first but I promised him that I would eat well even without meat. And so I did a lot of research about recipes and meal planning so I don’t screw up. It was hard at first but it got easier day by day. A few months in and it was so automatic. Not wanting to eat meat was like breathing to me, kind of. I still constantly screw up by accident. Eventually, I got into activism also. Animal rights and ethics were my main reasons for being vegetarian. Everything was going well except for the people who kept joking and criticizing my lifestyle change. I’ve never been good with arguments so I always ended up crying. Not eating meat felt so right to me and I couldn’t understand why people wouldn’t do it when they also knew that meat has so many negative impacts in everything. I just couldn’t accept that people were being blind. They kept denying and didn’t want to see the truth. I shared every single propaganda I could find on facebook and twitter. I admit I was rude to some people but I felt like I had to be. Because if I asked or argued in a nice way, they’d eventually forget about it. You know, when you want to do something meaningful, go strong. But unfortunately a lot of people didn’t like that. They still eat meat. That makes me sad. I even had a class where we had to give a persuasive speech and of course my speech was about veganism.

Three months after giving up meat, I also gave up dairy. I left eggs in my diet. It took me quite a while to finally realize how much more brutal the dairy industry is. I hate it much more than meat. Even though it was really hard, I did it even if it meant I had to give up donuts and ice cream. There are more important things than donuts and ice cream.

So for the whole of 2016, I was a vegetarian. No dairy, but I still ate eggs. I had to constantly convince myself that it was fine. I admit it was hard to cook in my dorm. If I still ate egg, I’d still be able to eat out at some places and eat certain sweets. I eat food with egg at a maximum of 3 times a week and it had to be mixed in the food. I never ate eggs in egg form.

And finally, in 2017 I decided to be a full-fledged vegan and live my life as best as I can according to my values. I really love animals and it would be so hypocritical of me to eat some while love others. Farm animals don’t want to die, they know love and feel pain like humans do. Milk is only produced for babies so I don’t need milk anymore. And eggs are supposed to become babies. Eating them would be killing them even before they are born. And we all know that animal products are very detrimental to human health. Not to mention animal agriculture is the biggest contributor to the destruction of our planet.

Now that I’m vegan I feel so much better. I’m living my life the way I’m supposed to be.

I will never stop being a voice for the animals.

If you care about animals and the environment, go vegan!