Green Odyssey: From Omnivore to Vegan (Part One)
by Cy
PurityandVerve.com
To read Part 2 of Green Oddyssey: From Vegan to Raw click here.
I am delighted to share with you my journey from meat eater to vegan, including my transitions to vegetarianism. This will be the first in a three-part series. In the second installment, I’ll detail my shift from vegan to raw vegan and in the third I will share more on detoxification and the species-specific natural diet of humans that is frugivorism. I believe it is important to share our stories because they can elicit dialogue, forge learning opportunities and foster community. My trajectory reveals how becoming vegan can be perfectly imperfect, non-linear and impacted by variables like culture, gender and circumstance.
Constitution
Some claim there is an affinity for vegetarianism among individuals born under my sun sign. Whether it was written in the stars for me or not is subject to debate. What I do recall is having an incredibly sensitive digestive system as a child. Many meats, all dairy products and feelings of anxiety and stress would throw my stomach completely off-balance leading to irritation and upset. I believe acidosis and toxicity manifest in ways unique to the individual. For me it was primarily through gastrointestinal distress. I am grateful for this sensitivity, in retrospect, for steering me away from most pharmaceutical and recreational drugs (many of which cause stomach upset), and for helping to guide me towards a healthier lifestyle.
Origins
For me, veganism never existed in a separate world from the omnivorous one. As a child, I ate meat daily. Everyday intake of meat was part of my family’s concept of doing “well” and providing properly. Although my mother wasn’t a particularly ardent cook, in my early childhood, I generally ate home-cooked meals as opposed to packaged foods. As for meat, I ate mostly beef and chicken, in small quantities, prepared Caribbean-style, in a similar preparation to what some refer to as slow-cooked.
I remember not really concerning myself much with food as a child, the exception being sweets. Sweets were an occasional treat whether it was ice cream truck fare or dulce de leche candy from the Colombian mini-market. Besides sweets, my childhood stance towards eating was strictly functional, an interruption from play and something to get done.
I want to express that I am thankful, so very grateful for the food culture in which I grew up, despite how non-vegan it was and how far removed I am from it today. The 1980s was not a great moment in terms of health. From record-breaking levels of pesticide use to fanfare for feigned chemical concoctions mistakenly characterized as foods, this decade saw a rise in chronic illness and disability in children and adults (1, 2, 3). It was as if the dreams of post World War II convenience food profiteers had been fully realized at the expense of humanity. Within this dysfunctional food landscape, my mother did the best she could with the resources she had. I grew up with food security, never worrying about where my meals came from. While I consumed meat and limited amounts of dairy, I also ate fruits and vegetables. Sometimes it was canned mandarin oranges or canned string beans. Sometimes it was snack-size boxes of raisins or a salad topped with less than ideal store-bought salad dressing, but I had access to fruits and vegetables nonetheless. I mostly ate variations of the same basic dishes. My childhood food culture imparted a sense of simplicity upon me that I carry to this day.
Despite the shortcomings of the foods I grew up on, there were several positive elements to my upbringing. One is smaller portions. My mother, an immigrant to the United States who raised me on her own after my parents divorced, is an incredibly modest eater, much more than I am. It is as if she is physically incapable of eating a large meal. She allowed me to experience what I see as more correct food portioning instead of the excesses commonly consumed. Growing up in an exclusively female household, I believe also lent greater moderation in eating. There are assumptions encoded in many cultures regarding how boys and girls should eat. My cultural backgrounds tend to view boys as future men who need to eat a lot of food so they can become “big and strong,” while girls are to remain small and “delicate.” I was partially shielded from these incredibly harmful dynamics from the lack of a male presence in my home.
First Steps
My initial shift towards vegetarianism came when I was 15 years old (cue full-scale teen rebellion). I had an after school job and was beginning to explore my own food choices. Two individuals I met at the time influenced my pathway towards veganism. The first was my manager at the supermarket where I worked as a cashier. I remember thinking I was so grown up handling money for the first time! We would get federally mandated breaks and I recall purchasing some kind of canned pasta and meat product, a Spaghetti-O’s analog, to heat up in the break room microwave. My manager covered the registers while we were on break so I went to him to get rung up. He looked at my (thinking back, horrendous!) canned selection and informed me that he didn’t eat meat from cans. I asked him why and he explained that it was because he didn’t know where the meat came from. He was a non-vegetarian, Pakistani Muslim American and followed a religious dietary practice that required him to be aware of what kind of animal he was eating and how it was killed. A simple conversation opened a whole world for me of THINKING about where my food came from. Prior to this, I simply ate what was there. Reading the labels on that can revealed a shocking array of ingredients including mixed meats, preservatives and other chemicals. I began to make slightly more conscious choices about what I put in my body. I started buying meat from the deli, nitrates and all. This admittedly wasn’t a huge improvement, but I consider having a butcher pridefully slice meat from one kind of animal a small step up from canned meat byproducts. If I purchased pre-packaged foods, they were, at a minimum, vegetarian from that point forward. I realize this doesn’t seem like much of an advance, but I can draw a straight line from my first experiences considering what I ate and how foods were prepared, packaged, and labeled to how I think about food today. The process of learning to discern what I was putting in my body was an invaluable step along my vegan path.
The second person to influence my evolution into veganism was a girl I met at summer camp, the first vegan I had ever encountered. The camp was having a barbecue with the typical choice of hamburger versus hot dog. While dressing my burger, I casually glanced over and saw her piling lettuce, tomatoes and pickles onto her bun, without the meat patty. I had never seen anything like it before. I asked her about it and she explained to me that she was vegan and ate no meat and no animal products. She embodied kindness and patience with my inquiries about her diet, health and lifestyle. She was intelligent, respectful, nonjudgemental and took the time to talk with me, someone she didn’t know very well, unaware that she was changing my life.
Early Vegetarian Days
I stopped eating meat that fall, shortly before my 16th birthday. It was some weird, magical concurrence between adolescent insurgency, inspiration from my vegan camp friend and ongoing gastrointestinal issues that led me to give up meat. I still consumed dairy products, but not an exorbitant amount since dairy was never really a food group I was immersed in.
My diet was far from ideal, filled with many blunders that, looking back, I wish I would have handled differently. I subsisted on poppyseed bagels topped with butter or cream cheese, Greek salads (mostly avoiding the feta cheese, incredibly salty and foreign to my palate) and beverages like coffee, cream soda and hot chocolate. I would occasionally snack on chips and candy. I didn’t eat a ton of food. The bagel was often my only “meal” of the day if one can call it that. I’m not an extremely athletic person, but I kept active, walking to school, biking to work, running track, cheerleading, roller blading and playing badminton. I walked everywhere back then, a habit I can’t get rid of (can’t stop, won’t stop). My weight was within what is considered “normal” range so I never thought to change anything about my diet at the time.
I remained non-strictly vegetarian for a little over 2 years, but the junk vegetarian diet I ate was worse than the semi-balanced, meat-inclusive meals I had consumed under my mother’s care (4). Not feeing well and thinking my diet was to blame instead of my abominable food choices, I briefly regressed to eating meat when I was 18.
I reverted back to vegetarianism fairly quickly when I entered uni. Living on a college campus, I was subjected to largely inedible dining hall food. I also worked part-time in the dining hall and came face to face with how the food (if you can call it that) was prepared. The eggs came from a box, the meats from a frozen abyss in the basement-dungeon. Everything came out of some massive container designed to feed an army. I remember working at the dishwashing station and the smells of the leftovers alongside industrial cleaning chemicals was so noxious, I could barely breathe. The meat options, in particular, were not what I was used to eating at home so I refused them outright. Veiny, bloody chicken and hamburger meat from a vat weren’t my preference. I remember the dining hall hosted a seafood night and it was AWFUL. :( Lobsters sat across the table on my friends’ plates staring at me. Something is so profoundly wrong about eating an animal who is looking you in the eye. This was the final straw for me. The tragic assortment animal foods in an institutional setting turned me away from meat completely and propelled me back towards vegetarianism. I was a coffee and tea drinker, so my consumption of animal products came exclusively from cream or milk added to caffeinated beverages.
There appears to be a connection for me between working in food service and rejecting the foods I was hired to prepare. The dining hall gig pushed me away from meat. Later on, I worked as a barista at a cafe on campus. Eventually, after trying many of the coffee and drink options, I lost my taste for them. A detested summer job at an ice cream parlour, is, in fact, what put me on the vegan path. I physically and psychologically got sick of repeatedly being covered up to my elbows in sticky sweet ice cream by shift’s end. I gave up ice cream (my only source of dairy at the time), and felt a profound release of mucus and toxicity over the next few weeks. I felt so good, I stopped eating dairy products from that point forward.
Adventures in Veganism
My early vegan days were filled with hummus and veggie sandwiches, salads, falafel, vegan burritos, soy products and vegan sweets. It was a step up, in some ways, from my previous habits but I still had a long way to go. I’m thankful that the selection of meat and dairy alternatives wasn’t so developed as it is now. Back then, I remember Tofutti being the sole palatable brand of vegan ice cream available. Milk substitutes were watery soy or rice milks and tofu was the main vegan option at the dining hall and food co-op. The scarcity of vegan products alongside the budget constraints of being a college student likely pushed me towards eating more earth-connected, pure plant foods.
Conclusion
My vegan journey had self-centered and health-focused roots. In the years to come, I would connect with veganism’s animal rights, environmental and karmic purposes. My junk food vegan diet didn’t last very long. Following my gastrointestinal sensitivity and intuition, I quickly took steps towards a more healthful vegan lifestyle. Everything that happened along the way was necessary and led me to where I am today and I am indebted to all my steps and missteps. If there is one thing I would like to impart, it’s a lesson I wish I had learned much earlier and that is being gentle with oneself. Allow time to transition and go at your own pace as things feel right to you. No dogma is more important than the process of developing an understanding of self. That intuition is invaluable in the achievement of your greatest state of health.
References
(1) Fernandez-Cornejo, Jorge, Osteen, Craig, Nehring, Richard; Wechsler, Seth. “Pesticide Use Peaked in 1981, Then Trended Downward, Driven by Technological Innovations and Other Factors.” USDA Economic Research Service 6/2/14 https://www.ers.usda.gov/amber-waves/2014/june/pesticide-use-peaked-in-1981-then-trended-downward-driven-by-technological-innovations-and-other-factors
(2) Perrin, James, Anderson, L. Elizabeth and Van Cleave, Jeanne. “The Rise in Chronic Conditions Among Infants, Children, And Youth Can Be Met With Continued Health System Innovations,” Health Affairs. Dec. 2014, Vol. 33., No. 12 https://doi.org/10.1377/hlthaff.2014.0832
(3) Kaye, Stephen, LaPlante, Mitchell, Carlson, Dawn, Wenger, Barbara, “Trends in Disability Rates in the United States, 1970-1994,” Disability Statistics Abstract, Number 17, Nov. 1996 https://mn.gov/mnddc/parallels2/pdf/90s/96/96-DSA-DSC.pdf
(4) From a health standpoint, I do not consider junk food vegetarianism necessarily an improvement upon a moderately portioned, fruit and vegetable-inclusive omnivore’s diet. My general recommendation for any aspiring vegan is to seek out a proper education on a balanced, fruit and vegetable-focused vegan diet.