Aug
Truth Blog
Why I Became a Vegan
Here’s why I became a vegan.
Going vegan was one of the best decisions I have ever made. Let me tell you why I became a vegan. Actually, I prefer to say ‘I adopted a plant-based diet’ because it makes me sound cooler.
It all started with curiosity
I had several vegan friends in Windsor where I grew up, and I always wondered why they chose that lifestyle. I asked them questions, did my own research and before I knew it, I started cutting out meat from my diet.
This was ten years ago, when a meat-free diet wasn’t as common as it is today. Since then, it has exploded in popularity with vegetarian festivals taking place in big and small cities across the world. Vegan celebrities are speaking about it on talk shows, in their blogs and even sharing their recipes and making their own cookbooks.
I spent a great deal of time in the library reading about animal rights, plant-based nutrition and the positive effects this lifestyle has on the environment. These are the three most common reasons people go vegan, but some also do it because they believe it enhances their life spiritually.
Different people do it for different reasons, but for me, the primary reason was for the benefit of animals. Animal welfare has always been important to me and my research made me wish I started a long time ago.
Ultimately, it was the video footage I saw of what happens inside factory farms and slaughterhouses that pushed me over the edge. We all know, at a core level, where meat comes from. We know what slaughterhouses are and we’ve accepted it because we’re the driving force behind the machine.
This machine has produced meat and other animal products for so long that we’ve become desensitized to it. For most of us, it’s the way things have always been. But, it’s not until we’re exposed to the horror that we truly understand the gravity of it. It’s hard to fathom how vicious it is in there, but seeing it made me switch instantly.
I believe everybody is compassionate.
We’re born compassionate, but that innocence is stripped away once we’re conditioned to believe it’s perfectly OK to exploit animals. It’s hard to pry yourself from that way of thinking.
Not everybody can follow a humane, empathetic path at the same pace, and some simply aren’t interested. That’s why you’ll often see people going vegan in a family that loves meat. This makes it difficult to go home for the holidays or even go out to restaurants with friends sometimes.
In the whole process, this was the hard part for me. The actual diet/lifestyle itself was the easy part, the fun part, and the rewarding part.
Now you know why I became a vegan. If you enjoyed this article and think that others would benefit from it, please share, like, and/or leave your comments.
Yours in health, consciousness, and cool fashion, this is Ashkon Hobooti, Truth writer! Live Your Truth, and Respect Others’!