A few weeks ago I was sitting under some giant evergreen trees, warmed by the fire next to me, spending my morning just listening to the birds and decided that instead of just writing about something, telling people my thoughts, that I wanted to ask people for theirs. I wrote & posted Explain Why You DO or DO NOT Eat Dead Animals & "Animal Products", offering 20 STEEM in prizes for the best responses, and giving 1% @TribeSteemUp upvotes (worth $0.40 - 0.50) to everyone submitting a valid response (following the guidelines).
A little while after posting, I realized I hadn't really discussed at all my own thoughts/understandings on these topics. My first thought was that most folks who follow/read my work already know where I stand, and my second was that its probably best that I didn't start off by biasing the conversation so much.
After reading the comments though, I realized that I'd need to write a bunch of responses to folks, asking questions and challenging points. I did some of that, but I took so much time off during July that the conversation sort of died off. I think my journey to veganism is probably worth its own post at this point, especially because my journey is very different from most.
The first 25 years
I grew up in a lower/lower-middle class family in Amerikkka, in the 90s and early 2000s. What this means is that we thankfully rarely went hungry, but our food consisted heavily of boxed meals, and we were unknowingly helping test the first runs of commercially available GMOs. My mom had some sense of the need for healthy eating (we didn't ever go to McDonald's for example), but the internet wasn't a thing yet, and so much of the information about nutrition was coming from the State, and completely full of shit (the food pyramid for example).
Up through my early adult years, this same diet pretty much just rolled forward. I started eating less from the box and more from bars & restaurants, but certainly wasn't doing anything for the health. Bacon bleu cheese burgers made up a large percent of my diet for many years, as did flesh-filled burritos, "meat-lovers" pizza, and things of that sort. I would eat salads (though my favorite was chicken caesar), and juice existed almost exclusively as a hangover cure. Somehow I didn't make the connections at the time, but I also spent those many years with terrible acne, daily indigestion, and constipation.
Mindful eating as a way of life
Beginning in early 2012, after meeting @smartair and learning about GMOs, soy, "natural" ingredients, and so much more, I began to be more mindful of what I was putting in my body. This new knowledge, combined with a growing sense that maybe I actually should be alive, led to some drastic changes in my diet (and every other part of my life).
The first thing I did was to cut out processed foods & GMOs, switching to an organic, more whole-food diet and beginning to practice mindful eating. To me, mindful eating is a many-leveled practice, including (but not limited to) considerations like:
- Who am I giving money to? Am I supporting humans with shared values or corporations only concerned with profit?
- How far did that food have to travel to get to me?
- What chemical fertilizers/pesticides/herbicides were used?
- How does my body feel after eating it?
- Does it contain GMOs, "natural flavors", or anything artificial?
- How much processing occurred between the plant and your plate?
- What sort of vibration was this food surrounded by? Love & abundance, or Fear, greed, and indifference?
- Was the food grown sustainably? Was a forest torn down for the fields?
When I cut out processed crap, I started to feel drastically better almost immediately. My digestion was better, I was sleeping better, my skin cleared up, I had more energy... I also started to notice much more when something wasn't working with my body.
During this time, I was still eating meat, but it had to be organic, free range, antibiotic free, etc. Needless to say, this made meat the most expensive part of my diet, and it went from being part of almost every meal to only being around once a week. Suddenly when I did eat meat, I would feel lethargic, my stomach would hurt, and my general body state would just be one of dis-ease.
About 5 months after cutting out GMOs and such, I also cut out meat (dairy & eggs never being much of a thing, but I cut them out completely at that point as well), and I've been on a vegan diet ever since.
Ever had someone convince you the opposite of their stance?
After shifting to a completely plant-based diet, I did start using the word vegan, simply for ease of communication. I was still running some pretty human supremacist belief systems though, and it only took a couple of conversations (with folks attempting to defend their own meat eating) before I realized that the moral argument for veganism is pretty much bulletproof.
From statements like "But I have these canine teeth", to "Lions kill & eat animals, so why shouldn't I?", and "They're not conscious", it became exceptionally clear just how deep the cultural programming around the consumption of dead flesh really is. As I've learned more and more about nutrition, I've found that all of the claims made in defense of a flesh-based diet are generally non-factual, and some are actually downright the opposite of reality: B-12, "not enough protein", "have to eat too much", etc.
The one that always strikes me funniest is people who think that whole, non-GMO vegan food is more expensive... I can speak for most of north & central Turtle Island when I say that it costs about $1-2 per person, per meal to create the food that I do. Those are meals containing 3-6 separate items (offering a WIDE variety of flavors & nutritional contents), and that price range pretty much scales from 10-10,000 people. That's making vegan, whole food, gluten-free, soy-free meals that contain everything the body needs (and then some).
People like to ask things like "What do you do?", to which I often respond that I'm a traveling chef (easiest of my titles to explain), and then most folks are curious what kind of food I specialize in. When I tell them "vegan food, of every kind, designed to make people feel better", many hear the word vegan and immediately get defensive and start spouted memorized & practiced reasons why enslaving, raping, killing, and consuming animals isn't such a bad thing. There was a long time when I was still living in an anthropocentric enough mind-state that I would usually cut folks off and explain that for me it had to do with nutrition, environmental impact, and basic common sense, not the moral argument.
I heard more and more folks who I considered to be something of philosophers, or who certainly acted like they were, practicing such blatant moral relativism around the most basic foundation of anarchism: respecting the life, body, and freedom of others. Finally this incessant non-logic clicked a switch for me and I realized that there really was no going back, and that I see no separation between anarchy & veganism when both are followed to their consistent ends.
To be clear
As I went over a bit earlier when I was describing what mindful eating means to me, simply removing animal flesh & excretions from our diets isn't really enough in the world we live in today. From the economic & ecological effects of what we're eating to the level of contamination & genetic tampering in most "food" distributed by the corporatocracy, there is a drastic need to shift back to growing our own food, rebuilding food forests, and expanding general knowledge about diet, agriculture, and how to sustain ourselves.
Even now, I really only push the morals & ethics of veganism with those who claim to be extremely moral & ethical, because it is not my place to judge anyone else for what they do. I paid others to murder hundreds or thousands of animals for my enjoyment, out of a combination of apathy, self-hate, and willful ignorance. Generally speaking, I prefer to just teach people about how simple it is to thrive on a whole food plant-based diet and how to use food to heal, all while serving them delicious vegan food; I don't really have to do any "convincing".
Further Reading & Viewing
Videos & YouTube Channels
- Veganism Panel @ Anarchapulco 2016Dayna Martin, and me) (featuring, @dbroze, @ginacarr, @attorney4freedom,
- Mic The Vegan
- Earthling Ed
- Gary Yourefsky
- DISL Automatic
Articles & Sites
- 65 Justifications for Harming & Exploiting Animals
- Vegan Anarchy series@McKeever's
- Eating Animals: Addressing Our Most Common Justifications
- Biblical Quotes Relating to Veganism
- The Extended circle: A commonplace book of animal rights
Images Sources
Before & After
Food Medicine
The Wall
CarnOmnHerbFrugHum
Better
The Future
Kung Fu Panda
If you enjoyed this, you may enjoy some of these highlights of my blog:
fantastic post.. beautifully written. if you want to look at the science and facts its all out there in black n white to read.. Its such a Hot topic. because trying to take meat away from SOME people is just very painful work.. a LOT of the problem is that may western cultures have no idea how to cook without meat, and assume vegan only means very boring or bland and unappetising food.. that is SO not the case, and you only have to look here on steemit to see an endless stream of incredible vegan foods..
if we are ever to move past meat and 2 veg as we say in England, we are going to need more education, and better food for kids at a young age and at school. Most schools in the UK and USA serve total junk foods to kids and make no effort to educate them and get them used to eating real food. In fact schools have sold out to big business and install and prime kids for sweet drinks, coke, burgers and the like in exchange for money. As always with most things I seem to write about lately,.. its the system that keeps encouraging the very worst habits in the worst ways!
With all that said, the vegan diet does seem to be becoming Much more poplar these days, and with social media and sharing being as easy as it is, maybe this will be the new trend ..
<3
my inspired quote for the day
"animals are people too you know!"
Great write-up @kennyskitchen, thanks for the mention. I would also highly recommend people check out 'the extended circle: a commonplace book of animal rights'. The entire book is a collection of quotes (from many great philosophers and thought revolutionaries) on humanity's use of animals for food, clothing, 'science', and entertainment. It is brilliant.
Awesome, thanks brother! I'll add it to the list now :-)
Hey @mckeever - I think I will follow the recommendation and buy this. Do you know anything of the similar titled book "the extended circle: an anthology of humane thought"?
@cryptocurator I'm not sure, both are anthologys. Perhaps that one is an updated version?
I've bought it, arrived today, and seems very good as you described, a serious volume of pages of humane thoughts! Thanks
Great to hear.
I will have to check this book out! I have tried to look up quotes on the internet but I come across mostly repeats.
That's exactly why I bought it! I love reading quotes, but I had only ever come across the usual, familiar ones on vegetarianism/veganism on the internet. This book is like 400+ pages of quotes - it's great.
That is SO awesome!! I'm excited to get it now!
You'll love it!
Here's a sample: "Thus men continue to accuse themselves of being unjust, violent, cruel, and treacherous to one another, but they do not accuse themselves of cutting the throats of other animals and of feeding upon their mangled limbs, which, nevertheless, is the single cause of that injustice." - Jean-Antoine Gleizes
Yes!!
Great post, I find that so many people have a problem identifying themselves as animals and like to think that they far superior to them and to nature. Then they believe that they have the right to dominant and manipulate as they see fit. It is a total lack of respect and they live in this hierarchy bubble justifying their actions, because in their eyes they are more important and more worthy of life. Obviously this affects way more then just their eating habits but I do believe this is where it starts. This constant move away from nature, from their true self.
Well said!
Very well written and makes perfect sense. We started on the vegetarian road a while back and now are eating a more vegan diet, eating animal products less than once per week so I feel we can cut that out completely. We feel better and function better than we ever have. Wish we had done this years ago, but being on a homestead growing our own food makes it easier.
I have always been a vegan for long now. It is really health improving.
I spent half of my sister wedding explaining how i could be vegan, how coming from my farm family i could turn my back on farmers. And just breaking myths about Us.
Its odd how those who hate the idea have no ideas of their own.
I deal with this a lot too. I am from Missouri... cattle country.
Peace, Abundance, and Liberty Network (PALnet) Discord Channel. It's a completely public and open space to all members of the Steemit community who voluntarily choose to be there.Congratulations! This post has been upvoted from the communal account, @minnowsupport, by kennyskitchen from the Minnow Support Project. It's a witness project run by aggroed, ausbitbank, teamsteem, someguy123, neoxian, followbtcnews, and netuoso. The goal is to help Steemit grow by supporting Minnows. Please find us at the
If you would like to delegate to the Minnow Support Project you can do so by clicking on the following links: 50SP, 100SP, 250SP, 500SP, 1000SP, 5000SP.
Be sure to leave at least 50SP undelegated on your account.
Very good posts. Brother's continued success
What a great read. I was vegetarian for 28 years (because I had no idea how dairy cows and laying hens were mistreated) and vegan for the last two years...and it still shocks me at how much healthier I feel (husband too).
Thanks for this blog post, not feeling alone and reading your perspective and assorted responses to others is awesome!
Thanks for putting together a really high quality post. As a vegan myself, I understand the points that you make, Though I admit, what seems very obvious to me now, was very difficult to see back when I was a full meat eater.
I have shared your post to my newly created Facebook page 'Best of Steem by Spectrum Economics'
Thanks for the share! I feel you there, I used to give vegans a hard time "because bacon tastes good!" Of course, back in those days I was a moral relativist (as American culture teaches people to be), so it's not surprising that I had the dietary ideas of a sociopath.
This is a greatly written article. Someone couldn't pay me enough money to leave my vegan ways. I follow a diet more similar to the one you described, except I do have the occasional processed vegan junk food but I do know I don't feel as good when I eat the junk though. Eating vegan just feels natural to my body and I am sure to others as well. I love the diagrams and photos you added to create a visual.
Excellent post and so well written. I love your reasoning and the way you explain your decision. Yay for having another fellow vegan in the community 🙌💚
Excellent post, Kenny! 100% upvoted.
I have to agree with you, once again. I'm enjoying my mostly-vegan lifestyle (about 99% vegan). I feel better and my numbers on my annual physical back it up (yes, the science is there to support whole-food, plant-based eating.
Thank you for all you continue to do, my friend. All the very best to you @kennyskitchen.
Nice to meet you @kennyskitchen! Excellent article, and it resonates with all of us vegans I'm sure! It would be great to have you in our discord group, feel free to come join us!