A long story about Me

Why am I a vegan? How did I get to this point?

I have always eaten well, or so I thought!

I was raised on a small farm where we ate meat we raised and killed and veges and fruit that we grew ourselves. It was omnivorous but mostly whole food. As a young adult, I tried to eat right but went though phases of eating junk and eating vegetarian junk and eating raw, sprouts only, phases, depending on what kind of mindset, circumstances, etc. I didn't go for fad diets, but tried to eat healthy most of the time and wound up a fatass for my efforts, anyway.

Of course I was poor, so I had that excuse as I ate crap food. I knew better but because I was too busy getting high I didn't worry about spending money on any food, much less organic. I ate at the soup kitchen. that's free. I went dumpster diving. I ate hors d'ouverves at the bar, I crashed barbeques at the park. Art shows are a great source of cheese and wine.

Fast forward... I am 41. I have a job and I'm not on drugs. I've met a great guy and we are making plans for the future. Then one night I had a dream in which I died and rose out of my body. When I looked down I could see all the trash I had made in my life floating in a river of all the water I had wasted. It was a lot. I knew I had to stop it.

I changed my life drastically starting the very next day. I decided that I was going to put out a lot less trash. I quit buying food in packages and started carrying my lunch in glass jars, using cloth napkins, composting and recycling

Naturally, I quit smoking in shortly after the dream. I couldn't stand throwing out the cigarette butts and I couldn't recycle or compost them.

So I quit. I did a bunch of research online to see if there were herbs or something natural to help with the withdrawals I kept thinking I was going to get but never did.

I read about fasting. I read that fasting could help with smoking withdrawal symptoms!
I didn't want to gain more weight, I was already at about 225. Big enough, thanks. I knew fasting was for me. Clean it out.

In June I started fasting to help with quit smoking effort and to cleanse and control my weight. Three days a week, nothing but herbal tea and water. Let me tell you a secret. Quitting eating makes you forget ALL about quitting smoking. I completely forgot cigarettes and began seriously fasting and studying nutrition.

I was breaking the weekly fasts Wednesday or Thursdays with fruit for two days and then go eat SAD for the weekends. It started giving me intestinal difficulties. Big time. I stuck with soup at the end
and i lost a little weight, too.

Then my BF and his son moved away and I decided I was only eating raw food. When I'm alone it's soo easy. No temptation. I go to the store and buy what I want for the day, take it home and eat it and carry on. I went to visit him and didn't have much of a problem. I was still eating yogurt, I wasn't vegan yet. I was still detoxing, too. I had done the big detox, headache, backache, vomiting, depression, etc, weeks ago but I still had a huge patch on my face of skin that flares up if I eat something that I'm sensitive to. It's like a nutrition barometer. It also goes off if I have a beer. So it will probably never go away fully :P so when I went to visit him I was feeling great, looking great, but had a huge scab on my face. yay.

It's almost gone now (November 21st) just a little spot by my lip, hardly noticeable unless you look at my face.

so I came home. I quit dairy. No dairy. I went back to visit a month later. There was a large container of organic live yogurt that I had left there. Never opened. Still fresh even though the date was a couple of days past. I put a half cup in my morning smoothie for four days. I woke up on the fifth day a giant ball of snot. I won't get into details but I haven't had dairy since.

It was still about me, though. I wasn't thinking about animals yet. It was about my health. It was about not putting out any trash.

Then one day I was looking at raw vegan information on line and I read something about animal rights.

I am sure I had read it before. I was probably raw vegan for over 30 days at this point. When I read or saw whatever article or video, it really, truly moved me like never before. I had feelings for animals, I didn't want to see them suffer. But never before had I felt that I really could never, ever eat any part of an animal, not even honey from a bee and I didn't think I could stand idly by while others did. That is the part that makes me write this stuff down.

It isn't right to take something from someone without asking. Not even honey from the hardworking honeybee. And it isn't necessary to eat animal products to live healthily and happily.

It's a little bit of a hardship at first, but think of the hardship of the animals we eat that are bred into captivity, held hostage and slaughtered with out a thought for the pain they are feeling just so we can have a taste of their flesh.

I don't know about you but I cannot do it anymore. I'm a vegan.