For People, The Planet and Animals.
Most people assume that I just woke up one morning and said, “I think I will stop eating animals, today”. But that is not the way it happened at all. My path to becoming vegan and making the decision to no longer eat any animal products, what so ever, was quite literally, life long . As far back as I can remember, I have always had a fascination and a love for nature. As a child, even as young as 3 years old, I can remember spending hours and hours outside alone exploring in the long grass, gardens and corn fields. We lived on a rural farm, so being sent outside to play by myself was not unusual and I thoroughly enjoyed every minute. There was never any shortage of things to do, see and explore. I was always surrounded by wildlife. While picking and studying flowers and plants, everything from grasshoppers, ants, bumblebees, ladybugs, toads, frogs, field mice and moles, were all part of my world. I can remember gently handling all kinds of critters and strangely, they were, seemingly, not at at bothered by me. I didn’t have to try to catch them, they almost just seemed to come to me, as if they were just as interested in me as I was in them. Or maybe, they had just become so accustomed to me being there, I don’t know. But I loved them all. They were my “friends” and my “pets”. I even gave some of them names.
My biological mother passed away at a very young age and as a result, my siblings and I were placed into foster care. My foster mother was terrified of mice and rodents, but because we lived on an old farm house, (my foster mother had a wood burning cook stove. That is how ‘old farm house’ it was, but it was SO cool!), occasionally mice and other critters would get in the house. I remember one evening, my foster mother began to scream hysterically and calling for my foster brother, who was already in his early 20’s, to come and get the mouse and kill it. I was horrified and became extremely upset when I realized what was happening. I followed my foster brother out to the garage, crying hysterically because I knew that he was going to kill it and I was sure that, that mouse was one of my friends. I stayed angry and refused to speak to my foster brother for weeks after that. My foster mother laughed at me and thought I was being “just silly”.
Being a child, of course I had no idea where ‘meat’ came from. Food was just food and in those days you just ate what was put in front of you. I remember, at around 8 years old, being told that meat come from dead animals. I was utterly horrified. I began to cry and begged that they “Please don’t make me eat it”. Apparently this is common in the majority of children when they discover that the meat they eat comes from animals that we are supposed to love.
So I have always had a love for all animals and critters including bugs and reptiles. Yes, even rats, bats and snakes. But I especially have a passion for dogs. I often joke that I think I was a dog in a past life. I understand them and they seem to all have an attraction to me. Like they recognize an ally or Ancestor in me.
When I was 14, I heard about vegetarianism. I was so excited. This sounded much better to me than eating dead animals. But I knew that I would have to approach the subject with my adoptive mother, cautiously and hope for a reasonable conversation about it. I knew that I would need to wait to have this conversation with my adopted mother at a time when my adopted father was not around. My adopted father was very stern, very old school, very closed minded and did not bend easily. He demanded meat, potatoes and bread on the table every night for dinner. But one evening while my mother was alone in the kitchen, cooking, and the rest of the house seemed empty, I thought this might be the right time to approach the subject. I barely got the words out of my mouth and my adopted father was suddenly standing in front of me. I thought the roof was going to come off the house, or I was about to get the beating of my life. He was not going to allow any God damned hippy live under his roof. And as long as I live under his roof, I will eat what is put on the table, which is always, meat, potatoes and bread. Needless to say, that ended that conversation abruptly and I never brought it back up to them again. Although I tried to understand, the idea of eating animals always bothered me and remained in the back of my mind.
HEALTH
I was always somewhat sickly as a child. I experienced aching muscles and joints, which were chalked up to “growing pains”. I would wake up suddenly in the night, sitting straight up and vomiting with stomach pains. This did not go over well with my adopted father who would always get extremely angry and make me get up and clean myself up and wash my sheets out in the toilet and then remake my own bed. By age 11 things got much worse and I was hospitalized several times. Once, for 2 months straight. Doctors were perplexed and didn’t know what was wrong with me. At one point they were sure that I would not survive and told my parents to start thinking about my funeral. It wasn’t until age 17 that I was finally diagnosed with Crohn’s Disease, which, I was told, I would live with for the rest of my life. Over years of suffering and lots of Prednisone, as well as other medications and supplements, I managed to get through life. I had always wanted to be a vet or do something working with animals. I now had 3 small children and of course was concerned about their health as well as my own. So I read everything I could get my hands on and watched many documentaries and educational programs. But still I was under the same belief as everybody else, that in order for humans to be healthy, we required animal products, meat, eggs and dairy. I was always worried that my kids and I weren’t getting enough of the right nutrients. I began to notice that I would get very sick in the winter but much better during the summer months. I always assumed that it was due to the different seasons and weather conditions. Until one day my step father came to me, all excited about an article that he read at the doctors office about how new studies are showing how green vegetables, such as broccoli seem to have a beneficial effect for Crohn’s Disease. That’s when it dawned on me that during the winter we ate very little of those types of vegetables because they are expensive during the winter months. But I planted a vegetable garden every year in the summer, so we ate plenty of fresh vegetables all summer long. And a light bulb went on and I was on a mission to find out more.
As they say, ‘One thing leads to another’.
On my journey of discovery, I learned that we humans are NOT carnivores, we are not even omnivores. We have made ourselves into omnivores by eating both plants and animals, but biologically and physically we are herbivore. Everything about us says we are herbivore. Our eyes are placed in the front, our faces are flat, we don’t have claws, our nails are soft, short and stubby, our teeth are not sharp and pointy, they are flat for grinding, and NO,.. we do not have canines. We have a long intestinal system that takes a very long time to digest and absorb nutrients from dense plant foods, just the same as every other herbivore on the planet. And compared to most other animal species, we don’t run very fast, because we shouldn’t need to chase down our food and rip raw flesh with just our claws and teeth. And the fact that we are technically herbivore was scientifically established back in the 1800’s.
I also learned that we are the only species on the planet who believes that we NEED breast milk until we die. We are the only species that drinks breast milk from another species. Most people don’t think twice about drinking cow breast milk, but couldn’t even fathom the thought of drinking dog breast milk or even HUMAN breast milk. Not to mention the make up of cow milk to human milk is completely different. Cow milk is designed to grow a 60 pound baby cow into a 1000 pound adult in under one year. It takes a human 16 – 18 years to fully mature. Cows milk is the only milk that contains casein, the protein that cause so many heath issues in humans. There is reason why selling raw milk is illegal. It is one of the most toxic substances on the planet, which is why it needs to be pasteurized and filtered. Your doctor will tell you, that for cows milk to be even remotely healthy for humans, you should only drink 2% or less milk fat, yet we take all the garbage out of cows milk and turn it into something else, like, cheese, ice cream, and coffee cream.
I am trying to keep this story as short and sweet as I can. I could go on and on and on.
But as I got older, I also got sicker. I now not only had Crohn’s Disease that seemed to be only getting worse, but I also had osteoarthritis, delayed pressure urticaria and the beginning of osteoarthritis. It was everything I could do just to get through the day. It was to the point that I was practically eating a bottle of Tylenol a day and begging my doctor for more Prednisone after being made to ween off of it. I tried everything that I could think of without becoming a dysfunctional drug addict. Drugs are not something I have ever been a fan of, prescription or no prescription. But I was beginning to think that I was out of options. I tried other diets, including the Atkins diet. That seem to just make things worse so I quit that pretty quickly.
Hypocrisy, Morals and Ethics
Being an animal person, I was always advocating for the protection of different species, especially dogs. I had went back to school to become an Animal Care Aide Vet Tech Assistant, I worked at the Humane society and was a supervisor at a petting zoo. Doing so I was able to talk to a lot of people and learn a lot, but even still, at some of those points, I was one of the people laughing at the Animal rights people. But listening and having debates, asking question, much of what I was hearing seemed to make a lot of sense to me. Then one day, when I was working for the Humane society, driving home there was a large crowd gathered at the side of the road. I pulled over to see what was going on, only to realize that there was an injured seagull that had been hit by a car. People were frantic and one young girl was bawling her eyes out over concern for the injured bird. I let them know that I worked for the Humane society and would take care of the seagull. I had to give them my assurance that I would nurse the bird back to health and release it and not just put it down. I put the bird, wrapped in a blanket on the passenger seat of my car and headed home, all the while thinking about what to make for supper. My first thought was to make chicken and then looked at the poor suffering bird next to me. I was not only disgusted and ashamed in my self but humanity as a whole.
What hypocrites we are, now if that was an injured chicken found on the side of the road, would I nurse it back to health, only to slaughter it and eat it? Probably not. And then I thought of the oath that I had to take when I graduated from my Animal Care Aide course, much like a doctor, to first do no harm. Yet I do harm to an animal at every meal. I began to learn of the cruelty and the suffering we cause on a grand scale. There is about 7 - 8 billion people on the planet, yet we torture and slaughter more than 70 billion animals for food alone. Then there is fur and fashion, sport, hunting, entertainment, vivisection, experimentation, and the list goes on. This seems like insanity to me. The final straw for me, was learning that because of the mad cow outbreak and shortage of beef, horse meat was a new substitute and people were not being told about it. Mad cow (bovine spongiform encephalopathy) I learned is a prion disease.. Alzheimers, Kuru, dementia and Jacob Crutchfield syndrome are all prion diseases that are a miss folded protein. Basically just from eating flesh. Heart disease, diabetes, Alzheimers, high cholesterol, high blood pressure, and the list goes on and on.
And then came the dog and cat meat and fur trade. For me eating a dog is like cannibalism. For me eating a dog would be like eating a child. I get more angry and upset seeing a dog abused, than I do a child. Please don’t get me wrong, I can’t and won’t tolerate child abuse, but for me, dogs are extra Special and seeing them suffer, truly gets my blood boiling. So one day, I finally said, I am not going to be a part of it anymore. This all didn’t seem to fit with what I thought my morals were. I thought, I already feel like crap, and close to my death bed. I didn’t like myself, knowing that I was part of this giant problem and if it killed me at least I would meet my maker knowing that I admitted my wrongs and did what I thought I could do to change it.
More Than Just A Diet.
I started over the first few weeks, cutting out almost all meat, except the occasional fish and then cut out all dairy products. I didn’t tell anybody what I was doing for almost the first 6 months. But it didn’t take long before I realized that I wasn’t waking up 2 or 3 times in the night to get more pain medication. One morning I got up and realized that I had just jumped out of bed with out even thinking about it. I had no pain and no swelling anywhere. And I stopped taking all medications. I looked in the mirror and I liked what I saw. I looked better, my skin and my eyes looked brighter and I thought to myself, “I like this”, I was going to keep going and take it all the way. I went Vegan! 100% plant based. I read every label when I was grocery shopping and would purchase a new plant based product to try. People I knew began to stop me to ask me what I was doing because I looked so much younger and healthier. Was this just the bonus? After all, I didn’t start this for me, I was doing it for them! But maybe this is my reward. Sometimes I would lie to people about what I was doing and I would always get a pat on the back with a “good for you. keep it up. you look great”. But eventually I had to tell the truth. I just stopped eating all animal products, that’s all, and all hell broke lose! I was told that I was going to get sick and unhealthy, even though they had just told me how much healthier I looked, I was going to kill myself, etc, etc. I have now been symptom and medication free for 14 years and I take no medications or supplements. Doctors are always skeptical when they ask how I did that and I tell them. And it is the BEST watching their faces and their jaws drop when the read the results of tests and exams. They will never use the word “cured” and will always say that I have been in “remission” for 14 years. But what ever. LOL
History and Religion
People will tell us that humans have always been meat eaters. We were ‘hunter’, gatherers, which is not entirely true. This is a myth that we in the West like to believe because it gives us an excuse and justification for our gluttonous appetite for the flesh of other beings. The truth is that eating animals was necessary for survival when plant foods became scarce. Especially as we migrated to colder climates. Science has proven that over history and in most cultures, fruit, veggies, nuts, seeds and grains were the main staples. Eating meat is NOT what gave us our big brains. We are NOT REALLY at the top of the food chain. And that can be proven by just trying to take a bite out of a live cats meaty thigh muscle, using nothing but your hands and you teeth and see who get the better of who. And “DOMINION” does NOT mean, do what ever you want! I have always been on the fence about religion. My foster family were very religious. They were wonderful people, don’t get me wrong and as a young child a thoroughly enjoyed Sunday school. I especially loved knowing that Jesus loved animals as much as I did. But even at a young age I would ask difficult questions about things that didn’t make sense to me. Most didn’t seem to be able to answer or clarify or they just didn’t want to and I was often told that I didn’t need to be asking those questions.
Looking for support and information, I would chat with other vegans online. There was always the great religion debate over creation or evolution. Most vegans identify as atheist, mostly because they can’t stand that most religious people will always use God and the Bible as an excuse and justification for not only eating animals, but hunting them, and exploiting them. I now, identify as agnostic vegan. Agnostic really just means not knowing, but spiritual in a sense, and that all religions are not wrong but none are completely right either. I am still on my journey to knowing.
I have learned a lot from talking to many people with different opinions and I walk away with what makes sense to me and I will do my own reading and research. My understanding of who Jesus was and who and/or what God is quite different than most. God is more of a what, than a who and is not one single entity. For everything there is an opposite. Male/female, Yin/Yang, good/evil, negative/positive, light/dark, etc. And you cannot create something from nothing. There can and could never have been NOTHING. Nothing, from nothing, leaves nothing. For me, God is ALL things, the earth, water, trees, wind and rain, humans and animals. He/it/they exists in everything. Jesus was not God’s ONLY begotten son. And never actually claimed to be. He claimed to be the sun or light of God, but he also said, we are ALL, the sons and daughters of God. And he made a point to that with the with the first line of the Lords Prayer, with “Our Father”. He did not say “My Father”, right?
Jesus was a man, who’s cousin John, started a movement. Not a religion. Jesus was trying to free us from religion and teach us in the WAY of the true “God”. All beings are born free. All life is given by God.
Almost 50% of the New Testament is about Paul, who was originally ‘Saul’, who was a Pharisee and never actually met Jesus in person. But with the discovery of the Dead Sea scrolls and other documents, it is not hard to piece the true story of Jesus and other key characters of religions, who have occupied our lives for over 2000 years.
One of the many debates with other vegans, over the question of whether Jesus even ever existed and the entire bible is just fiction, I had come to the conclusion that, Jesus was one of us. There is always some truth even in fiction. It is just a matter of finding that truth. There is ONE verse in the New Testament giving Noah permission to eat animals. And of course that is the verse that will always be used by meat eaters to justify themselves. But I have managed to find many, many, more verses, even in the commonly used New Testament, saying the exact opposite, but for some reason, those seemingly go entirely unnoticed or unmentioned.
"BLESSED ARE THEY WHO READ HEAR AND DO"
"OLD THINGS PASS AWAY, THEN COME THE NEW"
"OUT OF THE DARKNESS ARISETH THE LIGHT"
'Put away your blood sacrifices and your burnt offerings, and cease from the eating of flesh, for I spoke not to your fathers nor commanded them when I brought them out of Egypt concerning these things.' And what does the eternal command you, but to be just, love, have mercy and walk humbly with the Law." 33:2-8
“And God said, Behold, I have given you every herb bearing seed, which is upon all the face of the earth, and every tree, in the which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed; to you it shall be for food.” Genesis 1:29
Isaiah 1:15 states, "The multitude of your sacrifices—what are they to me," says the Lord. "I have more than enough of burnt offerings, of rams and the fat of fattened animals. I have no pleasure in the blood of bulls and lambs and goats. When you come to appear before me, who has asked this of you, this trampling of my courts? Stop bringing meaningless offerings. Your incense is detestable to me. New moons, sabbaths and convocations—I cannot bear your evil assemblies. Your new moon festivals and your appointed feasts my soul hates. They have become a burden to me. I am weary of bearing them. When you spread out your hands in prayer, I will hide my eyes from you. Even if you offer many prayers, I will not listen. Your hands are full of blood; wash and make yourselves clean. Take your evil deeds out of my sight. Stop doing wrong, learn to do right."
Isaiah 66:3 states, "Whoever sacrifices a bull is like one who kills a man, and whoever offers a lamb, like one who breaks a dog's neck."
Micah, Jeremiah, Amos, Daniel, Zechariah and other prophets also condemned sacrifices. In fact, the first recorded animal liberation happened when Jesus freed the animals from the altar when He dispersed the money-changers from the Temple (Matthew 21:12-13)!
"And the flesh of slain beasts in his body will become his tomb. For I tell you truly, he who kills, kills himself, and whoso eats the flesh of slain beasts, eats the body of death." ~ Jesus, The Gospel of Peace
"Better is a dinner of herbs where love is, than a stalled ox with hatred within." ~ Proverbs 15:17
"Do not destroy the work of God for the sake of something to eat." ~ Romans 14:20
"He who killeth an ox is as if he slew a man. And when ye spread forth your hands, I will hide mine eyes from you: yea, when ye make many prayers, I will not hear, for your hands are stained with blood, and your mouths are defiled with flesh." ~ God, Isaiah 1:15,66:3
"Lay down your nets and follow me," Jesus said, "and I will make you fishers of men." At once they left their nets and followed him.
"Better is a dinner of herbs where love is, than a stalled ox with hatred within." ~ Proverbs 15:17
*** “John never ate meat.” “James, the brother of the Lord, lived on seeds and plants and touched neither meat nor wine.” The Apostle Thomas: “He continually fasts and prays, and abstaining from the eating of flesh…” “…The Apostle Matthew partook of seeds, and nuts, hard-shelled fruits, and vegetables, without flesh.” Peter said, “I live on olives and bread, to which I rarely only add vegetables…”
“The unnatural eating of flesh meats is as polluting as the heathen worship of devils…” (Peter, Clementine Homilies)
And he spoke to all, saying, "Keep yourselves from blood and things
strangled and from dead bodies of birds and beasts, and from all deeds of cruelty, and from all that is gotten of wrong; Think ye the blood of beasts and birds will wash away sin! I tell you Nay, Speak the Truth. Be just, Be merciful to one another and to all creatures that live, and walk humbly with your God."
Daniel 1:8
But Daniel resolved not to defile himself with the royal food and wine, and he asked the chief official for permission not to defile himself this way.
"Please test your servants for ten days: Give us nothing but vegetables to eat and water to drink."
At the end of the ten days they looked healthier and better nourished than any of the young men who ate the royal food.
So the guard took away their choice food and the wine they were to drink and gave them vegetables instead.
To these four young men God gave knowledge and understanding of all kinds of literature and learning. And Daniel could understand visions and dreams of all kinds.
Numbers 11:13
Where can I get meat for all these people? They keep wailing to me, ‘Give us meat to eat!’
“Tell the people: ‘Consecrate yourselves in preparation for tomorrow, when you will eat meat. The LORD heard you when you wailed, “If only we had meat to eat! We were better off in Egypt!” Now the LORD will give you meat, and you will eat it.
You will not eat it for just one day, or two days, or five, ten or twenty days, but for a whole month—until it comes out of your nostrils and you loathe it—because you have rejected the LORD, who is among you, and have wailed before him, saying, “Why did we ever leave Egypt?"’”
But Moses said, “Here I am among six hundred thousand men on foot, and you say, ‘I will give them meat to eat for a whole month!’
Would they have enough if flocks and herds were slaughtered for them? Would they have enough if all the fish in the sea were caught for them?”
Matt 9:13
Then he added, “Now go and learn the meaning of this Scripture: ‘I want you to show mercy, not offer sacrifices.’
Psalms 36:6
Your righteousness is like the highest mountains, your justice like the great deep. You, LORD, preserve both people and animals.
Ecclesiastes 3:19
Surely the fate of human beings is like that of the animals; the same fate awaits them both: As one dies, so dies the other. All have the same breath; humans have no advantage over animals.
Ecclesiastes 3:21
Who knows if the human spirit rises upward and if the spirit of the animal goes down into the earth?”
Jesus not only drove money changers from the temple, but he also cleared out those who were selling animals.
When it was almost time for the Jewish Passover, Jesus went up to Jerusalem. In the temple courts he found people selling cattle, sheep and doves, and others sitting at tables exchanging money.
So he made a whip out of cords, and drove all from the temple courts, both sheep and cattle; he scattered the coins of the money changers and overturned their tables. – John 2:13-15 NIV
Jesus entered the temple courts and drove out all who were buying and selling there.
He overturned the tables of the money changers and the benches of those selling doves. “It is written,” he said to them, “‘My house will be called a house of prayer,’ but you are making it ‘a den of robbers.’” – Matthew 21:12-13 NIV
James the Just, Brother of Jesus,
John the Baptist, Jesus' cousin,
St. Peter Disciple of Jesus, were all strict Vegetarians. Along with his entire family. So we can only conclude that Jesus was a vegetarian.
There is a clear debate or argument in the New Testament on whether to accept and allow meat eating between Paul and the other disciples.
Famous Vegetarians
I watched the movie “Amazing Grace” about William Wilberforce, who started the abolition of slavery and then I learned that was also a vegetarian and also started the very first RSPCA, Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.. And the again, one thing lead to another. And I started to realize the most of the most brilliant people in history were all vegetarian. And I started to wonder what they knew and understood that the rest of us have not caught onto yet. When I mentioned this to a friend, he asked me, “So you mean they were smart because they were vegetarian?” And I said “No, they were vegetarian, because they were smart.”
“As long as people will shed the blood of innocent creatures, there can be no peace, no liberty, no harmony between people. Slaughter and justice cannot dwell together.”
Isaac Bashevis Singer (1904-1991)
Albert Einstein - Albert Einstein, one of the most highly regarded scientists of all time, once said, “Nothing will benefit human health and increase the chances for survival of life on earth as much as the evolution to a vegetarian diet."
Mahatma Gandhi - “I do feel that spiritual progress does demand at some stage that we should cease to kill our fellow creatures for the satisfaction of our bodily wants."
Leo Tolstoy - While he’s known for creating hundreds of electrical devices, he also spoke against animal cruelty: “Every effort should be made to stop the wanton, cruel slaughter of animals, which must be destructive to our morals.
Coretta Scott King - Coretta Scott King was a champion for women, people of color, and the gay community, but she also spent the last 10 years of her life as a vegan because she knew that animal rights was a social justice
Cesar Chavez - We know we cannot defend and be kind to animals until we stop exploiting them—exploiting them in the name of science, exploiting animals in the name of sport, exploiting animals in the name of fashion, and yes, exploiting animals in the name of food.
“If you have men who will exclude any of God's creatures from the shelter of compassion and pity, you will have men who will deal likewise with their fellow man.” St. Francis of Assisi (1181-1226)
“We have enslaved the rest of animal creation, and have treated our distant cousins in fur and feathers so badly that beyond doubt, if they were to formulate a religion, they would depict the Devil in human form.”
William Ralph Inge, Deacon and Professor of Divinity, Cambridge (1860-1954)
“There can be no doubt as to which side is right and which side is wrong, for compassionate defense of life is a force of good and sadistic mass destruction of life is a force for evil.”
Paul Watson, founder of The Sea Shepherd Conservation Society
“Animals have done us no harm and they have no power of resistance. Cruelty to animals is as if man did not love God. There is something so very dreadful, so Satanic, in tormenting those who have never harmed us, who cannot defend themselves, who are utterly in our power.” Cardinal John Henry Newman (1801-1890)
And there are many, many, many more. So I are these always buried and ignored. But.. my all time favourite ~
"If to be feelingly alive to the sufferings of my fellow-creatures is to be a fanatic, I am one of the most incurable fanatics ever permitted to be at large." William Wilberforce.
So my journey is not done yet, and it is one that I will continue. I have had a few regrets in my life, But Going Vegan Is Not One Of Them. And I haven’t even begun to touch on the environmental destruction caused by animal agriculture and processing. Air and water pollution. Deforestation and dead oceans. And the finality of extinction. Paul Watson once said that earth worms are far more important than human beings. They would thrive without us, but we would never survive without them!
GO VEGAN!