Why going Vegan hasn't worked for me...yet
At the end of August, you may remember a previous post I wrote about going Vegan for 30 days. I know, shock horror right? I'm going to be honest, writing and publishing that blog made me kind of nervous, as I was expecting all kinds of abuse and ridicule. Let's be honest, Vegans get a pretty bad rep. And the ones who are sanctimonious and constantly try and shove it down your throat kind of deserve it. But my goal wasn't to act like that. Something clicked in me that made me want to stop animals from suffering. Something shifted in me that made me feel absolutely sick to my stomach when I looked at a piece of meat. And when I thought about where that product came from, in reverse, it made me incredibly depressed and miserable.
Because whether you have some frozen chicken wings in your freezer, or some cathedral city cheese in your fridge, or just a small carton of cows milk by your kettle, the fact is, the source of those things you are consuming, somewhere an animal has had a really, really shit life.
Now before some of you pop off at me and say not every animal lives a shit life, a lot of them are free range or come from open natural farms and not an industrial one, ask yourself does that really matter? Does it really matter how much space they have to walk around or how much fresh air they get on a daily basis? I don't think so. Because at the end of the day, they are there to provide food and drink for you. Cows are consistently artificially inseminated to get pregnant, to give birth to then have their babies taken away from them, for the babies to become veal, and then the mother is drained of her milk. Milk that is supposed to be for her baby, not to have in your brew or cereal. When I was researching into why cows milk isn't good for you, I found some pretty gross stuff. From obesity to brittle bones, to ovarian cancers and prostate cancers, cows milk causes all sorts of medical problems for humans. And just think about it for a second, why and how has it become socially acceptable to drink milk from a cow? Why a cow? Why not a dog? Or a cat? Or a pig? If anything, it would make more sense to drink women's breast milk on a daily basis than a bloody cow's. If you're interested in reading about why cow's milk is bad for humans, there is a link here:
And I'm not going to stop there. Feeling a bit nauseous already? Let's talk about where your chicken wings and drumsticks come from. Chicken wings have been my absolute favourite this year. I would have them at least twice a week with anything. And although I knew that eating them so much was kind of gross, I tried to purposefully forget about where they came from. But of course, once I opened my mind and watched a few documentaries, I couldn't ignore the facts. this is a quote from Peta:
"Only seven weeks after they hatch, chickens are crowded onto trucks that transport them to the slaughterhouse. Once there, they’re shackled upside down by their legs, their throats are slit while they’re still conscious, and many are scalded to death."
Just remember that most of this is legal, and is acceptable within the UK and EU laws as well. Despite an EU wide ban in 2012 regarding hens being kept in battery cages, up to 500,000 hens were still being treated this way as 30 farms across the country completely ignored the law. Now, whether or not that chicken or hen has more space to move around, you can't ignore the fact that that is truly a shit and awful life. Most of the chickens don't see natural sunlight until they're being loaded onto a truck to the slaughterhouse. And I've seen the video footage too; chickens who are overfed and pumped full of antibiotics so they don't get ill, getting so fat that they can't walk and buckle under their own weight, eventually just accepting their own death and being pecked and eaten by the chickens around them. If you think that UK farms treat their animals better than most, or that all animals are given a 'free range' life before they go onto the shelves of Asda, think again and watch this trailer for the documentary; Land of Hope and Glory.. Most of this footage is very recent, being filmed in 2016 and 2017.
So I've talked about why I wanted to do it for the animals, now I'm going to hit you with the facts about why I wanted to do it for the planet. Whether you believe it or not, industrial farming is absolutely destroying our planet. According to www.onegreenplanet.org;
"Over 37% of methane emissions result from factory farming. Clearing land to grow soybeans in the Amazon rainforest is responsible for clearing over 100 million hectares of forest, - releasing enough carbon into the atmosphere to increase the rate of global warming by 50 percent. And industrial agriculture sucks up 70 percent of the world’s fresh water supplies."
These are just a handful of ways in which farming is killing our planet. Feel free to click on their link to read more into it. I feel like I'm not here to hold your hand and talk you through everything like you're a child. You are an adult and can think for yourself, and the only thing I'm asking is that you open your mind to the fact that there is so much wrong with animals being killed to fill our plates. It's not just the animals that are suffering, we all are suffering.
I'm going to finish this post with my own personal journey of trying to go Vegan as you're probably wondering how I can sit here and type this on my soapbox but not actually declare that I am an official Vegan. So here's why. I did not do enough research. That is the beginning and end of it. (I know this is a pretty sad excuse in the long run but hear me out). I went Vegan for about 24 hours before I caved and bought myself a Milky Way bar. Almost everything I had in my cupboards had some kind of meat or gelatine or eggs or milk in it. Nothing was safe. I bought some Almond milk to have with my brews and cereal but didn't really like it. The flavour was too overpowering. So I bought some soy milk. and within a day I became very, very ill. I had random menstrual cramping and migraines. It didn't take me long to find out that soy milk is actually really bad for you in large quantities and I figured I was pretty intolerant to it.
I bought some vegan cheese from Asda (Violife if you were wondering) which was pretty good! I then tried coconut milk with cereal and honestly, the taste just made me want to barf. I then tried oat milk which was in my opinion the closest to cow's milk that I could get. But I didn't really have any desire to buy more once I'd finished it. The consistency was still way more watery than cow's milk. It didn't help that I still actually had cow's milk in my fridge for my boys so the temptation was always there. Eventually I caved and started drinking cow's milk again. (Trust me when I say I felt pretty disgusted with myself and still do).
"Over 37% of methane emissions result from factory farming. Clearing land to grow soybeans in the Amazon rainforest is responsible for clearing over 100 million hectares of forest, - releasing enough carbon into the atmosphere to increase the rate of global warming by 50 percent. And industrial agriculture sucks up 70 percent of the world’s fresh water supplies."
These are just a handful of ways in which farming is killing our planet. Feel free to click on their link to read more into it. I feel like I'm not here to hold your hand and talk you through everything like you're a child. You are an adult and can think for yourself, and the only thing I'm asking is that you open your mind to the fact that there is so much wrong with animals being killed to fill our plates. It's not just the animals that are suffering, we all are suffering.
I'm going to finish this post with my own personal journey of trying to go Vegan as you're probably wondering how I can sit here and type this on my soapbox but not actually declare that I am an official Vegan. So here's why. I did not do enough research. That is the beginning and end of it. (I know this is a pretty sad excuse in the long run but hear me out). I went Vegan for about 24 hours before I caved and bought myself a Milky Way bar. Almost everything I had in my cupboards had some kind of meat or gelatine or eggs or milk in it. Nothing was safe. I bought some Almond milk to have with my brews and cereal but didn't really like it. The flavour was too overpowering. So I bought some soy milk. and within a day I became very, very ill. I had random menstrual cramping and migraines. It didn't take me long to find out that soy milk is actually really bad for you in large quantities and I figured I was pretty intolerant to it.
I bought some vegan cheese from Asda (Violife if you were wondering) which was pretty good! I then tried coconut milk with cereal and honestly, the taste just made me want to barf. I then tried oat milk which was in my opinion the closest to cow's milk that I could get. But I didn't really have any desire to buy more once I'd finished it. The consistency was still way more watery than cow's milk. It didn't help that I still actually had cow's milk in my fridge for my boys so the temptation was always there. Eventually I caved and started drinking cow's milk again. (Trust me when I say I felt pretty disgusted with myself and still do).
With regards to not eating meat, I did really well. We have a lot of vegetarian food in my house anyway. We have veggie burgers once a week, vegetable curries and paellas, soups and pasta dishes that I make from scratch. I also can't stand eggs but like I said earlier, so many things had eggs or egg whites in, and beef and animal gelatines. Or soy. Fucking soy!! I hate the stuff now. And please let me know if you manage to find a single packet of biscuits or chocolate that doesn't have soy lecithin in because for the life of me I cannot find anything without that stuff. So where does this leave me? I guess I'm just a vegetarian, for now. I had a slip up at the weekend that I'm not going to delve into, but eventually I really want to transition to Vegan at some point in my life. I just need to prepare myself for it in a much better and more structured way. I wasn't substituting anything for anything. I didn't work out where all my iron, vitamins and minerals and calcium intakes were going to come from. I just stopped eating certain stuff, and in the end it made me poorly. But that's my own fault, and I know that. There are so many Vegan alternatives to every food you can think of. Fortunately lots of chain supermarkets have started stocking more and more Vegan options for people as well.
If you're thinking of turning Vegan, or are interested in learning more about it, just head to Peta's website and sign up for a 30 day Vegan trial, which is what I did. They send you a free magazine with loads of delicious Vegan recipes, and articles that shed light on how going Vegan can make such a difference to the world and to your health. It doesn't mean you have to stop eating everything meat and dairy overnight. But at least you're thinking about it. And that's a start.
Violet x
If you're thinking of turning Vegan, or are interested in learning more about it, just head to Peta's website and sign up for a 30 day Vegan trial, which is what I did. They send you a free magazine with loads of delicious Vegan recipes, and articles that shed light on how going Vegan can make such a difference to the world and to your health. It doesn't mean you have to stop eating everything meat and dairy overnight. But at least you're thinking about it. And that's a start.
Violet x
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