Guilt as a Meat-Eater, Peace as a Vegan
May 22, 2007 by joyfulvegan
I first became vegetarian in 1995 when my mother was diagnosed with breast cancer (stage 4), and I began to read about ways to cure her. I learned about people who had cured themselves from cancer through their diets, particularly macrobiotic, and the growing research documenting the terrible effects of meat and dairy products on the body. When I became vegetarian at that time, I still ate eggs, but I hadn’t eaten milk products for years due to allergy. My mother passed away a short time later, and I continued my vegetarian lifestyle determined not to die as she did. I explained my choice to people as a health concern, stating that the animals were raised in such horrible and unsanitary conditions that it could not be healthy to eat such products. At that point, I understood on some level the horrors that the animals suffered to feed us, but think I only allowed it into my heart and mind at a fleeting and superficial level.
At some point, years later, I began to eat meat again, though I rarely if ever ate beef, still seeing it as an unhealthy thing to eat. I am not quite sure how it happened. To be honest, I missed the taste of certain barbecued and spiced meats. I think I worried that I wasn’t getting enough protein. I was surrounded by people who ate meat, and my husband at the time, who had gone vegetarian with me, went back to eating meat. I felt alone in my vegetarianism and like an inconvenience to friends and family. I imagine it was a combination of those factors that lured me back to being an omnivore.
Then in February 2004, I had the opportunity to attend the World Premiere of Peaceable Kingdom at Lincoln Center in New York City. From the moment I saw the seemingly endless number of male chicks sliding down chutes and conveyor belts on the way to the dumpster – useless by-products of the egg industry - there was no turning back. The suffering I saw in that film touched a part of me that had been locked away for a long, long time. Then, after the film, when one of the panelists stated, I don’t eat animals because I love and respect them, it was truly one of those life-changing moments. I remember thinking – I love animals too, and if this person can be proud of those feelings and act on those feelings by not eating animals, well, then I can too. And there it began. I stopped eating animals at that moment. I ate eggs from time to time, but I felt terribly guilty when I did so, and eventually gave them up, too.
Being vegan for ethical reasons is very different than giving up meat for health reasons. I definitely feel healthier, which is an added bonus, so to speak, but now I cannot look at meat without seeing needless suffering and sorrow and the flesh of an animal that I would have liked to have known under different, much happier circumstances. I do sometimes miss the taste of certain things – bacon, pulled pork, buffalo wings – but I don’t miss them so much that I would want an animal to die so that I could taste it again.
As a vegan, I’ve experienced rewards I never would have imagined. I feel a sense of peace within me, which I imagine comes partially from the act of living true to what is in my heart. I’ve always been concerned about animals and the environment, so being vegan enables me to act on those feelings each and every day. It’s empowering to be able to choose to not cause pain and suffering several times a day, especially living in a world what seems to be filled with so much of those two things. Also, being vegan is a very conscious and active way of living, and as a result, I feel much more alive and in tune with life around me. It is difficult at times to live being fully aware of the tremendous suffering that animals are experiencing at each and every moment, but I wouldn’t have it any other way. For in opening myself up to feel the suffering, I have opened myself up to love as well.
I feel like I have learned to love again in the truest sense – a love that knows no boundaries – which is why I like to say that I’ve rediscovered “true love.” My heart feels free to love at levels and in ways that I do not ever recall, but I imagine that I was born with and experienced as a child when I looked at the world with wonder and fascination and naturally loved animals. I think that perhaps when we are forced to suppress or hide that love we inherently have for other species so that we can eat them, exterminate them, and use them in the numerous ways our society deems acceptable, we turn off a part of our hearts and a part of us dies. For most of my life, I felt disconnected from the world I claimed to love so much, as if there was some hole in my being, something holding me back. Becoming vegan, I feel whole again. I feel as if a weight has been lifted, and my heart is free.
~Janice in Lincoln Park, NJ
thank you. thankyou.
i have been struggling with this. i gave up meat last thanksgiving after reading just a little bit about how awful animals were treated. i was sitting there, at dinner, waiting to be handed my plate of death, feeling guilty but not guilty enough. there were paper turkeys at the table and my little eight year old cousin began to mime cutting off the turkey’s head. suddenly it hit me and all these images burst into my head and i burst out into tears. i ran off and hid in a room and vowed never to eat meat again. this was the end of years coming, wishing i could be vegetarian. my body can’t digest sugars, meat, dairy, or chemicals (ie non-organic food) but i can’t afford to live that lifestyle (being an artist and a student and a few other recent difficulties) so i tried to justify it. Also, like yourself, i love the taste of certain moods, i would also just try to ignore how similar eating a piece of barbecued chicken reminded me of jokingly chewing on my friend’s bare limb. I have been lactose intolerant for a while so it was a pretty easy shift to what i would call lazy veganism. I would still eat things that had egg in them (ie chocolate and baking) and i would avoid obvious things but still honey (which i don’t quite get avoiding, but rarely eat anymore).
I recently got a bursary from my university for unknown reasons, and instead of saving it to pay off my loans, i used it to go live elsewhere for a couple of months. I chose Victoria, British Columbia which, if you don’t know, is an island full of people who were born everywhere else and is mostly vegan/vegetarian. You can find vegan products and “support” (for lack of a better word) everywhere. I was 100% vegan there (minus a couple cave-ins due to my chocolate addiction and not able to find good dark chocolate at 3am). You have options EVERYWHERE. Now i am back in the praries in winnipeg, manitoba, where meat is what is popular here (i believe due to all the farms) and i have had moments of cheating, and i have fallen quite a bit. I have a very high need for protein in my diet, or i feel quite sick, as well as iron and i know very well that you can get protein and iron in a million veg. places, but it just doesn’t seem to work around my period. I spent a whole ovulation period filling myself full of broccoli, beans, chickpeas, spinach and whatever else you can imagine and i couldn’t qwell this emptiness in my body that wanted protein, so i had a small steak and i was fine.
the problem being that the guilt eats me alive. i find myself becoming depressed and overwhelmed with this crazy stress. i gave in because it is almost impossible here to eat properly, given that there are barely any vegan options here (most restaurants have cheese as their vegetarian option) and most places that sell vegan alternatives to things like milk and mayo and various other things, are far far away from me and not open often (and sooo few and far between).
I find i am in a place where my non-vegan friends call me political and get mad at my being vegan making them feel guilty (i don’t say a thing to them and i’m more about free will than about forcing politics or my choices on them, but the simple fact i eat a vegan diet makes some people guilty) and not being vegan enough gets me no support from other vegans. I do feel bad about the animals, but i don’t feel the need to argue this with other people. this is my choice and other people need to make their own choices based on their own collected information.
i’m not sure what i’m saying here other than your article made me cry. you basically voiced all the thoughts in my head with words i couldn’t quite come up with and i thank you for that. i think, somehow, your words are a strength that i will carry with me. perhaps the fact that it is SO difficult to be vegan where i am is simply a test of how freed from the guilt i want to be. how much more connected to earth i want to be.
so, thank you.
continue to reach out with your words and your truth.
people like me need people like you.
cheers,
chantele
Hey there
Like Chantele I also live in Winnipeg, Manitoba which is just an awful place to live when your pro animal rights. I think I will honestly die of shock if I ever meet a vegan face to face here. I meet endless people that think there is something wrong with because I love animals. It’s ridiculous and so annoying. Oh yeah I ‘m the freak since I actually have a heart.
I became a lacto-veggie at age 12 in 1995 because I finally started to think about what I was eating and realized eating my animal friends is cruel. I never really ate much meat though since I didn’t really care for the taste which not surprising since it’s not natural. I then became vegan at age 19 (I’m 25 now) because I realized that animal by products is more cruel than meat. I wish I became vegan sooner.