A brief introduction to your humble narrator

As you can see by the title of this post, I was once a Vegan. But… then I wasn’t. Chalk it all up to me forgetting why I became vegan in the first place. I won’t give lame excuses like “oh, but cheese is so good” or “I couldn’t live without sesame chicken anymore”. These were the “arguments” I used to convince myself that it was ok to consume animal products again. But it really wasn’t ok. And I finally fully realize this now. And if I had one regret in my life at this moment it would be that I ever stopped being a vegan.Let’s go back to the beginning.I had the outrageous fortune to be admitted to a residential senior high school in Durham, NC, known as the NC School of Science and Mathematics (NCSSM, or S&M for short). Basically a smart kids’ school. The opportunity afforded me a unique and rigorous scholastic education, as well as the chance to meet such diverse cross-sections of our society that my former education in a small town had not enabled me to do. Now, on my hall was a girl who called herself a vegan. There were actually a few girls who dubbed themselves thusly. And a couple vegetarians to boot. Which was pretty neat, to say the least. I mean, I don’t think there was a single vegetarian (definitely no vegans) at my old school.I thought they were all incredibly cool people.

I mean, here are girls my age who know what they want and what they’re doing. They made informed decisions about their lives, their health… It was really awesome and empowering. This in itself, however, was not enough for me to completely haul over my own diet, of course. Yes, I had immense respect for these girls, but I didn’t think I could do it.

Enter Thanksgiving 2001. While it seems incredibly pretentious or trite of me when I look back, the moment I decided to go vegan was out of a desire to do a favor for one of the vegans on my hall. I wanted to show her “how thankful I am” that she was my friend. So, I told her that I wouldn’t have any animal products for the holiday. She was very excited about this, and so was I!

When I got home for thanksgiving, my parents were considerably less than excited. In fact, I was guilted into (ok, I allowed myself to) eat a filet mignon that my dad had bought and prepared especially for the occasion. But I told myself that that was it! No more meat after that! And it pretty much went from there. I phased out all the animal products I could (of what I knew, at least, to be derived from animals) and remained a vegan until my freshman year in college. It was probably roughly… spring 2004. So, two and a half years of being better to myself.

When I look back, I know I didn’t do it as well as I should have. I mean, I ate a lot of un-nutritious junk and I didn’t really research the right things that I should be eating. I didn’t do bad but I could have done way better. And there was also the half-assed support from my family. I knew they thought it was a phase and that I would grow out of it. They didn’t just hope, they knew. I guess I proved them right.

So around spring 2004 (I think) I reverted to being a vegetarian. This brief hiatus (probably a half a year) culminated in the return of what everyone else dubbed as “eating like a normal person again.” And while it would be easy and, maybe, funny to blame Sesame chicken, the fault really only lies within myself. (Oh, god I thought that chicken was the most delicious thing I had eaten in a while. But goddamn did it make me feel like ass for like two days. I kept telling myself that once my stomach produced the right enzymes again I’d be able to not feel like death when I ate meat. That should have been the tip off there that I shouldn’t have eaten the stuff. My body was saying “ahh! What the hell!? Stoppit!” But I didn’t listen!)

Fast forward three and a half more years and there I was in Barnes and Noble, last October or so. I saw this book, Skinny Bitch, and I thought the title was cute so I picked it up and looked it over. I had lately gotten a membership to my local library, so I decided that I wouldn’t buy the book, but reserve it at the library. I was, like, #12 on the waiting list, so I figured I would get the book eventually. I’ll say right now, the original draw of the book was its attitude and the promise of how to eat healthy and be skinny. I’m pretty skinny already, but I always thirst for knowledge about how to stay that way in a healthy and non-fad-y kind of way (Uh, Atkins, anyone?). I had been exercising way more lately and trying to make what I thought were healthy food choices. Little to no red meat, lots of milk (cause calcium’s good for you! Yeah!), lotsa fiber, etc etc.

A few weeks later I was able to pick it up, and once I began reading it, I didn’t want to put it down. While it was true that the main reason I wanted to read it was because I thought it was going to be tough love and nutrition advice, I really didn’t know that the authors were going to through all that vegan stuff back in my face. So, it’s kinda funny and weird to admit, but that book jolted me out of the life I was misleading.

Here I am now, only one humbling month later and I can safely say that I will never let myself forget why I am doing this in the first place—not only is it healthy and the way in which I feel us humans are supposed to eat, I believe it is morally and ethically the only alternative. When I’m presented with a non-vegan thing to eat and I say, “no thanks, I can’t eat that,” my family is always fond of saying, “oh, yes you can; you choose not to.” Well, hell yeah I choose not to! I don’t view those options as food in the first place, so like hell I am going to even entertain the idea of eating it. It’d be like them asking me “Hey, Laurin, want some cardboard for dinner?”. Yeah, no thanks to that!

I only hope I haven’t done too much damage to my system already. And I know that there is irreversible damage that we all have to deal with regardless of how well we try to eat (I’m referring to pesticide and other chemical toxins). I’ve just finished reading Robbins’ Diet for a New America and The China Study is next (then Vegan Freak, I promise!). I want to be as well informed about this (ginormous) choice I have made for myself because when people ask me (usually disdainfully) “Why Vegan?!,” I can tell them why, and be 100% confident that I’m right. Screw the naysayers!

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“Men dig their Graves with their own Teeth and die more by those fated Instruments than the Weapons of their Enemies.”
Thomas Moffett

So, that’s gonna have to do for a basic introduction.

I plan on writing frequently on this blog, however, it may be a couple of days before I post. I’m having trouble deciding what I want to write about first.

Until then!