There are so many things that can define our lives and how we live them. Our families, our hometowns, whether we went to college and if so what college we attended, religion, dietary preference, political stance, marital status, etc etc. For all the huge things that have happened in my life in the past few years, somehow this miscarriage has kicked me in the butt and really forced me to define my life. There are way too many ways this event has changed me to really discuss in one post so I'm going to simply talk about this whole "vegan?" thing today.
So yeah... I'm vegan?
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| Vegan "ice cream" ... aka extra thick smoothie. |
I don't know if I will be a strict vegan (in fact, I'm already not as I forced myself to eat some fish yesterday and had honey in my smoothie this morning), but for now I'm just not cool with eating meat. The vegan community is pretty diverse and people have all sorts of reasons for being vegan, but I'm doing it because I just can't handle the fact that animals are being abused for my comfort. I don't need meat to survive. I don't even need meat to feel satisfied! In fact, meat has always grossed me out (I hate the smell of it raw) and I always just ate it because it was a part of the recipes I knew, or something I thought the other people eating with me would like. But my miscarriage got me thinking...
I lost a baby. A baby I never knew. A baby with the man I love. I felt the whole "letdown" sensation so much during that short period of pregnancy and looked forward to nourishing the little one that I would soon meet. I never met that baby, but I do still have this sweet little Buggie who relies on me for nutrition, comfort and protection. What if something happened to her? I can't even bear to think of that.
Cows are forced into pregnancy, whether by rape or artificial insemination. Whether they would, in nature, feel some sort of emotional connection with their mate, I don't know, but hooking up with some bull in a field of wildflowers seems like it would be a lot nicer that having it happen in a dark and dirty stall. They carry this baby, deliver it and have it ripped away so that the cow can provide milk for humans (who generally can't tolerate it anyway) and the baby can either be slaughtered for veal or raised to live the same horrible life as its mother. SAD!
For whatever reason, I'm not as bothered by fish or poultry (although I don't eat a lot of either anyway), but eating mammals just doesn't appeal to me. I also saw this tragic picture of a bear hunt camp with the skinned creature lying outside the tent, looking eerily human. I don't believe we evolved from any creature other than humans, but we do share a lot of similarities and I think that emotion is one of them. Watch a dog whine for its master or a cat go without eating while its family is out of town, or a baby elephant cry for its mother when it loses the pack or a whale sing a mourning song when it is separated from its family and tell me that humans are set apart by our empathy.
Now, I don't know if this change will be permanent. I won't make that kind of proclamation today, but I will tell you that I don't only feel more ethically content following this diet but actually much healthier. I've been suffering from headaches for years and uncomfortable bloating all over and both have disappeared in just the few days that I've been off animal products. For so long i've been blaming gluten for my discomforts, but now I'm thinking it might have been dairy all along!
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| Sauteed spinach and a bellyyyy |
So yeah. This is a pretty major change that has happened this week and one I wanted to share with you because it will probably lead to some tasty new recipes (I made awesome vegan cookies today and have literally made myself sick eating so many of them! I'll share them once I've baked more and can get a picture... I ate my model.).
Now, someone help me get off this soap box.
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