I am not an animal lover. I detest the moles and voles that carve up the yard. I hate the muskrats tunneling and collapsing “my” riverbank, likewise the beavers making slides cutting into the bank. Everytime I see a little snake I shiver, though I mutter a fervent prayer that they will eat said moles or voles, ditto for the scary mink I saw loping across my deck. I have been bitten several times by small dogs, the first time when I was four (“Don’t be afraid! They can smell fear. Just don’t show them you’re afraid...”). I don’t click on pootie diaries.
That is why I sometimes feel a vegan in sheep’s clothing.
So how did I come to eschew chewing animal flesh and products? A distant friend mentioned the site NutritionFacts.org in an offhand, casual way on Facebook, saying she wouldn’t call herself a vegan yet but the site had given her things to think about. If she had been strident or judgmental, I doubt I would have looked up the site. But I did. The site is run by a Michael Greger, a PhD nutrition researcher who reviews the latest peer-reviewed literature on links between nutrition and disease from around the world and wrote the NYTimes bestseller How Not to Die.”
Then I watched the piercing documentary Cowspiracy, which investigates the curious silence of conservation watchdogs like Greenpeace and the Sierra Club about the extreme impact of animal husbandry on the planet.* Not just the methane emissions etc., but also the waste: it takes about 40 pounds of grain to make 1 pound of beef, etc. And came across the UN Worldwatch figure that more than 50% of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions are attributable to meat/dairy production.
“If every single techno fix [to mitigate climate change] was introduced – renewable power generation, lower carbon methods of tilling, waste recycling and so on – it would reduce CO2 emissions by between 1.5 and 4.3 gigatonnes (a gigatonne being a billion tonnes). However, if the world changed its diet and went completely vegan, emissions would drop by 7.8 gigatonnes.”Source: The Guardian, citing a report written by Pete Smith of the Institute of Biological and Environmental Sciences at the University of Aberdeen, along with many other academics worldwideClick through from http://mobile.abc.net.au/news/2014-...
“If global trends in meat and dairy intake continue, global mean temperature rise will more than likely exceed 2° C, even with dramatic emissions reductions across non‐agricultural sectors. Immediate and substantial reductions in wasted food and meat and dairy intake, particularly ruminant meat (e.g., beef and lamb), are imperative to mitigating catastrophic climate change. The urgency of these interventions is not represented in negotiations for climate change mitigation.”Source: John Hopkins Center for a Livable Futurehttp://www.jhsph.edu/research/cente...
Over 51% of Greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions are indirectly attributed to meat/dairy consumption.Source: UN environmental specialists at Worldwatchhttp://www.worldwatch.org/files/pdf...
I have a long history of being a self-righteous critic of the fossil fuels industry, enraged at the pollution and global warming they are responsible for, even as I drive a car and use electricity. I had to take a look at myself: were there things that I could do to significantly reduce my carbon footprint?
My husband and I had already emptied our savings account to go solar — but that made economic sense, given the wonderful state and federal tax breaks and the SREC payments of more than $1000 a year, we will break even in about 7 years and then have free energy for decades to come. What if we next turned out attention to our food?
So on the 12-Step principle of one day at a time, we gave ourselves an experimental window — starting the day after Thanksgiving, we said we’d do it until Christmas, because of course who would want to deny themselves over the holidays?
The first two or three days were the hardest. We felt weird, possibly because of withdrawal from cheese (I’m French! Cheese is one of the four food groups!). I had to go on the internet to stimulate our taste buds with new recipes, which was fun, because I’m 60 and sick of meals I’ve been cooking for 40 years. And a curious thing happened. We pretty much just lost our taste for the stuff.
I won’t go into what I cook now, though I am always discovering new things. It’s easy to get plenty of protein, and nutrients, with the exception of B12 which you must supplement. I eat a Brazil nut a day for the selenium, and the food I eat takes care of the rest. We shed weight easily, because it’s hard to put that much fat in the diet unless you’re shoving whole avocados in your mouth or deep-frying the kale. And I feel much healthier. Oddly, as my energy has improved, my mood has also stabilized (I’m French! We’re intense! We agonize, always looking for meaning! L’enfer, c’est les autres!). It’s weird to feel calmer because I’m not eating chicken (though NutritionFacts has a few interesting studies that hint why...). And it’s cheaper to eat this way.
I’m not a zealot. In February, I wanted to watch the Super Bowl, we have no TV, and so I dragged my husband to an Appleby’s with 1000 TVs and we each ordered a bloody steak as we watched gladiators ramming the s—t out of each other on the screen. It tasted good, the consistency felt a little strange, and after we had no desire to eat meat again. In May went to Greece for 2 weeks (paid for in part by vegan savings), I usually had some feta during the day, and my husband ate goat, rabbit, and lamb. But home again, no desire for it. It’s not like booze, where a taste can retrigger a craving. It’s just a choice that one gets used to.
In closing, I didn’t have to love or empathize with other creatures to stop eating them. I just had to take a look at the planet, which I do love; and my cardiovascularly challenged husband, whom I do love; and my own cancerous family line: I love myself. I also love the incremental empowerment that veganism has brought. The day we switched the solar on, I felt the same thing: I can try to do my part. Alone, no one can save the world. But small actions change lives. My friend’s gentle comment on Facebook changed our lives, and maybe those of others. I hope this diary has a similar non-hectoring feel.
And I am starting to look at animals in a new way, but that’s for another day.
*Clue: Think agrigiant contributions to said organizations.
