You're a vegan?!

So now that we've finally got it out of the way that I'm the crazy "V" word, let's go over how this came to be. I've always been an animal lover, ALWAYS. I grew up with cats, lots of dogs, chickens, ducks, rabbits, and spent a lot of time rescuing little creatures around my parents property. Yet all the while I was loving these little animals I was chomping down on the flesh and meat of other little animals that I simply adored when visiting petting zoos and farms. Now does anyone else see something kind of weird about that? I had pet chickens, we didn't eat them or their eggs because we loved them, but I would gladly take a big ol' helping of fried chicken from Colonel Sanders. See, things just aren't adding up. I thought that I was doing something so great by taking care of my animals and donating to rescues all the while consuming thousands of pounds of dead, rotting, animal flesh each year.

Flash forward to December 2009...Micah and I just finished watching Food Inc. and we are pretty sure that the McDonalds we scarfed down before the film is going to come projecting out of our guts and splatter our whole living room in Double Cheeseburger Brown. YUCK. That was wake up call numero uno. From that evening on we just knew that there would be no more meat in our diet. We watched that movie in horror, following workers at the chicken factory farms shuffle around dead carcasses, kicking live chickens around, seeing poor cows being consumed by their own feces, pigs forced in to such close quarters that they can't even turn around, and that is just the least of it. Right then and there Micah and I pledged that we would take on this decision as a family and support each other along the way, and we never looked back.

The film that started it all.

Sure it was a little different when making a grocery list to not include meat, but actually we loved grocery shopping after that! No more expensive slabs of flesh for us and absolutely no more worrying about the chicken blood draining onto the produce(gag). I searched the net for recipes, went to the library and just collected what info I could and along we went on our little happy vegetarian way!

So now it's October and the little happy vegetarian train has took a turn into blissful vegan land!!! I had a dear friend in cosmetology school decide to become vegan toward the end of our year of hell training, so when we took the vegetarian route she suggested I read up on the vegan lifestyle. I procrastinated on that for about a year, until one day I just knew that it was time to learn why vegans are vegans. I downloaded Vegan by Erik Marcus onto my glorious little e-reader and read the whole book in one sitting. As I read, I cried. And cried. Oh and cried. I finally had the realization that vegans aren't just trying to be complicated pains in the ass, but that they truly care and love for animals. Some of the information in that book made me feel as though The Rock just busted through the door and gave me the People's Elbow straight to the heart. I could (and probably eventually will) devote a whole blog post on the cruel and unjust things that these poor creatures go through just to end up on somebody's plate. I'll give you just a few to think about.

A great book. A great slap in the face, but a loving slap!

So you know that chickens sometimes lay eggs and that sometimes baby chickens, called chicks come from those eggs right? Ok good, glad we got that cleared up. Well obviously females are the laying chickens, the ones that they pile up eight high and eight wide in a cage no bigger than that filing cabinet in your office. So what happens when all those cute little fragile eggs hatch and a bunch of little baby boy chicks are there? Well those guys have several options, none of which they would willingly choose. 1. They get thrown (ALIVE) into a highspeed grinder where they are pulsed into oblivion in order to be used for animal bi-products. 2. They are tossed (once again ALIVE) into a dumpster along with all the other little boy chicks into a dumpster or trash bags where they are left to starve and die. That's just one little tidbit of the chicken industry cruelty that happens each and every single day.

Did you know that by becoming a vegan you save 90 animals lives each year?! So by my little family of three not taking part in the animal industry, we are saving 270 animals per year. I don't know about you, but that makes me feel DAMN GOOD!

Not only did I choose to become a vegan for animal rights, but also for the health of our planet. The gases emitted by millions of farmed animals, plus the waste they produce, plus the gas from our cars transporting those animals to slaughter equals ONE BIG SHIT ON MOTHER EARTH. *Fact alert* WE COULD END WORLD HUNGER IF WE STOPPED GROWING FOOD TO FEED TO ANIMALS, KILLING THE ANIMALS AND FEEDING PEOPLE WITH THEM. If we just simply grew produce to feed the people and stop factory farming animals and feeding them this produce many more people would be adequately nourished.

And the health of myself and my family is another no brainer for this gal! By cutting out animal produce, I'm eliminating the nasty cholestorol that plagues us when we consume massive amounts of animal products. Just within the past few weeks of being completely vegan I can tell my body has already improved. No more of those food babies I used to get, and don't act like you don't know what a food baby is. You know when you leave the dinner table looking like you're in your second trimester! Goodbye cramps, goodbye stomach aches, stuffy noses, and lots of other things that I'll eventually devote posts to as well!

So that's it in a nutshell. I could continue writing for hours on why we ultimately choose this lifestyle, but like I said I'll save some for later. And just to note, if you're not a vegan it doesn't mean I hate you or that we can't be friends. I'm just little ol' me trying to make a difference in the world. I accept and understand everyone elses choices, but I do want to pass along the information and knowledge that I've collected through my many hours of reading and research! I STILL LOVE ALL OF YOU, VEGAN OR NOT:)