Why I Went Vegetarian. The Beginning. My Vegan Journey [Part 1]

Today I thought I would share just a little bit about how I came to discover the lifestyle of vegetarianism and eventually veganism. It was about three and a half years ago I found myself far from home in community college. I originally attended this college to take animal science program. Later found out that it was a course more concentrated on raising animals for food, which was not what I signed up for. This should of been a no brainer for me since I lived in the middle of farm state Iowa. I switched degrees and I’m sure everyone can understand the struggle and pressure to choose a degree and then switched and choose a different, change mind, switched, and so on. I finally just settled on getting my Associates in Science and thought I would transfer to a University...because I told myself “I’ll have it figured out by then”...(I never did). At this time I was also interested in everything environmental. My plan at that time was to go into some type of environmental science interdisciplinary course eventually at a university.

One day I was in one of my favorite classes Environmental Science, it was a film day and we were watching the documentary Food inc. Little did I know that ever since that day my life would be changed forever. I was absolutely amazed on how I thought I was doing good to the environment and lowering my carbon footprint by just recycling, taking short showers, and turning the lights off when I left the room. The drastic degree of environmental damage of consuming meat made my tasks of being “environmental conscious” look so minor. I felt that I would be considered a hypocrite if I made such an effort of recycling everything possible to avoid polluting landfills, but ate meat at the same time.

I decided I needed to make some changes for the better, so I went vegetarian. it consumed me, I remember watching endless videos and researching how changing your diet can reduce environmental destruction. My staple college food was mashed potatoes, spinach, and canned black beans wrapped in a tortilla and also Campbell’s creamy potato soup. I was more concerned about the environment, so healthy vegetarian diet really wasn’t on my priority list as long as I wasn't consuming meat.

source: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1286537/plotsummary

I highly recommend this film to anyone and everyone (its on Netflix). It is a good documentary for those who are just beginning their curious journey of where our food really comes from. It is not too overwhelming with information, but it presents a fair amount to give you just a small glimpse of the food industry.

Vegetarian to vegan story will be continued....

Thanks for reading a snippet of my life. I look forward to sharing more!

For any veg out there comment below what sparked your interest in the lifestyle, I’m curious!