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Why did you become veg*n, initially?

I know all the great reasons, but what made you decide?

I always loved animals, and felt a close bond to them, and yet I always loved meat. (ew) No one in my family is vegetarian. Anyway, one night, I began to eat some of my mom's lasagna (she's a great cook), and it was kind of cold, and I was thought, "wow, this is really gross." So, I decided to never eat meat again! Ten years later,  ::) P was talking to one of his friends (opposite of veg*n), and the friend asked, "why aren't you vegan?" P was like...I dunno. Then he asked me, and I was like..I dunno. Then we researched, and here we are! Branded and everything. If I knew then what I know now...

ETA- I also forgot, pretty much 80% of me deciding to go vegan was because like for 2 days i was the only person on the whos online thing that didnt have vegan under their name.

I was thinking the same thing:  "gee, there's seven members on right now and I'm the only non-vegan".  I'm thinking about changing it, but it's only been four days.  LOL

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ETA- I also forgot, pretty much 80% of me deciding to go vegan was because like for 2 days i was the only person on the whos online thing that didnt have vegan under their name.

I was thinking the same thing:  "gee, there's seven members on right now and I'm the only non-vegan".  I'm thinking about changing it, but it's only been four days.  LOL

hahaha! This must be that peer pressure that people were talking about..

eta: Tweets, you can change it now, and then you just won't want to 'have' to change it back!

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Mine was almost 11 years ago when I was 11.  I never liked red meat and usually only ate chicken and turkey, but I decided I couldn't do that anymore because I felt such a connection with animals.
Growing up, I always had a dog or a cat or something, but my first dog that was around probably before I was born was sooo loving and I remember being in 1st grade (or something like that) and coming home to an empty house after school.  I was sooo scared, thinking there was a monster in my basement.  I ended up sitting outside terrified of looking at my front door to see the monster coming outside! (haha)
My dog came and sat right next to me and just gave off this energy that she was going to make everything okay.
I'll never forget that. 
My parents came home like 10 minutes later. I don't even remember how I came to being by myself, school must have let out early of something.
I have been vegetarian since.
3 years ago I went vegan (had one slip-up but caught myself rather quickly)  It happened so naturally.  One day I ate too much cheese and became disgusted by it and somehow I just stopped dairy and eggs like that.
I also watched earthlings, and can't bring myself to be a part of any of the industries.

So basically, I love animals.

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yeah, I kind of don't have much of a story after some of these.

I never enjoyed eating meat, and pretty much flat out refused red meat from a very young age but my parents still had me eating chicken and things like mince that didn't 'look' like meat.  But I stopped all that too when I was in high school, pretty much as soon as I had enough confidence to say no.

And then in 2006 when I was living in a flat with some randoms, I just decided that it was incongruous to avoid eating animals, but to continue to use products that come from animals, so I started the road to proper vegan.  For quite a while I didn't ingredient-check things that I would buy, but I wouldn't actively put any milk/eggs/butter/cheese etc in food that I would make.  It seemed a good start, and made things easier, so I didn't feel like giving up  or whatever, so I think it was the right way to go.  But now it's all on, and I wouldn't have it any other way : )

Funny part to make up for that not being very interesting: back in the day, told one of my flatmates that I was thinking of going vegan, he knew I was vegetarian, and thought I said 'going bacon' so his response was 'that's awesome!'... I wondered why, given his carnivorous ways, he was so excited. It took us some time to work out the misunderstanding and was generally confusingly amusing.

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Well I have typed up my story twice and was disconnected from the internet twice! So here we go again.

After reading "May All Be Fed" by John Robbins I told my husband "I am not eating meat anymore."  That was January of 1994.  I have never looked back.  During this period I have been on again off again vegan. Like Cali I have had major stomach issues forever. It took me a while to figure out that when I don't consume dairy or eggs my digestive system is much calmer.  I am vegan now and have no intention of going back. 

It is now my mission to convert as many people as possible...mwuah!!!!

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Woke up one morning and decided eating animal products was an inefficient use of limited food resources.  Half way through the first day decided I couldn't do this alone so I bet my sister $5 I could be vegan longer than she could.  2+ years later we are both still vegan!  We ended the bet and are both vegan on our own free will and accord now.

Best decision I've ever made!!

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Woke up one morning and decided eating animal products was an inefficient use of limited food resources.  Half way through the first day decided I couldn't do this alone so I bet my sister $5 I could be vegan longer than she could.  2+ years later we are both still vegan!  We ended the bet and are both vegan on our own free will and accord now.

Best decision I've ever made!!

Haha, that's awesome!
My sister and I went vegetarian together, but she stopped probably 5 months later?
It was sweet though because she told me how she felt bad and didn't want to disappoint me (she's my younger sister) but I told her it didn't matter, I wouldn't look down on her.
we were freaking 10 years old... haha.

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me and my sis went vegan together too! both still are :) it's nice having someone on ur side supporting u... i love my sis

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Grew up in a meat-eating family. Turned veg when I was 13 after a few-month period of only ordering veg in restaurants. Why? I'm not sure, but some combination of:

1. Two of my best friends at that time had also talked about it, so we all went in on it together.

2. It grossed me out one time to see little things of blood on a chicken thigh--made me realize that this was indeed an animal I was eating.

3. I had a dog, and at one point I couldn't figure out why one was okay to eat and one was okay to take care of.

4. I started to come into my own on religion during this time:
a. I grew up Catholic, so we never ate meat on Friday. (Never ate fish b/c noone in my family liked it). So to me, that meant there was some spiritual benefit to being vegetarian
b. Along with the growing up Catholic bit, I was always struck by the idea of "right to life." I didn't understand how war, the death penalty, and abortion could be against the right to life (according ot the church) but killing animals was not.
c. As I learned more about other religions, it struck me that so many had some kind of dietary restriction to them. This enhanced in my mind the idea of a "spiritual benefit."

5. I wanted to be healthy (this is a lowest reason b/c I was a very unhealthy vegetarian for a long time).

(Funny how many of these seem to relate to religion, considering I'm certainly not a religious person now and even calling me "spiritual" is a bit of a stretch at times.)

I'm not vegan, but I've been eating a lot less eggs/dairy. For me, this change is driven mostly by health and economic concerns.

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Honeslty, I had been thinking about it for a long time (for about 3 years before I actually did it) and the thing that made me decide for sure was nothing drastic. I was eating a meal with meat one night and my dog was laying down on his bed. I looked over at him, looked at my plate and thought..."I can't do this anymore, they don't deserve this". From that day on I never touched another piece of meat again and soon after, became vegan.

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I saw in a grade-school science textbook a simple diagram of ratios.
One fish: Two loaves of bread.
One chicken: Three loaves of bread.
One pig: five loaves of bread.
One cow: nine loaves of bread
Below, it explained the environmental footprints of agriculture. What goes into feeding a person once on fish could feed them twice on plant matter. Basically, it showed that eating the soybeans before they were fed to the cow eliminated much waste of food, water, and land. It didn't advocate elimination of animal products from the diet, but did say that eating lower on the food chain = lower drain on resources and more food to go around. So of course, I went off to research, and found that eggs and milk are also highly inefficient sources of food, and wound up reading pamphlets about how fish really do suffer and feel pain - fish was the hardest thing for me, since I had an abiding love of smoked salmon, sashimi, a perfectly cooked salmon steak with lemon and pepper... even though I've always loved fish as animals and not just as food. I'd justified it to myself by thinking of the relatively few herbivorous species of ocean life, but in the end I just grew up and realised I was not a merman and therefore did not need to follow merman rules.

That, and I tried soymilk and immediately decided I never wanted to see dairy ever again. And once I gave up dairy, I felt obliged to be a vegan. :P

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Narcissus gets my vote for best science book.

Like a lot of you, I've never really liked meat (except chicken fingers, but that's hardly food at all). Most times I would  chew it and spit it out. Hide it on the side of the plate. Eat only the sides at meals. On and on. I guess I just gradually weaned myself off of meat. I went to Six flags with a group of friends in middle school, and we stopped at a Wendy's for lunch. I got a baked potato with ketchup. My friends asked me why. "I dunno. I just don't really eat meat." Oh. So I'm a vegetarian. What? Okay. I was a vegetarian without really knowing it until my friends pointed it out to me. Then my mom had me try a Boca burger and started getting me "meats" in other forms. I thought they tasted better.

In HS, I started off as a vegetarian, but my sophomore year of band  camp made me want to fit in. I was already different because of my diabetes. Having the band moms make me a PB&J every day was just weird. So I ate the meat, and I didn't like it. January started, concert band season started, my meat eating stopped. I never went back again.

Then I came online and discovered the wonderful world of veganism. My parents have told me that while I'm living with them it would be too much of an inconvenience to them if I was vegan. I have soymilk because it's creamier to me. I have Earth Balance because my parents use light margarine of some sort that tastes like plastic. I use certain brands because I like the taste better. As long as I don't mention the vegan word, it's good. I was vegan all summer without them realizing it. But now school is back in and I don't get home until after 8, so my dad cooks for me, usually using the soy milk and Earth Balance.

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It's been a combination of things. I quit smoking almost five years ago. Every since then I have been working on eating healthy. I have tried several different routes. The thing is I never felt good. Last year my fiancée bought the book Skinny Bitches, which caused me to buy Skinny Bastard. I could not put the book down. Now, understand I don't use the book as the gospel but it did make me think.
I have since changed, I have not eaten any animal product since the book. I am avoiding any product that uses animals in research and I am becoming more outspoken about it.
I feel better health wise, I eat so much better. I had the best physical this year ever, my cholesterol dropped alot!
Animals have rights also...they can't speak for themselves, but I can!

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It's been a combination of things. I quit smoking almost five years ago. Every since then I have been working on eating healthy. I have tried several different routes. The thing is I never felt good. Last year my fiancée bought the book Skinny Bitches, which caused me to buy Skinny Bastard. I could not put the book down. Now, understand I don't use the book as the gospel but it did make me think.
I have since changed, I have not eaten any animal product since the book. I am avoiding any product that uses animals in research and I am becoming more outspoken about it.
I feel better health wise, I eat so much better. I had the best physical this year ever, my cholesterol dropped alot!
Animals have rights also...they can't speak for themselves, but I can!

Yay! I didn't even know there was a Skinny Bastard book.

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I am a pretty recent convert to the Vegan scene. I never liked red meat growing up and stopped eating pork after I saw "Babe" in the 6th grade. I ate chicken but always thought it was dry and bland. Guess I was never a true meat fan.

But the real reason I became vegan is kind of a painful one. I was a hard-core bulimic for a long time. After a while I got tired of treating my body like garbage, like my worst enemy, and decided to start treating it right. Around the same time I read a some very eye-opening articles regarding the horrific treatment of animals in commercial farms. It all clicked after that. As someone who volunteers with animals and thinks all animals are beautiful, it made sense to stop using them selfishly as a food source.

So, I've been vegan for over a month, I've been cooking like a fool, and have finally kissed bulimia good-bye. Good riddance.

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I am a pretty recent convert to the Vegan scene. I never liked red meat growing up and stopped eating pork after I saw "Babe" in the 6th grade. I ate chicken but always thought it was dry and bland. Guess I was never a true meat fan.

But the real reason I became vegan is kind of a painful one. I was a hard-core bulimic for a long time. After a while I got tired of treating my body like garbage, like my worst enemy, and decided to start treating it right. Around the same time I read a some very eye-opening articles regarding the horrific treatment of animals in commercial farms. It all clicked after that. As someone who volunteers with animals and thinks all animals are beautiful, it made sense to stop using them selfishly as a food source.

So, I've been vegan for over a month, I've been cooking like a fool, and have finally kissed bulimia good-bye. Good riddance.

good for u girl stay strong that's really hard to get over!

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Why did I become vegan?....Well, growing up I never really cared for meat, I hated pork, and would only eat chicken or beef, when I was a teen, I pretty much ate only veggies and dairy, I ate this way for quite a few years, when I got married my husband was, and still is a big meat eater...I really hated cooking meat, after cooking it from its raw state, I just couldn't eat it...made me sick...about 5 years ago I sent for the veg starter kit from PETA, when I saw the dvd, I just about died :'(...that was it... no more animals for me...before this happened thou, I was eating a chicken sandwich at McDonalds, and when I bit into it, I found a blood clot..(GROSS) :o....that was the last time I ate chicken....its been hard for me, because I still have to cook meat for my hubby, but I will say, he is adapting to our meatless meals, my boys are grown and on their own, and they think I'm a nut for being vegan...they tell me I'm going thru a midlife crisis ;D....I just love eating clean...knowing I'm not hurting any living creature, my goal is to convert my Hubby....that would be awesome...I guess I can keep dreaming :-\ Maybe someday ;)b

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Well I started about 3 months ago so I don't know if I count :)  I've always wanted to go vegetarian and did in high school for a couple of months then went back to meat.  I always also thought that a vegetarian was a vegan until I met some vegetarians and they ate eggs and cheese and I was set straight.  I think I'm eating this way mainly because of health reasons.  My family has a long history with like everything!!  Diabetes, heart disease, arterio sclerosis, high blood pressure..........  I don't want that for myself so I read in a magazine that eating a vegan diet can cut your risk of diabetes and it is true!!  I feel bad when I say that I love animals but, it's not my love for them that has driven me to adopt this lifestyle.  Dairy and eggs have always made me sick to my stomache and I just started soy and gluten free also and I feel so much better now!!

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I have seen so many pictures of downed cows, mutilated chickens, abused and suffering pigs, etc. that it got to the point where every stinkin' time I ate an animal product those images flashed in my head and I became nauseous. I feel,that for me personally, it was the gentle voice of God reminding me that I have a choice in how I live my life, and was this hamburger/chicken leg/chunk of cheese really the choice that  I wanted? Was it really the choice that reflects who I am and who I wish to be? The answer was "no", and I put down the animal products for good. The eating part has turned out to be easy, but the hard part is what to do with all of my leather shoes. We are a family of five subsisting on one income, so we have to really pinch pennies. I can't afford to buy new shoes, so I wear the only vegan pair that I have over and over again. I am not at the point yet where I can get rid of all my leather shoes, so I put them in a box in the basement.

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yay stories! Mine is similar to US's.

I'm one of those people who SHOULD have become vegan during childhood...I was an animal-crazed kid to the max. I went to the library and took out every book they had about animals. I read every single one at my school (then moved onto the public library, where I took out many of their books and lots of national geographic movies. I was obsessed with "rescuing" baby birds (which I now know is not the way to go when you see chicks on the ground) and checked every garbage bag & cardboard box along the side of the road during bike rides for kittens or the like.

ANYWAY. I told my mom I wanted to be vegetarian when I was 12, after seeing Jurassic Park and actually realizing that people who don't eat animals exist. I was told I'd have to make my own meals and buy my own groceries, and well, I was 12, and didn't know how to cook nor have money to buy food, so that was the end of that for a while. My mom also told me I needed protein because I was "a growing girl". She didn't realize protein is abundant in plants too I guess. (she knows better now! ;) )

Anywho. 5 1/2 years ago I came to university to study animal biology, which was the recommended undergrad program for students who want to go to vet college. Little did I know that this program was ACTUALLY 'how to intensively farm animals'. In my second year I started taking 'animal science' courses - "animal production systems & industry", "structure of farm animals" (which we all called "slaughter" because it was about muscle formation and which animal parts became which cuts of meat. They even spent one lecture teaching us how to cook hamburgers. Seriously!) The production systems class was what started the wheels turning, though. It was affirming everything I'd heard from "those animal rights people" who occasionally had tables on campus and handed out flyers or sold vegan cupcakes. Although I almost cut meat out entirely during first year, the second year courses were really what started to open my eyes.

In that class we also visited the school's off-campus animal research facilities. I went to a "beef" cow-calf station, and a "poultry" research station. The cattle were not packed in as densely as they are on commercial farms, but even there they were crowded, into pens with concrete floors that were COVERED in manure (they only got cleaned between groups, every 6 months at most). Lots had leg and foot problems and no one in the class questioned whether the crap they were standing in made it worse. The mother cows were constantly licking and chewing gates, fences, etc. At the 'poultry' station we were shown the debeaking machine (in a hallway of a barn, dirty with crusted, burned-on beak remnants from previous chicks) and the tour guide told us it was a humane procedure, with no acknowledgement to the lack of pain killers provided. We saw a group of very young hens in battery cages. They were only 4 to a cage, less than the industry standard in Canada, but they were still climbing on top of each other to reach their water. We were shown free-run birds in an aviary system which was a dark room with poor air quality, and the birds were extremely crowded, debeaked and losing feathers.  We were also shown birds in single-bird cages (not usually used in industry) and they could LITERALLY only pivot on the spot - not turn in a circle, but turn on the spot. Neverming opening their wings. It was disgusting and it really bothered me that I was the only person who asked critical questions or seemed to care that what I was being shown was wrong.

Anyway, I stayed in the program for the time being and it gave me plenty of perspective - enough to turn totally vegan.  I watched chicks die at under one week of age during an animal nutrition project, saw how rough they and the piglets were handled by the students and TAs, watched dairy cows stand in tie stalls while one of my profs inseminated them, and saw how the sheep all crowded into the farthest corner of their pens whenever we walked down the aisle of the barn.  I heard classmates laugh when profs mentioned the problem of stray voltage on milking machines, which occasionally electrocutes cows.  I heard terms like "beef animal", "product of conception" (instead of piglets or fetuses) and "livestock". I was learning about hormones that promoted fast growth even though some of them aren't legal in Canada. Bottom line: I was taught capitalism at its finest. Mass-produce as much "product" as possible, at the lowest cost (money-wise). With little consideration for the costs to the animals used.

Anyway. 3 years ago I had finally phased out all animal foods, and after that slowly transitioned over my bathroom products. One memory I have that really keeps me going is of a piglet I met during our animal nutrition projects. Her ear tag said 141, but I called her Little Girl. She was the only piglet who wasn't afraid to come over for scratches (the rest usually cowered - understandably, since their first human contact probably involved teeth clipping, ear notching, tail docking and castration). I visited Little Girl and her pen mates often and she would come to the side of the pen for scratches. It was extremely sad and frustrating knowing there was nothing I could do to help her or the rest of them. I took a video of her. (She's the piggy who comes right up to the camera at the end.) I don't know whether she's been killed, has become a breeding sow, or has been used for research, but I still think about her and the rest of the piglets, chicks, sheep and cows in that barn.

http://video.tinypic.com/player.php?v=2mmihwl

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