Our view: why I want to be vegan
Why would someone go vegan? Don’t you miss bacon? What will I feed you now? These are just some of the questions I have faced in choosing a mostly vegan diet. Yes I did say mostly, that’s because I occasionally have fried eggs for breakfast when I’m really craving them. If I’m missing it why don’t I eat it normally? Well I crave chip butties for breakfast, lunch and dinner, but that doesn’t mean they’re good for me.
I’m allergic to cow’s milk so I’ve never really had it in my diet anyway so even going vegetarian was a big step because I would almost be a vegan. I haven’t eaten meat for more than 5 months now and I stopped eating fish at Christmas. If a year ago you told me I would be a vegetarian in the future I would have laughed in your face and carried on munching on raw steak.
Just to be clear this is not an article convincing you to make the same choices I have. The explanation for why I have chosen a mostly vegan diet isn’t designed to sway you, it’s only to help you understand why I think a vegan diet is better for me.
Ethical veganism
I love animals, but that’s not why I’m vegan although it is a contributing factor. It’s a good reason to not eat meat, you don’t want to cause suffering. But for me, no matter how much I love animals, I couldn’t make the connection between a cow suffering and a juicy steak. I don’t agree with farming more than eating animals in general. I think if you can go out and kill an animal in the wild that is much better than farming because it doesn’t suffer beforehand and you have had to kill it to eat meat. I think a lot more people would be vegetarian if this was the case.
Health
This is the biggest reason I’ve decided to change my diet. Without looking at any research I feel better not eating meat. the consensus is that a vegan diet can lower the chances of heart disease, high cholesterol and cancer by a significant amount. There are plenty of documentaries which explain this in more detail (have a gander on Netflix or YouTube if you are interested). I used to struggle to get even 3 portions of fruit and veg in my diet every day, now I can easily do that in one meal.
I wanted to make sure following a completely vegan diet was in fact healthy, so I spoke with Rachel Linstead, Nutritional therapist, about going vegan and she said: “there are lots of benefits to a more plant-based diet. However, it is only as good as the variety and effort that you put in. You need balance.” She went on to explain that there is no reason a vegan diet can’t be healthy but just because you are vegan doesn’t automatically mean you are eating healthily. Vitamin B12, iodine and omega-3 are some of the main vitamins a vegan diet lacks so it may be necessary to take a supplement.
Environment
What difference does one person going vegan make? Well one documentary (vegucated) estimates by eating a vegan diet you save around 1.49 tonnes of carbon dioxide a year. Producing a kilo of beef makes around 29kg of CO2 whereas a kilo of something like lentils makes 0.9 kg of CO2.
People
Meat is an inefficient energy source. Think about how much grain it takes to feed the cow before you eat it. For 1lbs of beef you’re talking 6-10lbs of grain. Studies suggest if we used the fields we grow animal feed in now for humans and everyone ate a more plant-based diet we could eradicate world hunger. Don’t take my word for it, do the research, google it yourself.
It is harder to eat a vegan diet, you need a good multivitamin and to think about what you are putting in each meal to make sure you get balance. This can mean it is more expensive but after I set up my cupboards full of spices and herbs I have found a vegan diet to be cheaper. I’m not suggesting that farmers in outer Mongolia should be vegan, or even that everyone in the UK should be. But for me I don’t need to eat any animal products to be healthy, so I don’t.
