Veganism in 5 Easy Steps
By: Melissa Steussy
Tags: Veganism, Health, Vegan, Plant Based, Animal Rights

Photo Credit: Creatv-Eight--Unsplash

Veganism in 5 Easy Steps

A simple guide to eating more eco-friendly

This is not another one of those preachy “convert to veganism” articles. This is for people who are sincerely unaware of what is happening to animals on a daily basis. This is for the people who say, “I love animals,” but continue to eat them turning a blind eye to the injustice their eating is doing to these sentient beings, our bodies, and the planet.

It was twenty years ago when I first learned about the dangers of cow’s milk and the effect dairy products have on humans bodies, ie, extra mucous, skin problems, inflammation to name a few.

It was 15 years ago that I watched the documentary,” Super Size Me’’ and gave up McDonald’s indefinitely. My 4-year-old son had never had McDonald’s and went to a friend whose parents took him there without me knowing for pancakes. He literally threw up the food. It is not fit for human consumption, and when the body is not used to it, it will reject it. This is what many kids are eating day after day.

It was a decade ago that I took a class called, “Food and Mental Health” taught by a Naturopath in Seattle.

I was a meat-eater and a dairy consumer at this point. I had given up “red meat” for the most part and thought it was better to use ground turkey, but had no idea where the turkeys came from. I didn’t think twice about my “healthier” alternative to red meat. I was fortunate in this class as I learned about these turkeys all stuffed together in their metal cages. I saw footage of chickens and turkeys being debeaked so they wouldn’t peck each other to death and them being so “plumped” up with hormones they could no longer walk. I watched them try to lurch themselves over other dead birds, while they sat in piles of their own excrement.

I saw footage showing the baby male chickens being dumped in a huge garbage bin alive with their soft yellow down to later be incinerated as they were no use to the factory farm as they couldn’t lay eggs to be sold.

Photo by Jason Leung on Unsplash

I won’t continue, but you can imagine scenarios like this across the board within the meat and dairy industries and if you still think dairy is okay because it doesn’t kill the animal, listen to the cries of the baby cows and mothers before slaughter and when being taken away to be bottle-fed while the mother is milked so that humans can use her milk?! It doesn’t make much sense when you really stop to think about it. We harm innocent creatures for a taste or flavor that goes well with our nightly glass of wine or our dinner out, but put no connection to the sentient beings we are massacring on a daily basis.

But, what will I eat?

For those of you still with me, with curiosity, what does this meat-free life look like?

What will I eat? What will my family eat? How will I get my protein?

I’ve got you. Below are some resources to get started on your journey. Do you have to be perfect? No, just a beginning would be learning about the animals we say we care so much about. Watch a documentary, start following vegetarian and vegan recipe bloggers, Give up meat one day a week (Meatless Mondays is a thing). Give up meat and dairy for a month (Veganuary). You won’t die and you might just like it! What is the worst thing that can happen when you incorporate more whole foods into your diet and maybe trying something that you traditionally wouldn’t have?