I’m going to be completely honest: This morning, I made a commitment to becoming vegan. Tonight, I had a polish sausage for dinner. Is there a more epic way to fail a diet on the first day?
So maybe I didn’t think this one through. This kind of transition is not going to be easy. I’ve never even dabbled in a vegetarian lifestyle, always saying that I love bacon too much, which is entirely true. I was raised on meat and potatoes, and have long held breakfast as my favorite meal of the day for the runny eggs, the buttered toast and the crispy strips of heavenly bacon. And so diving head-first into a vegan diet without proper mental preparation or a well-stocked refrigerator was my first bad choice. But I’ve recommitted, and I’m going to stick with my vegan diet for two weeks.
What? I’m not doing this for good? No, I’m not. I can’t say I won’t decide later to commit to the vegan diet, and after my first two weeks I might want to continue this challenge, but to go forth with my honest approach to this project, I will tell you I am likely to resume eating small amounts of (locally raised and organic) animal products within a month. I’m not doing this for moral animal rights reasons, either. I completely support the idea of humans eating animals because we are at the top of the food chain and this is what we’re supposed to do.
So, why am I doing this? Simply put, I want to know that I can, and I want to set an example for others, because right now, a vegan diet is a more environmentally responsible one.
Last week, the UN released a study that said a global diet shift away from animal products is needed to help prevent resource depletion and the impacts of severe climate change.
The report, titled Assessing the Environmental Impacts of Consumption and Production, shows that agriculture accounts for 70 percent of our global freshwater consumption, 38 percent of the total land use, and 14 percent of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions. Additionally, more than half of the world’s crops are used to feed animals, not people. From the report:
Animal products, both meat and dairy, in general require more resources and cause higher emissions than plant-based alternatives. In addition, non-seasonal fruits and vegetables cause substantial emissions when grown in greenhouses, preserved in a frozen state, or transported by air. As total food consumption and the share of animal calories increase with wealth, nutrition for rich countries tends to cause higher environmental impacts than for poor countries.
In other words, the massive amounts of animal products we consume every year require us to use equally massive amounts of resources. Did you read those statistics above? The animals we eat consume more of the world’s crops and fresh water than we do. In a world of finite resources, with a population expected to reach 9 billion by 2050, now is not the time to be consuming more resources; especially not for the luxury of a burger.
The UN wants the entire world to stop eating animals. Maybe a little unreasonable, yes, but we should probably make at least a conscious effort to reduce our intake, observe our attachments to animal products and the inefficiency of our current system, and find better consumption habits. So, this is my mission in going vegan for at least two weeks, and I’m going to keep you posted on my progress.
Tonight was an epic vegan fail, but I’ve reassessed my mission and my convictions, and I’m ready to commit. Today I bought some soy milk, a lot of fruits and vegetables, and soy yogurt. I’ll continue adding to my grocery list and update you on what I’ve found that tastes good and what I really, really miss. And I’ll share with you some tips on going vegan, as well as globally responsible ways of consuming animal products.
I’m determined to come out of this with the conclusion that consuming fewer animal products is easy if you’re serious about it, but I may not. I’m going to hope that today, I just wasn’t serious enough, and that’s why I ate that polish sausage. But it could be that it just looked too good, and I simply couldn’t resist. Maybe my desire for short-term satisfaction outweighed my convictions, and by dinner time tomorrow, I’ll face the same challenge.
If I can’t do this for two weeks, I’ll be seriously worried.
The Vegan Challenge
Other Articles by Jessica Hullinger:
Book Review: “The Story of Stuff” by Annie Leonard
Defunding Attacks Inspire Increased Donations to Indiana Planned Parenthood
Preview: Indiana High School Principal on Budget Cuts, Teacher Layoffs
World Hunger Series
21 Days for World Hunger: Day 1
21 Days for World Hunger: Day 2
21 Days for World Hunger: Day 3
21 Days for World Hunger: Day 4
21 Days for World Hunger: Day 5
21 Days for World Hunger: Day 6
21 Days for World Hunger: Day 7
21 Days for World Hunger: Day 8
21 Days for World Hunger: Day 9
21 Days for World Hunger: Day 10
21 Days for World Hunger: Day 11
21 Days for World Hunger: Day 13
21 Days for World Hunger: Day 14
21 Days for World Hunger: Day 15
21 Days for World Hunger: Day 16
21 Days for World Hunger: Day 17
21 Days for World Hunger: Day 18
21 Days for World Hunger: Day 19
21 Days for World Hunger: Day 20
21 Days for World Hunger: Day 21
Solutions for World Hunger: Part I
Solutions for World Hunger: Part II
Jessica is a freelance writer from West Lafayette, IN. She recently graduated from the Indiana University School of Journalism with her B.A. in journalism and a concentration in political science. Her works have been featured in a number of publications including HELEN magazine, The Bloomington Herald-Times, and CafeAbroad.com. Jessica is an environmentalist with a passion for the outdoors. She also has an insatiable appetite for travel, and was fortunate enough to spend a semester abroad in Rome, Italy. She currently lives in Indiana but is planning a move to New York City in the near future. Visit her Web site here.
Hi Jessica, kudos to you for taking on the challenge! If you are really serious about it, I am sure you will make it. Personally, I have been vegetarian for about 10 years, and vegan for 3 years now – despite the fact that I grew up on a farm and, just like you , was raised on meat and potatoes. I came to veganism via animal rights issues first, but I agree with you that the environmental impact that our food choices have are so important that even those of us who don’t take issue with eating animals should reconsider their eating habits. So good for you for trying to set a positive example. And trust me: it’s not as hard as you might think. You can do it!
A word of advice: in order to meet the challenge (and have some fun along the way!) it’s best to avoid thinking about all the “good” stuff that you’re missing out on at the moment (that will just make you feel miserable), but rather approach this challenge with curiousity and a positive attitude. Remember: You’re doing this because YOU want to, not because anyone is forcing you and depriving you of what you”really” want. You will feel much better (and find the challenge much easier) if you try to remember this. And: don’t be too hard on yourself. The big picture is more important than the occasional slip you might find yourself making. Some people think “Well I just can’t manage veganism, so I might as well have a burger/steak/sausage every day.” Obviously, that’s a huge fallacy. Even if you find that you can’t transition to 100% vegan immediately, it’s always good to reduce your consumption of animal products as much as possible.
While meat and dairy substitutes can help sometimes to ease the worst cravings (but make no mistake: they will never taste the same, so direct comparisons are pointless), I find the best way to enter veganism is by being really open-minded about trying new foods that you might have never tried or even heard of before. You will find that by doing so, your diet will be far from restricted and instead become much more varied. (That was my experience anyway – before becoming vegan I would have a cheese sandwich almost every night; now I am cooking up something delicious and new almost every night.) Trust me: if you’re willing to experiment, you’ll soon find that there are vegan foods out there that will leave your mouth watering and probably more so than you Polish sausage! Also, there is no need to suddenly switch to a super-healthy diet, if you’re not the type for that. While I love my fresh fruit and vegetables, every now and so often I need my tofu burger and fries, my chocolate (yes, dark chocolate is vegan!), my potato chips and other “junk” food items. There are even unbelievably decadent and rich vegan desserts out there. So do yourself a favor and treat yourself to some amazing food during those two weeks!
There are a ton of great cookbooks out there (for beginners I always recommend “Vegan with a Vengeance”), but if you don’t want to invest in these just yet, there are also lots of fantastic blogs with amazing recipes (check out “Vegan Yum Yum”, “Seitan is my motor”, “The Post Punk Kitchen”, “The Voracious Vegan”, just to name a few). So, have fun, explore and enjoy – you’ll get hooked, I promise!
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THANKS, Cris. I am doing my best to explore all the foods I’ve never tried. In the past, it’s been so easy to fall back on the easy things for meals – cold cereal with milk, a ham and cheese sandwich, ice cream, eggs. What I love about my progress so far is it’s requiring me to think outside the box and explore, be creative. And I’m learning to cook. It’s only been two days and I’ve finally learned to cook beans. Our modern food industry allows us to be lazy with our meals. I’m glad to be an active participant in what I eat.
Anyway, I will have an update later today. Thanks again for your encouragement and advice!
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There are plenty of vegans that live off of cereal with soymilk for breakfast. Yes, I also agree that it is helpful to have good recipes on hand. In addition to theppk.com website, I would also recomment Veganomicon. That is my favorite cookbook. Also, you don’t have to buy all of these cookbooks, my local library carries more than 50 vegan cookbooks. I don’t dont live in a very big city. So this is one other option that you can try.
Best of luck!
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Hey Jessica, if you need a little help, have you seen the Vegan Pledge?: http://www.vegansociety.com/veganpledge/ You can sign up and get your own vegan mentor to help you along!
Anyways, stick with it, the first part is always the hardest, you just have to change your habits a little, but once you’ve done that you can be vegan with your eyes shut, it’s easy
.
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Charley – With my eyes shut! I hope so. I’m finding that it’s somewhat hard to function in a public setting. For example, most restaurant employees have no idea what’s in the food they serve! And they often guess, so I’m doing my own research.
Thanks for the tip on the Vegan Pledge. I am checking that out, currently, and I’ll post tonight about my progress.
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“So, why am I doing this? Simply put, I want to know that I can, and I want to set an example for others, because right now, a vegan diet is a more environmentally responsible one.”
How exactly is this going to set an example for others when you have no intention of sticking to it? For clarity’s sake you should title your post “Plant Based Food Challenge” as it more accurately represents your intentions, since considering the inherent rights of animals and rethinking the idea of humans being at the top of the food chain (which is relative, from, say, a shark or tiger’s POV) is kind of part of the whole vegan thing.
All snark aside, here’s hoping your challenge is more successful as it progresses.
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Maria,
Yes, I understand you may think I am making a mockery of the entire lifestyle, but does the only reason for going vegan have to be rooted in a mentality that we are simply not supposed to eat animals? Can it not be to reduce one’s impact on the environment? I think people go vegan for a number of reasons. And while I completely respect those who do so for animal rights, I simply do not feel that way.
HOWEVER, I wholeheartedly support the practice of humanely raised animals, free range, etc. I don’t want my food to have been tortured or lived a life of misery just for my consumption, which is why I make a solid effort to know where my food is coming from and what kind of a life it lived. What I’m learning through only my second day into this challenge is that animal products are in everything, and we can’t always know those important details, and that’s really frustrating.
My reasons for attempting this challenge are environmental. Some statistics say that if the entire country went without meat for one day, it would prevent 2 million tons of soil erosion, and almost 7 tons of ammonia emissions. According to the Environmental Defense Fund, “If every American had one meat-free meal per week, it would be the same as taking more than 5 million cars off our roads. Having one meat-free day per week would be the same as taking 8 million cars off American roads.”
So, I’m not consuming any animal products – at all – for at least two weeks, in hopes that others will see it’s not so hard, and to prove to myself I can reduce my footprint with what I eat. I hope others will be encouraged to do the same.
And who knows, maybe I’ll stick to it.
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Good luck Jessica, and don’t be put off by vegan elitists! The majority of us are regular people who chose to live a vegan lifestyle for any number of reasons, including just keeping peace in the house with the vegan spouse!
Whether you go vegan for a day or for a lifetime, it still has an impact. Thank you, sincerely, for making the effort. It took me 5 years to make the complete transition, so I applaud your head-first approach.
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Yes the reasons for being vegan are always rooted in mentality of not eating animals, what you are describing is only plant based eating, not veganism, it is the same as the dietary *aspect* of veganism.
The term vegan was created for the purposes of clarity amongst types of “vegetarians” to describe someone who eschews all types of animal products for the interests of the animals, no offense is intended here but thats simply what veganism entails.
there are no health reasons not to wear leather shoes and I doubt there are many environmental reasons to omit feathers/honey/wool etc , the only thing that leads a person to exclude all forms of animal products is ethical concern for nonhuman animals.
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I applaud you for trying out a vegan diet, Jessica, even if you don’t end up sticking with it. I’ve been vegan for ten years now, and still going strong. I think the best way to look at it is that every time you avoid meat, you reduce animal suffering and you reduce the strain on the world’s resources.
If eating vegan at every meal doesn’t work out for you in the long run, don’t feel bad about it. Rather, feel good about the times when you do manage to avoid meat. You’re still helping to reduce suffering.
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I totally can’t wait to see what you write about your experiences. you’re coming at this from a different perspective than most vegans I’ve met, and I know you’ll make some excellent observations.
Josie went vegan in January just to see if she could do it for the month – she felt so good physically she decided to continue when the month was up. And then I tempted her with fancy cheeses and pressured her into making her famous pizzas. She made it through March and probably could have continued if I wasn’t so evil.
I noticed a difference in our collective energy level (she does most of the cooking, so I ate mostly vegan meals during that time) when we resumed consumption of animal products. It makes sense – I’ve read studies about the quantity of energy it takes to digest certain types of proteins, and other studies about caloric restriction/fasting increasing lifespan in other species (rhesus monkeys & mice). So you have that to look forward too (: Plus, Jos has a lot of great recipes I’m sure she’d share, and at least you can eat that pasta salad!
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Kelly, you know I love that pasta salad. I left some in the fridge on Tuesday and forgot to take it home with me, and I can’t wait to eat it tomorrow (unless you stole it!).
I think working at The Sunspot gives me an unfair advantage in this challenge. I can afford a lot of the stuff I need because I get a discounted price. I thought about giving up that discount during my challenge, but I don’t know if I could fully afford to do it at all. I figure I’d rather go through with the challenge than not.
The Sunspot also gives me an upper hand because I spend so much time with people who support my mission, and a lot of people’s families ridicule them for going vegan.
Anyway, I’m lucky to have you all, and I’m lucky to have that pasta salad.
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I applaud you on your efforts in trying a more compassionate, environmentally friendly and (just possibly) healthier lifestyle.
Remember that even if you like meat and decide after the 30 days not to remain vegan, that every single meat free meal you eat does make a positive difference. If everyone were vegetarian half the time, it would be like half the people in the world were vegetarian. Isn’t that awesome news?
You might want to consider ordering a free “guide to cruelty free eating” which might help you on your journey. You can get this at the website of Vegan Outreach. You can get similar guides in other places. PETA offers a good one too.
Remember that three times a day, we make an ethical choice. Three vegan meals a week is better than no vegan meals a week. I do think that the more you try it, the easier you’ll find it to be, and you may decide you want to stick with this thing for the long haul. Good luck and keep the reasons you decided to try this in mind. It’s a cause/effect lifestyle. We choose to eat this way based on a firm belief that our actions can and do make a difference in this world. We vote with our dollar. Now that’s an empowering idea.
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Exploring all the different types of mock meat products can help the transition from meat eating to vegan, even if it is only for a couple of weeks. You can get faux everything these days. There are also loads of vegan cheese’s, cream cheese, sour cream and ice cream. You really wouldn’t know you were missing anything. And trust me they are tasty. Try rice milk as well, it is quite delicious. Good Luck, I really hope it inspires some permanent changes in your diet.
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Jessica,
That is great to hear of your efforts at vegan eating. I actually leaflet Indiana University regularly and so wonder if I might have encountered you during your time at that school.
I too was very much a meat and potatoes eater for the first 21 years of my life, and have an agricultural background, but decided to stop eating animal products simply because they cause unnecessary suffering. Thanks for your efforts and writing.
Joe
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THIS IS ME. This is exactly how things went for me. I’m not vegan, though I do eat A LOT of vegan meals. My husband and I tried going completely vegan for 30 and did great! But boy was there a lot of haters out there. “Real” vegans seemed to hate us because we still had our leather belts, etc. They were also upset cause we weren’t doing it for animal rights. I thought if we skipped eating meat for a month look at all the animals we were saving. Seemed to me like we were part of the solution, not part of the problem. Since the 30 days have been up we have gone back to eating…whatever. It would seem that old habits are hard to break, especially breakfast! But every night for dinner (unless we eat out) we have only vegan meals.
Good luck and I know you’ll find a ton of foods that you’ve never tried before or didn’t know you even liked and that will be a huge benefit to you even if you go back to eating meat!
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I know what you mean about the purist vegans, Melissa. As I’m sure you know, it doesn’t have to be that way. I’m a vegan and have many vegan friends, and most of us are not purists (in the sense that, although we are 100% vegan ourselves, we applaud people who do what they can, even if they are not totally vegan).
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Sorry for hearing about your bad experiences with vegan people .. But I know, that happens, and it is a shame for us vegans .. We should respect, admire and try to encourage new vegans, not hate them .. Really apologize for that on behalf on them, that kind of vegans are not doing good to spread the good news about vegan diet like a way to help our planet.
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No worries! I know not all vegans are the same, and you have no reason to be sorry. The amount of support I’ve received has outweighed any criticism. And I welcome criticism, anyway, because any conversation about the issue is better than none at all.
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PS I’m an Indiana University grad and have found IN to be a very difficult vegan state. We need a restaurant here in the north!
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I agree, Melissa. Indiana is a tough state to go vegan in. Lots of social pressure, I think.
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Congratulations Jessica!
I have been a vegan for almost 10 years now, and I know that it may be hard in the beginning (cravings, social pressure and so on…) but really, it is worthy! For yourself, for the animals and for the planet! I admire you for trying to go vegan after reading the UN report, that shows that you are a person who really cares for the planet … Wishing you all the best on your vegan journey!!
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Thank you, everyone for your amazing support.
My official challenge has ended, and my last post will be up soon, I think. But my eating habits have carried over out of the challenge and I find myself still pulled to eat vegan. It’s been a really eye-opening experience.
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