it's 2021 and it's still locked down
here in the uk
which means that i've rewatched the
office so many times by this point that
i don't even know if i find it funny
anymore but all this time inside
has also given me an opportunity to
reflect on the fact
that i have now been vegan for six years
which if i could go back in time
seven years and tell myself was going to
happen
myself would have responded me a vegan
never there's no way i'm never eating a
steak again or halloumi
now stop forcing your views you
protein-deficient time-traveling hippie
tree hugger
except little did i know seven years ago
but the seeds had already begun to be
planted
in my mind the story starts in 2006.
twelve-year-old me is sat around the
dinner table with my family
eating beef casserole a family favorite
and we decide to tell the same joke
that we often do what's the best thing
about having a vegetarian around for
dinner
my stepdad asks more meat for us i reply
so far so normal except i then proceed
to bite into a chunk of beef and i'm
repulsed to feel something
chewy i look at the chunk on my fork
and see a vein running through it i feel
my stomach flip
and my body tense as i realize that i'm
not eating beef
i'm eating a cow not long after i'm in
an english literature class
talking about the book that we're
currently studying which features a
vegetarian character
my teacher asks the classroom what do
you think about being vegetarian
and i put my hand up and say all
vegetarians are pale
weak and skinny the class goes really
quiet
and i turn to look at a vegetarian girl
sitting behind me
she looks at me with a mixture of anger
and disbelief
which shocks and confuses me i fought
back to our family jokes about
vegetarians around the dinner table
and felt conflicted was being a
vegetarian
not a weird thing
when i was 18 i left home and started
university where i met my girlfriend who
i'm still with
to this day for one of our first dates
we went to go and see jaws together at
the cinema
and we both bonded over our love of
movies about sharks and whales
so later in 2013 when we saw a new
documentary about whale captivity at sea
world called blackfish
was showing in london we were quick to
book tickets
however not because we cared about
marine animal captivity
but because we presumed a documentary
about a whale killing humans
would be scary to watch the documentary
was horrified but not for the reasons
that we expected
we left the cinema and began talking
about how sickened and distressed we
were
by what was happening to these animals
and we decided right there and then
that we needed to do something about it
we went home and searched online for how
we could help
and came across a protest against the
captivity of dolphins and wales
that was taking place in london so he
painted placards and
went to join in we felt empowered and
engaged in conversations with the public
handed out flyers and took part this
small march through the city
and after our afternoon of standing up
for the rights of animals
we then ate a congratulatory meal of
squid and chicken
at wagga mamas it was around this time
that i had also found myself in an
unhealthy
obsession with kfc eating it every week
often twice as i made my way through my
university essays
my trips to kfc became a pilgrimage that
went far beyond just enjoying the foods
but actually became a part of my
identity towered up burgers
sharing buckets just to myself i was a
kfc fanatic
and that was the way it remained until
that is the 14th of may
2014 a day i'll never forget i was
scrolling the bbc
online when the headline hundreds of
chickens killed an m62 lorry crash
grabbed my attention i clicked on the
article and was stunned to read
the 1500 chickens have been killed in a
truck crash with many of those chickens
being killed
from being run over by cars as they
wandered out into the road
confused by what had just happened as
well as those who had died
there were hundreds more chickens with
broken bones and wings
their bodies crushed and twisted i
thought to myself about how much pain
these animals must be in
and about how much they must have been
suffering and then it dawned on me
the animals i eat have the capacity to
suffer
and therefore they wish to live a life
free from suffering
my mind went to my fridge inside which
was
a leftover kfc from my dinner the
previous night
and so i faced an ultimatum do i
continue living in a way that causes
suffering to animals
and takes their life from them
needlessly or do i live in alignment
with the values of being against animal
cruelty
and unnecessary suffering that i said i
had
i opted for the latter and my girlfriend
and i both became
vegetarian but to tell the truth i was a
vegetarian who thought vegans were
weird crazy extremists who took
everything
too far not to mention they were
forceful preachy
and self-righteous why do vegans have to
be this way
i would exclaim after all i'm a
vegetarian
and you don't hear me going on about it
however that all changed when
i watch the documentary earthlings a
film that uses undercover footage to
objectively show the reality of what
happens to animals
for food including dairy and eggs as
well as clothing
testing and entertainment i didn't want
to watch the documentary
but my girlfriend was insistent that we
should watch it
after seeing an instagram post about it
i told her
that it was propaganda and probably set
up by peter to fulfill their agenda
however one morning after weeks of
trying to encourage me to watch it
she decided that enough was enough and
she just got the laptop out and started
watching it anyway
knowing that i would end up watching it
too it was so much worse
than i could have ever even imagined i
was stunned
i was silent i'd never seen anything
like it before
and i was completely and utterly shaken
after the film had finished i decided to
spend some time with rupert the hamster
who was the first companion animal i had
ever had in my life
i was emotionally devastated after
watching the film
and so i hope that rupert would cheer me
up as he always did
whenever i was low rupert's favorite
food was broccoli
so i gave him some to eat as i watched
rupa eating away
i thought about how he was an individual
with his own personality
his own likes and dislikes things that
made him
rupert i thought about rupert in pain or
someone hurting him
and how horrible that would be but then
i realized
that all the animals that are exploited
on my behalf
are the exact same as rupert in every
way that matters
they suffer feel pain have personalities
and they're individuals i realized that
there was no ethical way to exploit
rupert
and there was no humane way to take his
life needlessly
and so i asked myself the question how
do i morally justify
paying for animals to be needlessly
exploited and killed
on my behalf it was at this moment that
i realized that being vegetarian
wasn't enough that what we do to animals
is a moral issue
that far transcends just meat and even
just
food that is why i went vegan six years
ago and my only regret
is that i didn't do it sooner and i can
still eat the foods that taste like
fried chicken
it's just now somebody isn't being
killed when i do
and contrary to what my past self would
have said i'm neither protein deficient
nor a hippie but i might well end up
hugging some trees out of pure relief
when this pandemic's over and just for
the record i still find the office funny
[Music]
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