Why Are We Not Vegans?

As I'm sure you figured, I get asked that question a lot. Trust me, I have asked myself that a thousand times over the years. I have all these animals that I adore, how can I eat them when I don't eat others? Like my dogs? Or our birds? How come we eat some but others are pets? I have to say I have no real answer for that. Instead, I have a lot of rationales based on thought and experience.

I tried. Twice. The first time I tried, I was living in the Chicagoland area. I had been a massage therapist for a couple years maybe. In that industry, there are a lot of vegetarians and vegans. So, after a lot of thought on that reality, looking up animal welfare videos and looking up pros and cons and how to actually eat PROPERLY, I decided to give it a try. I decided I would try to go vegan most of the time, with the exception of pizza, pasta and going out for dinner. Then I would allow myself cheese.

It started out challenging, but then I began to get the hang of it. One of the biggest untruths about plant-based diets is that they're cheaper than regular diets. I spent so much money on my plant-based diet. I started watching the show "You Are What You Eat" on BBC where the "holistic nutritionist" calls out people for their horrid diets and uses death scare tactics to get them to change their lifestyles. At the end of the episodes the people adopted the lifestyle changes and always looked wonderful. This led me to visit health food stores constantly, looking for all the teas and grains and beans from the show. The teas were nasty, the grains and beans weren't that great although I always managed to choke them down. There was no real benefit to me, no matter how hard I tried. I didn't feel how I thought I would.

Hunger was ALWAYS an issue. I would eat my plant-based meal and get full. However, an hour later I'd be hungry again. That's no way to live, and if you have any kind of job you can't always be stuffing your face. By the end of work, I'd be so hangry. I guess the upside of the diet change was that I didn't have junky snacks on hand to shove in my mouth. The downside of this diet change was the time it takes to make a meal (if you're not eating salad). Not to mention, I was never excited to cook or eat anymore and I could never figure out what I wanted to eat.

That alone was a huge cause of my reversion. It takes FOREVER to make a vegan meal. People will tell you that it doesn't, but that's simply not true. Between chopping and cooking and finagling meat-substitutions or beans to create something meat-like, it took a very long time. Meanwhile, if I had chicken breasts, rice and a vegetable, I could make that all within a half and hour, prep time included.

I did not lose any weight. I did this for three months and didn't lose a pound. I honestly think that's because all I ate were carbs. Complex or not, a carb is still a carb. So, between the grains and the beans and the fruits it's all carbs. Oh don't forget the fake meats. A lot of those have carbs too. And they're gross.

I struggled and was miserable for three months. What finally did me in was eggs and, believe it or not, tuna. I went back to my omnivorous ways, went on Weight Watchers, lost 30 pounds and felt the best ever. Gained it all back a couple years later, but my propensity to yo-yo diet is a subject for another day.

Fast forward several years, and I get the itch to try going vegan again. This time, I tried to enlist my beloved who initially said "hell no", but then changed his answer to "Okay fine, but you better cook good stuff if you want me to do this." LOL This led me down a completely different vegan road. The road of experimenting with vegan comfort food. I took what I already knew and new things I looked up, I started making everything from shepherd's pie to pot pies, tacos/nachos, to chilis and soups. Jackfruit was probably the best new discovery in vegan food, and we lived right by an Asian market so it was readily available to us. Jackfruit is used as a meat alternative in dishes like pulled "pork" and tacos. David loved that stuff and his coworkers even requested my jackfruit pulled "pork" sandwiches from time to time. My vegan biscuits and gravy was surprisingly delicious too.

I was killing it with the meals. However, after four months I ran into the same problems. Cost, monotony and time consumption. It would take me two hours to make our dinners because everything was scratch and had to be chopped or processed and then sauteed before cooking. We still were not into meat-substitutes. They were still nasty. Eventually, we gave up.

Now, we still eat an omnivorous diet even though we have our animals. Nature is nature. We are apex predators. We try to be a little better though. Do people in general eat too much animal-based products. 100%. That's really an American thing though; the excess. I am addicted to Recipe.TV and they're all international cooking shows. They're fascinating. There's a dashing Brit living in France and owns a restaurant or two. Then there's the lovely Irish lady cooking and baking on her Hotel or B and B business and farm They eat meat, cream, cheese, sugar, bread, etc. The only difference is the quality of the foods and the amounts. Americans eat wayyyyyyyy too much. They also all have their own farms or know where to get their stuff.

A long time ago, Americans did not eat that much meat. I remember even going back to the 80s, we rarely ate steak at home (thank goodness because my mom cooked it until it was gray). It was expensive so people just didn't buy it at the stores that often. Fast forward and now people demand cheap meat and lots of it, whether it's poultry or beef. That's where the problems lie, I believe. Have you SEEN the chicken breasts at the store? Steaks in a restaurant? If you can get a prime rib for $12, you probably shouldn't Just sayin....

Hence, factory farming and environmental issues come into play. Unfortunately, most of us cannot afford organic meat. Or can we? I feel like if we ate less (correct portion sizes) we'd be able to farm less and get out of the whole abusive factory farming practice. As far as environmental concerns, I just don't know. I know a few livestock farmers and I'm not seeing any environmental impacts from their cattle. The land looks good, they rotate, and they have fresh water from creeks. Yeah, they say their burps and farts create environmental issues, but windmills being pushed here are killing ocean life and no one seems to care about that. Environmental arguments will always be there.

David and I will stick to being omnivorous for the time being, although we still eat plant-based meals. Maybe one day we will try again to convert. I never say never. In the meantime, we try to be more mindful by raising our own chickens for eggs and meat and eating wild game that is given to us. We know where the meat comes from and they were either free or treated like gold. I still feel odd sometimes because I have such a love for my animals. However, I think it's all part of balance. Respect the animals you consume to nourish your bodies. What the world needs is balance.

Until next time, God bless you all and go find yourself a great pair of overalls!

Kara