Call it what you will--a trend, a fad, a bandwagon... But veganism doesn’t seem to be going anywhere. After watching the documentary “Forks Over Knives” over a year ago, I didn’t think anything of it really. It reaffirmed what I already knew: that vegetables and fruits are the best foods ever and cheese might actually be ruining your life. But I went on to keep eating my cheeseburgers and pepperoni pizzas. Looking back on this year, it was probably one of the worst I’ve had in a long time when it came to my dietary habits. I binge ate when I was stressed and I drank on the weekends. You know, typical college behavior. But is that an excuse to treat my body like a trash can? I don’t think it is. So, that’s why I’m dedicating my next few articles and these next 30 days to explore what the vegan phenomenon actually means and whether or not it’s going to make a difference in how I feel. I started this journey on Friday, May 20th and I don't know if it's just my excitement, but I can already feel a little bit more pep in my step.
What Inspired Me To Do This
I didn’t just wake up this past Friday and decide I wanted to do this because I feel like everyone who goes vegan has probably thought about it for a while. One of my favorite pastimes ever is watching Buzzfeed’s YouTube videos. And a couple of months ago I stumbled across one about a group of coworkers doing this 30 day vegan challenge. Well, what started as me just simply watching an entertaining Buzzfeed video turned into me stumbling upon a random girl’s YouTube channel dedicated to her vegan lifestyle. Her name is Claire Michelle on YouTube if you want to check out her videos (she rocks!), but her video called "SO YOU WANT TO GO VEGAN..." pointed me in the direction of another video by socialist and activist Melanie JoyThis video, for a lack of a better term, gave me life simply because you can't deny she had some valid points. Institutions in our society really shape how we view anything and everything. I remember in high school the topic of eating dog came up in my Spanish class and my teacher told us that we were hypocrites for condemning cultures that eat dog when our Western cultures eats cow, pork, and sometimes other game such as venison and bison. So, I don't know how I can be so obsessed with my dog one second, but be able to sit down at dinner and eat an animal that was just as conscious and alive as my dog.
As awesome as animal rights and eating fruits all the time is, these reasons aren't what sold me over on this lifestyle. The population keeps growing and corporations are only getting shadier. That being said, I do not mess with shady corporations. I think that questioning the norm and not fully trusting everything these corporations are telling us is something that has to be done. There's a lot of money to be made in the agriculture industry and where there's a lot of money, there's a lot of crazy sh-t happening--people who are willing to do anything and everything to keep turning over that profit. If there was a way to sustainably raise agriculture and feed the whole world, I'd be so down for a burger or a pork chop. But until that happens, I can't help but worry a little bit. I could go on and on, but check out the documentary "Cowspiracy" on Netflix for a more in-depth analysis because I'm just a lowly economics major with a limited number of words on my articles so I'm not exactly an investigative journalist--just a college girl trying to eat more bananas.
