It seems we’re living in the prime time to convert to veganism, with the movement’s overwhelming growth on social media. I hadn’t heard much about this lifestyle until I became a vegetarian, and even then I didn’t know any of the specifics. The idea of cutting out animal byproducts didn’t appeal to me. My life was restricted enough, I thought, and I still needed the important things like calcium and protein.

This new idea made me uncomfortable and left me skeptical, as it would for most people. It went against everything I had been raised to eat, claiming that, yes, I could get the nutrients I needed from a plant-based diet. I wasn’t convinced to convert, not even after hearing about what really went on in the meat production industries or the facts upon facts I’d heard about its destruction to the rainforests. I didn’t truly comprehend the appeal of veganism until stumbling upon the documentary Earthlings.

I was shocked at this new, unedited version of the truth I realized had been sugar coated for years. This film forced me to start questioning my actions and the "facts" I had grown to believe. If, as a society, we tried to neglect everything that had been repeated to us since birth, the actions we’d seen those around us take part in, would we be acting the way we are now? If we were raised without a superiority complex, with the understanding that our relationship with animals shouldn’t be manipulated into anything other than coexistence, what would we think of the horror we call meat production?

We often find ourselves living with this mentality that new things can’t possibly fit into the life we’ve already established for ourselves. In the case of where we stand and exist with animals, generations upon generations of human beings have refused to believe how effective a plant-based lifestyle could be just because it seems too bizarre. We’ve allowed ourselves to live in a state of ignorant bliss, detaching ourselves from the things we consume because it may be scary to find out the steps our chicken breasts took to reach our dinner plates.This lifestyle we're living isn’t survival anymore, it is mindless following.

It’s time to face the truth. We’re speciesists. We have such a high essence of superiority that we’re okay with contributing to 70% of the Amazon’s deforestation just to make room for slaughtering cattle. We keep animals trapped in cages their entire lives, only to be brutally killed when they reach the correct size. We believe that, because we’re human, our lives are greater than others that inhabit the same earth we live on. These aren’t myths, they’re facts, and we need to start taking them seriously.