My Girlfriend Is A Vegan
I started dating Jen nine and a half years ago. When we started out she ate animals. Loved a good beef burger, fish and chicken, yup, just about the whole animal kingdom was fair game.
Then she moved to London for a year and slowly became a pescatarian. That was the start. In her defense, the meat in England is atrocious and I probably would have turned to fish exclusively too.
After a few years of that Jen gave up eating things that were once alive altogether. She had become a vegetarian.
At this point, she swore she loved dairy and specifically cheese way too much to become a vegan.
Fast forward two years on from there and we’re sitting at the airport about to board a plane for a trip to see her family for the holidays (Christmas and New Years). We sit down for a quick bite to eat before we board and Jen orders the “Muesli, Yoghurt and Fruit” option but asks for no yogurt. This feels odd and I immediately know what’s coming.
I wait a bit and quietly ask why she didn’t want the yogurt. You can guess the answer. She had chosen to become vegan. At this point, there’s no reason to even argue about it. It’s her life, they’re her choices and she’s never looked healthier than she does. So why fight it?
Here’s what I’ve learned throughout her transition from meat lover to vegan:
1. Own it
In the beginning, it’s a hard position to argue. You’re only starting out and you don’t know how to handle things like dinner parties, restaurants that don’t cater for vegans or even just a basic conversation about it. People are extremely defensive about their choice to eat meat when someone asks: “Do you know where your meat comes from? Do you know how the animals are treated before they are slaughtered?”
We’d sit at a dinner table and everyone would stop and stare at Jen when the topic came up as if it were some fundamentally flawed choice. When in fact, it’s the meat eaters who should be defending their choice to eat tortured animals that suffered before being executed and why they don’t care about the effects meat consumption is having on the Earth.
After a while we (and I say we because I would become defensive of Jen’s choices too) stopped apologising about her choices.
Religion, Politics and now dietary choices are topics that I love to discuss.
If you make a choice like becoming a vegan you can’t do it half-heartedly. You have to have your arguments laid out, your defences up and you have to own it.
2. I See Women Differently
It’s the strangest thing, I now expect all women that I see to be vegans. Honestly. I find it mentally jarring when a woman eats animal products and more specifically, red meat.
I was at the airport recently and I casually walked past a hot dog stand. As I did so, I noticed a lady ordering a hot dog and I literally stopped and did a double take. I had to let the image sink in and then remember that most women actually do eat meat.
Since that encounter I’ve noticed how my perception of normal has completely changed. A woman ordering a steak at a restaurant is not something I encounter very often. Even the friends we surround ourselves with don’t eat that much red meat.
This is definitely a broader statement about being with a person for a long period of time. Their viewpoints influence yours, their habits shape and mould your own habits and in extreme cases - like mine - the person that you are with can actually alter your perception of normalcy for an entire gender.
3. Do Your Research Before You Argue
When Jen first became vegetarian I was aggressively argumentative about her not eating the right types of food. I spouted the stock standard bullshit like: “Where will you get all of your protein from if not meat?” As if the only place that you can get protein from is animal products.
I’ve learned that my once steadfast opinion about certain things have been woefully incorrect.
We sat in front of a dietician recently who told us that the only source of calcium is milk and that the adult human body requires milk intake to be healthy. Both of these are ludicrous statements for a dietician to be making.
A really basic Google search brings up the following about alternative sources of calcium:
…calcium-fortified soy milk and juice, calcium-set tofu, soybeans and soynuts, bok choy, broccoli, collards, Chinese cabbage, kale, mustard greens, and okra…
My point here is not that milk is evil. It isn’t.
The point is to not judge other people because you think your diet is working/normal/best/relevant. It might be working for you (it also might not be) but may not work for everyone.
There is no single solution for everyone on Earth. There is no one size fits all. What makes you feel ill might make me feel amazing and vice versa.
I’ve reassessed my own position on certain topics, discarded others and embraced a lot of new things thanks to Jen’s veganism.
4. People Are Stupid
The most hilarious thing that I’ve found since Jen became vegan is that people feel guilty that she can sustain her practice and that they don’t really give a shit. This guilt displays itself in various forms and very often in a “me too” statement that ends up looking desperate.
I’ve had the douchey, needy, super trendy assholes say things like: “Oh I’m a vegetarian, but I still eat fish.” OK, so then you’re a pescatarian, not a vegetarian. Idiot.
You can’t be half pregnant. You either are or you aren’t. It’s OK either way, do what you can do, there’s no need to forcefully label it and try to fit into a mould because someone else has made a choice that’s different to yours.
5. Do Your Best
After a lot of trial and error and much debate, Jen (and I) have taken the advice of some close friends of ours who happen to be vegan, yoga studio owning chefs. Their advice:
Just do your best.
I love this advice when it comes to dietary choices.
I’ve struggled with sugar addictions throughout my life and often will kick the habit of eating any/all sugar for months at a time. Then one day I wake up angry and rage-filled because I don’t smoke, I rarely drink alcohol, I don’t eat sugar, I rarely eat meat any more and at this point I’m wondering what I’m doing with my life.
So I do my best. Jen does her best and you should do your best too. But be educated about your choices (See point 7).
6. Cooking With Vegetables
Coming from Greek heritage, vegetables were always an extra (save for a few great dishes) and never the focus of a meal. The most amazing thing about living with and cooking for a vegan is that I have been forced to learn more about vegetables, how to cook them and the multitude of recipes and cuisines that are out there.
7. Think & Analyse
Don’t eat meat because it’s what you’ve always done. Don’t stop eating meat because some hippie vegan told you to. Do what you want to do but do it for the right reasons.
The right reasons for doing something often include some level of thought and a tiny bit of research. Don’t say that you know where your meat comes from if you buy it from Woolworths and your research stops there.
However, if you know where your meat comes from, and you are happy with that, then great, eat away.
The next time you’re challenged about your diet, take a second to think about your answer and if you don’t have a good one, promise to do a bit of research and get back to the person.
If you want to start somewhere, read Jonathan Safran Foer’s Eating Animals.
Conclusion
When it comes to dietary choices and the angst that often surrounds it, my question is always: “Why do you care so much?”
What is it about our desire to eat animals that makes us so vulnerable to being challenged by change?
Why do we have to eat meat with every single meal? Is it habit, culture, societal desire, large corporate propaganda?
I don’t know the answer but I do know that my life has changed quite significantly since Jen became vegan and I’m OK with that.