I appreciate you being open about your thoughts and questions Alicia!
I was vegan for almost a decade, a decade that I'll always remember I'm sure because I very much did need that shift away from the SAD diet to think about my place in food and the world. I'm a farmer now of herbs, I'm no longer a vegetarian or a vegan and it's interesting to read your pieces because I see the struggles mentally I had with food and environmental issues as I transitioned.
I can say personally that moving to veganism was reactive in nature. I wanted out of a system that felt gruesome. Through farming and through reconnection with the earth I've really been able to reconnect to our place as humans - we aren't producers the way plants are, we can't create our own calories and energy from the sun, we must consume. And yes, we can choose to consume chickpeas and lentils harvested by hand by people paid next to nothing for their labor, transported across a globe, or we could choose to consume things that are able to be produced in our backyards, which as you said, does include animals for most people in most places but also includes many many plants. I've also come to embrace through farming that I AM nature, I'm not separate from it, and my bodily needs are part of nature.
I never thought I would go back to eating meat. But neuropathy caused by low B12 (even when supplementing) and emerging food intolerances to beans, nuts, soy, yellow split pea, cashew, almonds, sesame finally convinced me to let go of the identity I had built as being a non-meat eater. I hope for your sake that your body accepts your diet, I went so so many years convinced I had to stick to something that was causing me a lot of physical pain and probably lasting nerve damage because of an idea that it was the only way to make a difference and because I was teaching and talking about plant based diets. I had convinced myself for so long that consuming an animal was inherently dirty. By then end this mentality felt more like an eating disorder and also a denial of my place in nature with a need to build connective tissue, sustain nerve endings and replace nutrients that build the blood in my veins. I made all my meals from scratch as a vegan, I love cooking and I converted many people, but in reality it wasn't working for me and I had so many questions about the sustainability of some of my staples because as a working farmer I was trying to grow them and know how hard it is. Being able to buy most of my food in the valley I live in is only possible if I allow a more flexible notion of what can be on my plate. We have to do what makes sense for us and support each other in that I think, there isn't a diet for everyone. Appreciate your willingness to be transparent!
I admitted to my partner the other day that I’d be vegetarian if we still lived in the city. We were talking about trying to farm closer to the coast, so I could grow more veg and eat more green lip mussels. But here I am on a cold climate cattle farm, in a part of the world perfectly suited to pasture raised beef, and where commercial dairy is ruining the waterways, and I’m very conflicted. I will figure it out, and I suspect the meat will disappear from my plate in the years to come but I can’t tolerate the way diary herds are treated in my region. So milk and cheese leaves a bad taste too (although delicious if I don’t think too much about it). As you’ve written before there are so many shades to ‘sustainable’ in each sector. And the closer one gets to their food source the harder it is to figure out what’s good for the environment.
I am moving towards vegetarianism. Three of our children and my husband already are. (The kids are lifelong non-eaters of meat, and two grandchildren are being raised vegetarian too.) I find it extremely hard to justify eating meat now on humanitarian grounds. I relied on wild game for a while because it hasn't been kept in an enclosed environment (young birds apart), and the people I buy from are extremely skilled shots, but even that feels wrong now. The wastage in the pheasant industry in the UK is a disgrace, and let's not even get into grouse moors. (I have never eaten grouse for this reason.) Today I ate some ham and felt rotten about it because no matter how 'humanely' an animal is reared, eventually it will meet its death at a slaughterhouse, and that- by definition - cannot be humane.
I appreciate you being open about your thoughts and questions Alicia!
I was vegan for almost a decade, a decade that I'll always remember I'm sure because I very much did need that shift away from the SAD diet to think about my place in food and the world. I'm a farmer now of herbs, I'm no longer a vegetarian or a vegan and it's interesting to read your pieces because I see the struggles mentally I had with food and environmental issues as I transitioned.
I can say personally that moving to veganism was reactive in nature. I wanted out of a system that felt gruesome. Through farming and through reconnection with the earth I've really been able to reconnect to our place as humans - we aren't producers the way plants are, we can't create our own calories and energy from the sun, we must consume. And yes, we can choose to consume chickpeas and lentils harvested by hand by people paid next to nothing for their labor, transported across a globe, or we could choose to consume things that are able to be produced in our backyards, which as you said, does include animals for most people in most places but also includes many many plants. I've also come to embrace through farming that I AM nature, I'm not separate from it, and my bodily needs are part of nature.
I never thought I would go back to eating meat. But neuropathy caused by low B12 (even when supplementing) and emerging food intolerances to beans, nuts, soy, yellow split pea, cashew, almonds, sesame finally convinced me to let go of the identity I had built as being a non-meat eater. I hope for your sake that your body accepts your diet, I went so so many years convinced I had to stick to something that was causing me a lot of physical pain and probably lasting nerve damage because of an idea that it was the only way to make a difference and because I was teaching and talking about plant based diets. I had convinced myself for so long that consuming an animal was inherently dirty. By then end this mentality felt more like an eating disorder and also a denial of my place in nature with a need to build connective tissue, sustain nerve endings and replace nutrients that build the blood in my veins. I made all my meals from scratch as a vegan, I love cooking and I converted many people, but in reality it wasn't working for me and I had so many questions about the sustainability of some of my staples because as a working farmer I was trying to grow them and know how hard it is. Being able to buy most of my food in the valley I live in is only possible if I allow a more flexible notion of what can be on my plate. We have to do what makes sense for us and support each other in that I think, there isn't a diet for everyone. Appreciate your willingness to be transparent!
I admitted to my partner the other day that I’d be vegetarian if we still lived in the city. We were talking about trying to farm closer to the coast, so I could grow more veg and eat more green lip mussels. But here I am on a cold climate cattle farm, in a part of the world perfectly suited to pasture raised beef, and where commercial dairy is ruining the waterways, and I’m very conflicted. I will figure it out, and I suspect the meat will disappear from my plate in the years to come but I can’t tolerate the way diary herds are treated in my region. So milk and cheese leaves a bad taste too (although delicious if I don’t think too much about it). As you’ve written before there are so many shades to ‘sustainable’ in each sector. And the closer one gets to their food source the harder it is to figure out what’s good for the environment.
I am moving towards vegetarianism. Three of our children and my husband already are. (The kids are lifelong non-eaters of meat, and two grandchildren are being raised vegetarian too.) I find it extremely hard to justify eating meat now on humanitarian grounds. I relied on wild game for a while because it hasn't been kept in an enclosed environment (young birds apart), and the people I buy from are extremely skilled shots, but even that feels wrong now. The wastage in the pheasant industry in the UK is a disgrace, and let's not even get into grouse moors. (I have never eaten grouse for this reason.) Today I ate some ham and felt rotten about it because no matter how 'humanely' an animal is reared, eventually it will meet its death at a slaughterhouse, and that- by definition - cannot be humane.