From A Different Perspective

Taking this class on food, I figured it would be interesting to find out what it’s like from another perspective. My roommate is a vegan and whose diet differs from mine where she has to consider more than just, ‘do I want to eat this’. My first question was the obvious, ‘what made you want to become a vegan?’ She talked about how it started off because of health reasons and later turned into respect for animals once she learned more about meat. The hormones they inject into the animals and how cruelly they were treated were enough to make her change the way she ate. On the topic of eating locally and only organics, she answered with, “I’m more concerned with animal rights than my carbon footprints.” She visits the farmers market once a week to purchase fruits and vegetables. At the beginning, she was more concerned about getting enough nutrients but is starting to look into eating organically. Eating locally grown foods is a plus and in the future when she can find the time to visit the farmers market more often.

One would think being on a strict diet would limit the kinds of food that can be eaten, which leads to cravings for past desires. In this case, meat. She answers without regret that it’s packaging and advertisements that makes people want certain foods. Once she realized this, she knew that it isn’t crucial to eat everything she wanted to be satisfied.

On the subject of meat which I thought would be hard to overcome, she said she used to as a vegetarian. But that was when she used to eat cheese and dairy. Once she stopped eating animal products, the switch just happened and she isn’t able to explain how it came about either. Although the crave for meat stopped, she would often feel left out considering that food is culture and as a Korean, this isn’t good. Meat is a huge part of the Korean food culture and if one doesn’t partake in a typical meal, it feels like something’s wrong.

Vegetarian turned vegan, what brought about this change? She was lactose-intolerant at a young age and decided that since dairy products didn’t fit into her diet to begin with, it wouldn’t matter to stop eating them. Her beliefs were that the “…the hens that laid the eggs and cows that produced the milk are treated just as poorly, if not worse, than ones raised for eating.” The idea of eating eggs soon became immoral for her and the idea of requiring dairy in one’s diet seemed unnecessary because calcium can be found in many other types of food such as green, leafy vegetables.

Animal rights, healthy choices and overcoming cravings, I now understand more of the reasons for turning vegan. Although she had good points to support her current diet, I don’t think I’m ready to give up steak completely. But this is a good reminder for me to eat more veggies.