why are you vegan/vegetarian/dairy free/vEGGan?

[Jemma Rider]

I’m currently a vegetarian, but an aspiring vegan. My road to becoming a vegetarian was very gradual. I didn’t want to eat meat that was factory raised, so I started to only eat meat that came from local farms. This way I knew that the meat was humanly raised, which was all that mattered. But this soon lead to me not eating any meat when our local farm stopped selling meat. I didn’t really eat meat much after that. Soon I stopped eating meat altogether. I was vegetarian for a few years until I realized that eating eggs and dairy from factory farms was still supporting animal cruelty. This was when I started my own backyard flock. I have no problem eating my own chicken’s eggs. This isn’t hurting them in any way. However, I still eat dairy. I really don’t want to, but I just can’t stop myself, it’s in everything. I hate the fact that my consumption of dairy is leading to the abuse of cows. My goal is to completely cut out animal products except my chicken’s eggs. I only wish that animal products didn’t come from factory farms.

I cut out dairy first, and compared to that being vegan is nothing it's the hardest thing to but out but from what i have seen (i visited a dairy farm once an saw three veal calves almost starved to death, tried to report them but there arw pretty much no rules on neglect if the animal is considered livestock) dairy is the absolute worst. You'll get it eventually it was really hard for me and for up to three months after i would cheat whenever cheese was around. Good luck!

 

[Jemma Rider]

I am working my way towards the "clean living" that was mentioned in the 2nd post as we are putting together our new farm house and planning out what animals we will have and how we will raise them to be food but to be food that has lived it life as it should. No cow will ever have its calf taken from it we don't need that much milk. Currently we live in the city where the best I can do is to raise my own chickens, turkeys and ducks. However once we are able to move we will be raising cows/goats for milk, cheese and meat as well as we have 3 lakes that will be stocked with fish for our table as well pigs for our meat as well as we have plenty of deer and will be raising rabbits for both meat and fur as well as have over plenty of room for our veggie garden planted to ensure we all can live clean and off the land.

Its my personal dream to live somewhere i Can get a pet cow, not even as livestock pirely because i love cows. I also hope to have my own little homestead one day, i grew up hunting deer and ive always wanted to try squirrel hunting though. I'll get there one day but until then I'll just need to stick with being vegan. Dairy in general now makes me sort of sick, just because it's ment for calves i know it can be sourced humanly, so even if i manage to get a few cows one day they'll just provide lawn care in exchange for feed

 

[IslaBean]

I cut out dairy first, and compared to that being vegan is nothing it's the hardest thing to but out but from what i have seen (i visited a dairy farm once an saw three veal calves almost starved to death, tried to report them but there arw pretty much no rules on neglect if the animal is considered livestock) dairy is the absolute worst. You'll get it eventually it was really hard for me and for up to three months after i would cheat whenever cheese was around. Good luck!

I’m going to have to start slowly cutting it out. It’ll be a long process. But, I know that it’s totally worth it. Cows are precious animals!

 

[rjohns39]

I’m going to have to start slowly cutting it out. It’ll be a long process. But, I know that it’s totally worth it. Cows are precious animals!

choice B, find a farmer who treats his cows right and buy from him.

 

[Saaniya]

I live in India I become a complete vegan when I get my pet chickens earlier I was a vegetarian . I remember my mom saying that it's hard to eat them once we started to petting them as part of family .
So we accepted Veganism and I think it was my best decision because it really gives good health . I was wondering that my hairs grow really healthy when I switched to vegan diet my fellow chicken friends also vegan @Tanya22
And we trying to educate people in our local areas how to accept veganism easily in the beginning

 

[itsasmallfarm]

i see we got one of them "activists" on here. trying to look for a fight.

 

[21hens-incharge]

This thread has been cleaned up.
Many posts had to be removed.

Thank you for your understanding.

21hens-incharge
BYC staff

 

[BelovedBirds]

Hello everybody! I wanted to see if there are any other vegans/vegetarians/whatever elses out there who can share their stories on why they cut out animal products. I'm not vegan nor will i ever really be, i have chickens and I'm not about to let all those eggs go to waist but I've been dairy free for six months now and i am starting to cut out more and more, this month I'm cutting out red meat, next month is white meat, and then finely the next month will be seafood.
I am going vegan (or i guess you could say vEGGan, if you want to be specific *snicker*) for ethical reasons now but I'm wondering what made all of you go vegan too for inspiration. I grew up on a meat and cheese based diet, so it's going to be super hard cutting out literally all of my favorite foods. If anybody has any plant based recipes as well I'd love to hear them.
Ok here's my quick story it's nothing spectacular but i figure why not.
The way it works in my house, you have breakfast usually with cheese and eggs, luch usually a cheese sandwich, then finally dinner, usually something with cheese in it. I had heard about the dairy free lifestyle but never looked into it much because my parents told me that cows liked to be milked so i just never second guessed it. Then i watched a video on YouTube called "dairy is scary" and i went cold turkey the next day. My best friend went dairy free with me and my parents went along with it thinking it was just a phase, i haven't had dairy since.
My family (cousins aunts uncles grandparents) were all very opposed and a few of them made fun of me for being "too sensitive". Now I'm taking the leap and cutting out all animal products except for my chickens eggs (i can't wait to see the haters faces). My parents are taking it seriously this time since i proved them wrong with the dairy thing.
So there, now i want to hear why you cut out animal products, or meat or dairy. You don't need to be vegan to participate either feel free to leave your thoughts.

ages ago, but I'll still comment lol. I'm vegan, went vegan last year for the second time in my life, first time I didnt commit fully and gave it up. My reasoning is that 1. I love animals and honestly the idea of consuming meat or dairy grosses me out- despite being raised and previously loving it. 2. The cruelty that goes on in commercial farming. 3. How unnecessary it is... even if people raise their own animals humanely and dispatch (the honest term is slaughter, thats what it is without being sugar coated-) their own animals as humanely as possible, it's still for no reason... I mean, one flavour, one meal, isnt ever worth a life in my eyes, and every day new studies show that a plant based diet can be equally if not more healthy for the average person.
Now, I'm just being honest, I respect nature. I respect the food chain. But we... arent exactly in it anymore. We use that as a default excuse, but we aren't a part of that system anymore, we haven't been since we built civilisations separated from nature. Now, if you were to go live in a forest, hunt _and_ be hunted, fine, you're a part of nature and of the food chain- to each his own- but the minute we start farming, breeding, culling and killing, for our own enjoyment or greed, that's not it.
If a person truly loves and cares for an animal, they couldnt bring themselves to kill it unless its for its own good. And we can talk about dogs being pets and pigs being livestock but pigs outperform dogs in intelligence tests- but they simply arent as cute or as easy to love to some people, so go on the table instead. That just makes me really sad.

No hate, and please respect my thoughts on this, people often put a guard up as soon as the word vegan is mentioned lol, there are a lot of people who badly represent the community. A lot. But just consider what I say and I'll consider what you say