‘Coming a Veg’ – We’ve Come a Long Way

‘Coming a Veg’ has been a monthly series which highlights vegetarian and vegan “coming of age” stories. To wrap up my first year as a vegan, I am sharing a bit of my own history of when and how I became a vegetarian.

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It is hard for me to remember eating meat. Although I can frequently taste when an animal product has contaminated the food I am eating, I have to strain to remember the actual ingesting of a hamburger, shrimp or chicken piece. That is because it was almost 40 years ago. I was amazed at the memories that came flooding back once I started to think about what I went through during my first decades as a vegetarian so I apologize that this post got as long as it did.

1974 – The year before I became vegetarian.

As I share on my bio page, Central PA Vegetarian, “It was only with the patience and love of my parents that I, as a teen at home, was allowed the luxury of being served separate and healthy home cooked vegetarian meals.”

I took a look through some photos of myself around the age I decided to give up eating meat. I found photos from 1974, the year before I became vegetarian, fishing and shooting a gun. The images are so foreign to who I am now that I stare at them and struggle to remember what it felt like being that person. When I tried, I realized that a lot of my transition from meat eater to vegan was peppered with less supportive moments than I had remembered. In actuality, it was a rare person outside of my immediate family that ever was accepting.

1976 – Bush Gardens petting zoo.

It is an odd tween/teen that doesn’t love animals and have a certain amount of compassion for them, I was no different. I do remember the moment I committed to not eating meat and it started with my care for other species. My sister, then 10 years old, challenged me with, “You know there is a cow in your soup.” It was all about my favorite soup, it had a huge hunk of stewing beef in it. I imagined it as a tiny whole cow, much like the small plastic animals I loved playing with. It was wading through a sea of peas and other wonderful vegetables and I couldn’t eat it. That was the turning point for me.

My transformation was gradual and over the next 3 years gave up everything but egg and dairy products. I tried to take the next step but when my dog, who loved spaghetti with anything on it, turned up his nose as my tomato only sauced pasta I took it as a sign that vegan food was terrible and went back to eating eggs and cheese until a year ago.

1978 – Waiting backstage to dance at our local arts festival. Me in red shorts, my best friend leaning on the post and my sister to her right were all vegetarian at one point or another.

As a lacto-ovo vegetarian teen I do remember the challenges of eating in the high school cafeteria. I ate a lot of cheese pizza, mashed potatoes and corn. Hanging out at the fast food burger joint after school with friends would test my resolve. The gal behind the counter would make fun of my request of a cheeseburger, hold the burger. She would shout into the ordering microphone some lyrics from the newly re-popularized Rubber Biscuit, “Have you ever heard of a ‘wish sandwich’? A ‘wish sandwich’ is the kind of a sandwich where you have two slices of bread and you wish you had some meat.” The place would burst into laughter and I would want to crawl into a hole.

Waving a red flag as I loathe following the girl who made fun of my being a vegetarian.

I now know that there would have been teasing even if I wasn’t vegetarian but, as a teenager, my perspective was limited. I changed from being an outgoing youngster to a much more introverted person and kept my vegetarianism quiet for the most part. I skipped going to social cook-outs that other marching band members would throw after they joked about having a “head of lettuce” set aside for me.

I survived and so did my resolution. My choices influenced some friends to, at least temporarily, try vegetarianism. My sister, best friend and a few other friends tried it on for size and I know at least two friends who are still vegetarian and their influence has encouraged many others to permanently stop eating animals too. I was amazed to recently realize that the connection between my choice and decisions and other vegetarians I have thought totally unconnected to me have, in fact, turned out to correlate directly.

An unwitting trail blazer, I wish it had been a smooth path for me to travel after high school. My vegetarianism caused me firm enemies who felt personally threatened by my personal choice. One 20-something fellow insisted that, through accidental cuts and scrapes (and probably my menstrual period), I would eventually run out of blood because I wasn’t ingesting any to replace it. He refused to talk to me because he thought I was the most foolish person he had ever met.

1984 – My wedding day with Jim, best friend beaming at us. We were all vegetarian at the time.

The small mindedness didn’t reserve itself to only the steel-working town I was raised in; as a student at Penn State University I found there were still hurdles to leap as I navigated the rough path of vegetarianism. Attempting to find support through community, I tried to reach out to a new local animal rights group, Trans-Species Unlimited. Instead of being welcomed, I was belittled by founder George Cave. Then a writing professor at Penn State who was heavily influenced and called to action by the words of bioethicist Peter Singer, Mr. Cave had no time for anyone whose views weren’t in perfect alignment with his own. A very angry individual, he was better at stirring up confrontation with people rather than sharing information or leading by example.

Me and my newborn son. He was raised as a vegetarian and grew into a healthy young man.

Happily, I started dating Jim, classmate from high school and good friend. He and I moved in with a couple of other friends in what was to become something of a little veggie commune for a while. As he shared in his story, ‘Coming a Veg’ – A Life Defining Moment, Jim’s family didn’t take well to his choosing vegetarianism.

After we married, they constantly tried to undermine us by refusing to tell us what was in the food they served at family gatherings. When I became pregnant, they felt we were certainly doing damage to our unborn son by my remaining a vegetarian. As hospital lab technicians/ manager, they went so far as to helping themselves to my blood results but failed to prove I wasn’t getting enough iron. They also used my placenta as a lab joke by saying you could tell by the way it looked that I was a vegetarian.

Our son was a very healthy baby and grew into an active and cheerful toddler. In the mid to late 1980s, we struggled against opinions that we were hurting him by, “not letting him eat meat.” At a neighborhood gathering, I found myself exasperated with such outrageous claims that I responded by saying, “Eventually he will also have the freedom to smoke cigarettes but I am not going to light one up for him now.”

1988 – Our first car’s vanity plate, “VEJJIE.” Even though it estranged some family members, we raised our son as a vegetarian.

As our son grew into an active boy, it was obvious to everyone that we weren’t doing him damage. Unfortunately it took totally cutting off relations with Jim’s father (more issues here than just the veggies ones) that curtailed his gleefully feeding our unsuspecting son meat. That lead into the 1990s which seemed to open up so many more choices in the grocery store, ones that fed our happy family.

In retrospect, the rest of my vegetarian adulthood and my last year as a vegan has been a seamless shift. Over the decades I can see my lead has caused some ripples for what I would say is to the good. The trend of more accessible vegetarian and vegan foods, restaurants and support in the United States may ebb or moderate but currently I am thrilled with the direction things are going. We’ve come a long way from the couple of vegetarian cookbooks on the shelves of the local bookstore and I like to think I had a small hand in that.
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The first Monday of each month this year, I featured a new ‘Coming a Veg’ story and would I love to hear yours! If you are feeling shy, your story can be posted under a creative screen name, anonymous or at least pass this request along to any other groups or individuals who may be interested. Find more information at this link or send submissions to my email: Pennsyltucky Veggie.

‘Coming a Veg’ – A Life Defining Moment

‘Coming a Veg’ is a monthly series which highlights vegetarian and vegan “coming of age” stories. Jim’s story reflects on when he, as a young man, decided to become a vegetarian. This was written 8 months ago just as he was making the transition from being vegetarian for 28 years. Jim is an art editor at Penn State University and has lived in central Pennsylvania for his whole life. You can enjoy many of his other writings on his blog, AfterImage.

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Everything jelled in my mind in autumn of 1984 to become an ethical vegetarian. I was 22 at the time, and had never heard of this term before. My girlfriend [future wife] had been an vegetarian for about 10 years when we began dating. Our long talks together seemed to stop time, and morning would greet us as we ended our dates. I had found a kindred spirit.

Up to this point, I felt the odd-one-out in regards to the hunting and killing animals. As I began to learn even about the cruel treatment of animals for human sport, consumption, clothing, etc., it rapidly became clear in my mind that I did have choices that I really had never considered before as an option. It was just before ordering a meal with my girlfriend Terri, my father, and his wife at a Red Lobster in Harrisburg, I made a ethical stand that shocked everyone at the table when I did not order any meat of any kind. I cannot remember what Terri and I ate, but it probably was a cheaply made salad and some sort of hot vegetable like an over-baked potato or boiled corn on the cob. I had not told Terri about my choice before I made it — it came about so quickly in my mind while looking at the meat-laden menu at the table that evening, but I knew it was a life defining moment, as well as a stand I needed to take for myself.

I think that my father was insulted that I didn’t order any meat that evening, and he constantly challenged, teased, and insulted me about the choices I was making for the next several years. He called us Hare Krishnas, even after my explaining that we were not and had no intention of becoming a part of that movement.

While we lived in Lewistown, we did frequently visit the Hare Krisha’s farm near Port Royal. They offered free vegetarian food to anyone who came during one of their holy festival celebrations which seemed to be just about monthly. Not having ever had Indian food before, this was a taste explosion to me compared to the PA Dutch meals I grew up with. We learned about their attempt at having the farm become self-sustaining, took several cooking classes they offered, and even qualified financially to received their vegetarian version of Meals-on-Wheels once a week. After a short while, the acquaintances we made at the farm knew that they were not going to convert us, and so we were all able to enjoy the food, conversation, and each other’s company on many occasions.

For a number of reasons, I had gained weight while at college, and with a newly found lifestyle and healthy food choices, I shed the extra pounds rapidly. In 1984 I went from a 42 stretch waist pair of pants to a 31 in about four months, and felt great. Though I have fluctuated weight some since then, I am glad to say that I am at a 31 waist today.

In the mid 80s, I am sure I pushed a few buttons by having a home-made Meat is Murder vanity plate on the front of our car, as well as entering artwork in the local Arts Festival that dealt with the emotional and physical cruelty of animal experimentation. This coming from the descendant of one of the founders of the annual Hegins Pigeon Shoot did not sit well with some in my family, but my grandmothers and great-aunt were accepting of our food choices. Meals were a time of sharing for them, and they never made us feel awkward about the food we ate, or didn’t eat, and were very accommodating.

Since my father had never respected me, my choices, ethics, morals, values, politics, religion, and especially my wife and son, I ended my relationship with him about 20 years ago. My mother, though she doesn’t understand being a vegetarian or vegan, would ask what she could make for us when we visited her. I’d offer some suggestions, as well as things we could bring to accompany her planned meal , but in the end we could be assured that she would usually make cheese lasagna and salad. Even on holidays this was the case, and I’m sure her late-husband and my older brother got tired of this. Today when we are visiting, she will choose a restaurant that she knows we can eat at because “they have salad.” My in-laws have been respectful of about our ethics, and are comfortable eating out with us even when it is one of our favorite vegetarian restaurants in NYC!

Over the years healthier food choices have become easier to find, purchase, and create either from items at grocery stores, health food stores, or eating out at restaurants. It has been surprisingly easier to eat vegan options that are nutritious as well as creative and tasty. Vegenomicon is a world away from the first Moosewood cookbook, but I still cook a few recipes from our copy of this dearly worn and food-stained friend, often altering them to vegan just by using ingredients that we happen to have on hand.

With the exception of two years in Pittsburgh, I have lived in central PA my entire life. Vegan and vegetarian choices have become steadily more and more available here in part due to the college-town lifestyle in State College. Usually I can find at least one appetizer, salad, and an entree at a restaurant. This is not a great selection to choose from, but it certainly is better than it was 27 years ago. One still has to read menus carefully and ask lots of questions about ingredients used in preparation, no matter if you are in a large metro area or a small agricultural based community in PA. It can be tiresome to always be reading product labels, asking waitstaff about how an item is prepared, and even dealing with society at large when they react to the terms vegan and vegetarian. Suggested “healthy choices” on menus are just that, but there are times at the end of the day that I just don’t feel like putting up with any waitstaff attitudes when I ask questions about an item listed on a menu, and so we end up preparing a meal at home.

At work if there are business lunches or one of the social committee’s holiday parties, just about everyone knows I am the lone vegetarian in the group, and they are accommodating, usually either having a special catered option, or having a few non-meat options available to choose from.

Over 27 years ago, I rediscovered a friend who became the love of my life. Her world intertwined with mine, and I examined the choices I was making. I became an ethical vegetarian, and am fortunate to have her in my life, sharing adventures together along the way. I am not sure of when I may be able to state that I am a vegan, but looking back over the past few months, I can see that perhaps one day in the future I’ll be reflecting and realize that it has been the case for quite some time.

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The first Monday of every month I feature a new ‘Coming a Veg’ story and would I love to include yours! If you are feeling shy, your story can be posted under a creative screen name, anonymous or at least pass this request along to any other groups or individuals who may be interested. Find more information at this link or send submissions to my email: Pennsyltucky Veggie.

‘Coming a Veg’ – Sue in Training

‘Coming a Veg’ is a monthly series which highlights vegetarian and vegan “coming of age” stories. This July, Sue’s is well into her 6th year of vegetarianism and we find her the healthiest and happiest she has ever been. You can enjoy her recipes, writing and inspirational running stories on her blog, Sue in Training.

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About five and a half years ago, I stopped eating meat and fish. In other words, I became a vegetarian. At the beginning, nobody believed this would last, not even myself! But today I’m convinced it’s one of the best decisions of my entire life.

Unfortunately, I don’t remember the exact day I decided to go vegetarian, but I think it was one or two weeks before Christmas in 2006.

My initial reason to ditch the meat was quite selfish. I have a very sensitive stomach, and someday I noticed that I often felt nauseous and got stomach cramps after eating meat or fish. I also found out, that I feel much better after eating plain rice, veggie stir-fries, salads, or cooked vegetables. So I started a little experiment. I decided to try a vegetarian diet, only for a short while, to see how my body would respond.

Originally, I had planned to consume no meat or fish, until I started to crave it. Apparently, the cravings never came. From the very beginning, I haven’t missed eating meat at all! Quite the opposite, my stomach issues disappeared completely, and I felt absolutely fantastic.

As I wanted to do this ‘vegetarian thing’ the right way, I did a lot of research, mostly online. That’s when I found a large and active vegan forum. In short, these passionate vegans had quite an impact on my believes. I became an ethical vegetarian. And I even tried to be vegan for a while, but I found it to be too difficult and too restrictive, so went back to consuming eggs and dairy.

Just like most of my friends, I grew up eating lots of processed junk food, and next to no vegetables. As I had changed my diet mostly for health reasons, I researched how to be a healthy vegetarian/vegan. For the first time, I focused on getting all the nutrients I need, trying to get in lots of plant-based protein, fiber, vitamins, and minerals. I found some awesome recipes online, and started to cook most of my meals from scratch.

Can you already see where this is going? Not only did my new vegetarian/vegan diet cure my stomach problems, I also lost 20 lbs within 5 months! The weight was literally melting off, and none of my clothes fit me anymore.

I have to admit, though, that this sudden and drastic transition from junk food omnivore to health conscious vegetarian was quite hard on my digestive system, if you know what I mean. So I would rather recommend slowly phasing out some not-so-healthy foods, and gradually replacing them with healthier options.

The past five years have probably been the healthiest and happiest of my entire life. I’ve finally learned how to reach and maintain a healthy weight without dieting and deprivation. Most people I know believe that a vegetarian diet is boring and restrictive, but I totally disagree! I’ve learned to love lots of new foods that I had never tried before, like lentils, chickpeas, tofu, quinoa, and many more. Whenever I’m asked, “If you don’t eat meat or fish, what CAN you eat?”, I usually answer, “A lot! Just look at my colorful, delicious, and filling lunch/dinner/snack!”.

Today I’m still enjoying my plant-heavy diet to the fullest, and I’m trying to show the people around me, that you can be healthy, fit, and happy without consuming meat.

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The first Monday of every month I feature a new ‘Coming a Veg’ story and would I love to include yours! If you are feeling shy, your story can be posted under a creative screen name, anonymous or at least pass this request along to any other groups or individuals who may be interested. Find more information at this link or send submissions to my email: Pennsyltucky Veggie.

‘Coming a Veg’ – a greater understanding

Becoming a Vegan this past September was a completely natural progression that began well over a year ago but, given my obsession with eating garbage foods, is now a complete surprise to most who knew me growing up. My best friend, Kyle, has been a Vegetarian for about 20 years and really opened my eyes to the delicious world of a plant-based diet. When we would go out to eat, we would always order two veggie entrees and double our options. Very quickly I realized that not only was Vegetarian food delicious, but I felt so much better. Problem was, I had gotten divorced just one year earlier and was without health insurance for the first time in my life. I had weaned myself from my anti-anxiety medication and was still having panic attacks. This, coupled with my growing awareness of the disgusting nature of the commercial dairy and “free-range poultry/egg” industry, pushed me fully into wanting to go completely Vegan. I now no longer suffer from panic attacks (minus the normal/occasional parental frustrations).

My husband, who was a completely defensive omnivore, is now almost completely a Vegetarian and fully supports me. My sons {Max(7) Wes(5)} eat Vegetarian while they are with me and have taken to it rather well. I am currently trying to find new ways of planning meals on a budget that are nutritious and everyone will enjoy.

My biggest challenge has been finding places, both locally and when traveling with my band – Miss Melanie & the Valley Rats, where I can safely eat (without always having to order the pasta with marinara sauce – yawn). I almost always keep a granola bar or snack on hand just in case of non-vegan emergency (mama gets grumpy when hungry). I have also gotten used to drinking black coffee, since many places only offer half and half, no non-dairy substitute.  Thankfully, more vegan options are available in State College – Aardvark Kafé, MyThai, Fuji & Jade are some of my favorites.

Of course, so many people are always asking how I get my protein and I just show them my huge biceps. I kickbox, do pilates, sing in a blues band and chase after my children, and other peoples’ children all day, and have no problems with malnourishment. I easily point out to them that you can be a Vegan, be active, and still get all of your vitamins and minerals, free from animal products. So my biggest benefits are health related. My anxiety is gone, my energy is up and I have never felt better! I hope, within the year, to have my first pregnancy as a Vegan.  *fingers crossed* My Veganism has also caused me to seek out only cruelty-free products for my home and more homeopathic remedies, as opposed to medications. I now have a greater understanding of my body, the things I consume and the world in general. 
Melanie Morrison
32 years old

‘Coming a Veg’ – Eating Mindfully

‘Coming a Veg’ is a monthly series which highlights vegetarian and vegan “coming of age” stories. Tiffany is an inspiration and her all inclusive attitude shines through with everything she writes n her award winning blog, Como Water. Her recipes and thought provoking writing style can’t be beat and I am honored she would share her story for my blog.

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First, I’d like to thank Terri for allowing me to tell my story on how I became a vegetarian! And now, without further delay, here goes nothing …

The year was 1995. The month was October. I was sitting with friends in the cafeteria. I bit into my burger. It spit back. Red, runny, fat-laden liquid. I gagged. Dramatically. (I am a Leo, after all). Sputtered the saliva-laden, red, meaty, doughy, mustardy, ketchupy slurry out of my mouth and into a napkin. The decision was made. I would no longer eat meat. I was 15. My mother didn’t believe me. She made my favorite meal for dinner the next day—BBQ ribs, potato salad, cabbage, and cornbread. I only ate the sides. Her reply, “wow, you’re really serious about this aren’t you?”

Even as a young child, eating meat didn’t sit well with me. I’d pick around the bones, leaving most of the flesh on the hard cartilage. I’d internally gag at the veins. I preferred to eat the sides, rather than the meat. And so, giving up meat in 1995, didn’t really feel like “giving up” anything. It did elicit feedback from the peanut gallery though…

Family members asked, “what are you trying to be white?” Friends would go on and on about how good their fried chicken was. Yet, I just had no desire to eat it. My trajectory to my current eating patterns however, approximately 65% vegan, 35% vegetarian was exactly that—a trajectory.

In 1995, after becoming a vegetarian, limited financial resources and limited knowledge about being a healthy vegetarian, left me eating a lot of carbs. A lot. I was young. I was skinny. And I was driven by preference, rather than consciousness around the linkages between nutrition and health. Over time however, through college, conversations with friends and other family members who had stopped eating meat, far too many deaths of close family members due to diet-related diseases, and my unquenchable thirst for food documentaries, I learned more and more about nutrition. I am still learning. But the more I learn, the more I am motivated to eat healthier—which to me means, eating plants, eating raw, and resisting my biggest vice—sweets.

I truly believe that diet is a work in progress. And there are a lot of impediments to eating the way many of us know we should. I also believe that a veg-centric lifestyle is not for everyone. There are real barriers—financial, cultural, and others—to being vegetarian/vegan. But just as one cannot deny the right for folks to eat in ways that are consistent with their realities, one cannot deny the fact that we, our global society, have moved very far away from ‘Cooking with Mother Nature,’ as one of my favorite food writers Dick Gregory has described.

However we chose to eat, whatever we choose to eat, we should eat mindfully. With our eyes and minds open. With gratitude and with awareness. My own (totally biased, of course!) belief is that if we train ourselves to do that, it will lead us to knowledge and knowledge will lead us to plants and plants will lead us to health. And after all, isn’t that what it’s all about? Living the healthiest, happiest lives we can?

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The first Monday of every month I feature a new ‘Coming a Veg’ story and would I love to include yours! If you are feeling shy, your story can be posted under a creative screen name, anonymous or at least pass this request along to any other groups or individuals who may be interested. Find more information at this link or send submissions to my email: Pennsyltucky Veggie.

‘Coming a Veg’ – A vegan waiting to happen

‘Coming a Veg’ is a monthly series which highlights vegetarian and vegan “coming of age” stories. Gary Gill’s story shows how his gradual awareness led him to veganism. He is active as the coordinator for the Juniata Valley Vegetarian Society in the heart of this region. Involved since 1999, Gary was recently featured in his local newspaper, The Lewistown Sentinel.

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I always believed that I was a vegetarian/vegan waiting to happen. I sometimes like to trace my diet back to age 12 years old when I was staying for a week or two at my beloved aunt and uncle’s farm. One day my aunt asked what we should have for dinner and someone said chicken and I remember saying happily, “yeah!” I imagined that my aunt would remove the frozen formless bird from the freezer but instead my uncle said, “Come on Gary” and out the front door he went with me following with a puzzled expression. Soon it became clear where our meal was coming from when I saw us walking toward the chicken coop. Inside the chicken coop, my uncle hollered, “Help me corner one, Gary.” But I kept letting her get away, although I knew it was inevitable. Finally my uncle grabbed one and headed for the chopping block. Stunned I followed far behind; then paralyzed and powerless, I stopped and stared. My uncle, showing a flash of kindness toward me at this moment of terror, turned and said as he raised the axe, “you may want to turn your head.” When I looked up again, the chicken was running headless across the yard until her life had been bled out of her. I didn’t eat chicken that night, but I also did not become a vegetarian then either.

I was a typical meat and potatoes, junk food eater until about forty years of age when I became, for some unexplained reason, interested in the food that until that time I thoughtlessly would stuff into my mouth whatever was available. For the first time I found myself drawn to articles in newspapers and magazines about food. The year was 1985 when a vegetarian friend lent me a book Animal Liberation by Peter Singer that furnished the ethical basis for a re-examination of my food choices. In time I learned our food choices affect us in so many ways. Whether it’s feeding a hungry planet, protecting the environment, showing kindness to animals, or feeding the soul, food choices play a major role.

I started as a vegetarian but now I eat a vegan diet. I have been told that it is a radical diet but what can be more radical than a food system that relies on the cruelty of factory farms. At age 68, there is no doubt that I owe my good health to eating a strictly plant-based diet. I certainly have been teased a lot about my diet over the years, but when you know you are doing the right thing it really doesn’t matter what other people say.

Gary Gill

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The first Monday of every month I feature a new ‘Coming a Veg’ story and would I love to include yours! If you are feeling shy, your story can be posted under a creative screen name, anonymous or at least pass this request along to any other groups or individuals who may be interested. Find more information at this link or send submissions to my email: Pennsyltucky Veggie.

Kat’s Vegan Tuna Salad

Here is a reminder to check out this month’s ‘Coming a Veg’ – The Only Way I can Be, and her blog The Vegan Kat.

I highly encourage you to try her great recipe for Vegan Tuna Salad. It reminded me of a similar recipe I posted last August, Chickpea Salad.

Such bright flavors make it feel like summer again. With the spring birds singing out my window, I know what I am making for lunch!

‘Coming a Veg’ – The times they are a-changin’

‘Coming a Veg’ is a monthly series which highlights vegetarian and vegan “coming of age” stories. BC Condon-Gill’s story shares how over time her compassion for animals has led her to veganism. She is active in the Juniata Valley Vegetarian Society in the heart of this region.

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My journey began around 1985 in southern New Mexico, where I lived for many years. My family and I were given two female goats, and we decided to get one bred and have fresh goat’s milk. It soon became apparent that the whole process was quite a bit more involved than we had imagined, but luckily we had friends with experience in the dairy-goat realm.

When the kids were born – 2 females and a male – we quickly grew very attached to them, and they to us. It was necessary to take them away from their mothers shortly after birth and bottle-feed them, so we could have the milk. I brought them into the house and watched them totter around. As they grew older, we were charmed and amused by their antics, and my children would play inside the goat enclosure, climbing on and jumping off the barrels along with the goats.

As the “kids” got older, it became prohibitively expensive to feed them, so reluctantly we decided we needed to find homes for them. Goat barbecues were as popular there are as pig roasts are here, so one of our stipulations was that the goats were not to be killed for food. The two females went to people interested in having dairy goats of their own, and the male was given to a co-worker who told me he wanted it as a pet for his son. He told me story after story in the following weeks about how his son loved the goat, and how he made a little cart for his son to sit in as the goat pulled it along, etc. etc. One evening, another co-worker pulled me aside and said “I can’t stand listening to Fernando any more, BC. He killed the goat and ate it the weekend after you gave it to him”.

Well, I felt as if someone had killed and eaten my child – shocked and sickened. As I thought about it, I realized that I ate cows all the time, and that cows were very much like goats. I decided that I wouldn’t eat the meat of any mammals, or serve it in my house. I still used poultry and fish, but began cooking vegetarian meals. I ate this way for the next 20 years, and eventually returned to Pennsylvania. At some point, I began losing my taste for things – white chicken meat, shrimp, crab – and began to think, quite spontaneously, about incorporating whole foods into my diet more, all of which led to more and more vegetarian cooking. I also lost 15 pounds without even trying.

One day, I was downtown for a Women’s Wellness Day event in Lewistown, working at a booth set up by my employer, Lewistown Hospital. Right across from us was a table set up by the Juniata Valley Vegetarian Society. I went over, looked at their brochures, bought a tofu cookbook and signed up to be on their mailing list. I was so excited to discover that there was such a group in Lewistown, and I looked forward to meeting other vegetarians and maybe getting some ideas from them about how to go further with my budding vegetarianism. By this time, I was eating almost no meat and had started to use soymilk instead of cow’s milk. About six months later, I met my husband, who was the coordinator of JVVS. We recognized each other from that day at the Women’s Wellness Day event, and also realized that we had passed each other riding our bikes one day a year or so earlier near where I was living at the time.

Ice cream and cheese, my two great dairy loves, were the last to go. Luckily I found a great vegan ice cream, and we use a good cheese substitute made from tapioca sometimes – but I don’t eat a lot of either of those things.

I’m completely happy with my evolution from “meat and potatoes” to vegan. The most important aspect of it, to my mind, is that no living creature is killed or exploited for my nourishment. No babies are being taken away from their mothers to provide milk for me. I feel great, and co-workers several decades younger than me tell me they wish they had my energy!

Compared to southern New Mexico, the climate in central “Pennsyltucky” is much less vegetarian/vegan friendly, but I’m hoping that will change. I enjoy it when I take food from home for my lunch at work, and people ask me about what I’m eating and tell me how good it smells. They do like to poke fun at the “veg-head” sometimes, but then someone will bring me a vegan recipe they cut out of a magazine. Just today, the Lewistown Sentinel “Food” section featured a vegetarian recipe. The times they are a-changin’.

BC Condon-Gill
December 14, 2011

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The first Monday of every month I feature a new ‘Coming a Veg’ story and would I love to include yours! If you are feeling shy, your story can be posted under a creative screen name, anonymous or at least pass this request along to any other groups or individuals who may be interested. Find more information at this link or send submissions to my email: Pennsyltucky Veggie.

‘Coming a Veg’ – An Unrefined Vegan

Welcome to the first story in my series ‘Coming a Veg’ which highlights vegetarian and vegan “coming of age” stories. Allow me to introduce Annie, a self proclaimed unrefined vegan whose blogs are real inspirations as is her story. I am honored she submitted it to Bacon is NOT an Herb to kick off this monthly feature.

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I grew up in Northeastern Ohio where the endless months of snow, cold and gray sky force most of us to stay indoors and fatten up – with the help of sausages, large cuts of meats, Dagwood-sized sandwiches and lots of cheese – preferably consumed in front of a large screen television while watching football. Not exactly the environment expected to spawn a health-conscious, ethical vegan, but eventually, after many years, that is exactly what I became.

The idea of becoming a vegetarian rolled around my brain for a few years before I took the plunge. By the time I read Fast Food Nation, I was ripe for the picking. Chapter 8 of Fast Food Nation to be exact; the chapter where Eric Schlosser writes about his visit to a slaughterhouse and describes “the most dangerous job.” Up to that point, I’d made it through the book fascinated, but unscathed. I hadn’t eaten fast food of any kind in years so none of what I’d read really surprised me. But by the time I finished reading that chapter – a summer evening in 2006 – I had sworn off eating my last piece, last slice, last bite of animal. It was incredibly painless.

Notice I didn’t say I’d taken my last sip. It took me another four years to give up dairy products. And like most people, I was addicted to cheese and could not imagine living life without it. I’d grown up in a household where cheese was used like a condiment – sprinkled, melted or sliced onto nearly everything. Cheese was sheer gustatory pleasure. It brought psychic happiness, despite the fact that eating it didn’t make my body happy.

But I kept eating it – right up until the science convinced me to stop. As I became more interested in health and in taking care of my body, I started learning that beyond the myriad of ethical reasons to give up eating animal products and switch to whole, plant-based food, there were convincing reasons to do it for my heart, my veins and my brain. The consumption of meat and dairy products has been linked to the major “western” diseases: high blood pressure, cancer, cardiovascular disease, diabetes. The book that laid it all out and which finally convinced me to adopt a completely plant-based diet was The China Study, by T. Colin Campbell, PhD. There could be no way back after reading the evidence. A few months later, I gave up (added) oils – even the so-called “heart healthy” varieties. The science again showed me that even small amounts lead to clogged arteries which lead to cardiac arrest and stroke. I didn’t like the sound of a middle and old age filled with aches, pains, pills, long-term illnesses and life-threatening surgeries.

Now I reside in another meat-centric state beginning with the letter O. Luckily, it’s easy even here to follow a plant-based diet. We grow many of our own greens and vegetables; I make all of our bread and desserts – all of which are made with whole grains and unrefined sugars or stevia. My devotion to a low-fat, plant-based diet inspired me to create An Unrefined Vegan, a vegan recipe blog. I share stories of life, art and gardening on an Oklahoma ranch at my other blog, Dough, Dirt & Dye.

Clearly I’m a convert – happy to spread the word to anyone who doesn’t shut me up or nod off. I wouldn’t go back to my old diet for anything. Why? Because I feel good. I feel energetic. I feel healthy. And I know the secret. I know that everyone else can feel the same way: become a vegan. Adopt a whole food, plant-based diet. The cows, pigs, chickens, goats, sheep and fish will thank you. And your body will thank you.

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The first Monday of every month will feature a new ‘Coming a Veg’ story and would I love to include yours! If you are feeling shy, your story can be posted under a creative screen name, anonymous or at least pass this request along to any other groups or individuals who may be interested. Find more information at this link or send submissions to my email: Pennsyltucky Veggie.