I grew up on a small-scale family farm in rural Alberta. For someone with very little physical resemblance to the family, I am a perfect combination of my parent’s philosophies. My father has spent close to his whole life working on the farm with cattle and horses, a descendant of generations of passionate providers. When I was growing up, my mother earned the title “health freak”, although today I don’t think the title would hold up amongst the self-proclaimed health freaks of facebook, instagram and twitter. After all, she didn’t eat 30 bananas a day, nor did she feast only on food our cave-man ancestors had access too, and she most certainly exceeded (and remains exceeding) the recommended amount of caffeine per day.

As a family we managed to find balance in our diet, despite my dad’s dreams of red-meat 7 days a week, we only had it for 3, and you can be assured that we ate our veggies every night. I remember racing my brother to finish our serving of baby carrots before the enjoying the rest of our meal.

I will always remember 1 serving of baby carrots equals 14.

We had dessert every night, splitting a kit-kat bar between the 4 of us, or a piece of dark chocolate each. I will always be thankful to my parents for introducing me to the world of agriculture, and the world of health.

After high school I took the first plane out of that sleepy little town and got my (temporary) fill of travel. The following year I headed to Vancouver to start my university career at the University of British Columbia. After a few shuffles and setbacks I found my passion of sustainable food systems and environmental conservation. Given my upbringing, I was always conscientious about what I put into my body, but I’d never really given any thought to veganism or even vegetarianism. I was blessed to be a part of a faculty filled with inspiring and open minded people who taught me there is so much more to agriculture than what meets the eye. It’s funny how you remember only a few defining moments of the years you spend in university. I remember reading an article on food elitism and the organic food movement. The article challenged me to once again think differently about the food system, insisting that the local and organic food movement was creating an elitist society- not everyone has access to local and organic food- which is often more expensive. I’ll write a post on this later on, as I think this is an issue in the vegan (and ‘whole foods’ ) community. But for now, let’s just say it turned me off a bit and I became more slack with my food choices. I slowly became less dedicated to buying meat exclusively from my butcher- the one who uses all the parts of the animal and sourced his meat from a farmer that I met (and knew how the he treated his animals and what he fed them). You know, the expensive one. While I continued to make healthy choices, I began to question the authenticity of why I was choosing the ‘sustainable’ option.

Then, I met my meat-loving Aussie boyfriend, blissfully unaware of the looming issue of our food system. As I fell in love I also fell further and further off ‘sustainable food’ wagon. I moved to Australia and soon found myself buying processed meats and ginormous chicken breasts every week. Deep down, I didn’t feel good about it, but I suppressed it. I rationalized my behaviour by telling myself when I had more money I would buy the good stuff. I was working out and going to the gym- I needed this protein.

I knew in my heart that was BS.

Upon my boyfriend’s realization that he wanted to get abs (a phase I thnk everyone goes through), we decided to jump on the IIFYM bandwagon. IIFYM stands for If it Fits Your Macros. Essentially, it is a diet that allows you to eat whatever you want, so long as you stay with in your range of macronutrients. Follow this plan, I found myself eating more processed ham (ew), chicken, crackers, and less of my beloved whole foods and fruits. I didn’t feel good about the choices I was making. I felt fed up and like a hypocrite. I decided to watch Forks over Knives and I made the switch to a plant based diet that night. I began further educating myself; reading books like ‘Eating Animals’ and watching more documentaries (Cowspiracy is my fav) and now feel fully committed to the vegan lifestyle. I am falling in love with the person I am becoming.

Now, I have a very personal connection to eating meat and dairy. I have a lot of respect for what my father does and the way he lives his life. I have always stood up for small scale farmers who raise their animals with pride, provide them with a happy life, and “process” them in a way that allows them to keep their dignity (relative to other means, of course).

For me, it was that space, that moment when I made the connection that supporting the vegan movement was not going against my dad, or his way of life.

Not supporting the meat and dairy industry does not mean that my family has done anything wrong. I never wanted to support large-scale factory farms—nor does he. The reality of the situation is that there have been significant changes between generations. Eating meat is not the same as it once was, and I cannot support an industry as cruel and damaging as the one that supplies out current society.

But how did everyone else develop such an attachment to meat? I still have not found the answer to this question. It cannot be simply because of the taste. The vast majority of us are still unaware of how farming has changed- still picturing the idealistic image of a red barn with happy cows roaming in green fields. It’s not so.

As rewarding as I have found veganism to be, I will not lie- it can be exhausting at times. I will never judge someone for his or her food choices. So please don’t judge me. For many of us who have made this change, it is something very personal to us. I have been around the meat industry since I was born. I have seen inside dairy farms, both large scale and small. I have been inside butchers, have seen carcasses hung. I still ate meat. I have seen the agriculture industry be good to my family, and be bad. I have seen the effects of closed boarders, drought, and the ups and downs of organic farming. I have bottle fed calves. I have watched my dad get up at all hours of the night to make sure a sick cow makes it through. Trust me when I say that I made an educated and well-informed choice. Please don’t tell me this is a phase, or make a joke. Please don’t bully me for exercising compassion and advocating for the change I want to see.

My reasons for making this change, I can assure you, are far deeper than the speculations you may draw about me.
If you are considering veganism, I encourage you to try it. I promise you will not be disappointed! And if you aren’t, please be kind to your vegan friends and acquaintances. Be kind to everyone. We are all in this together!