WHY HAVE YOU DONE THIS? How and why I went vegan.
My journey from steak-loving Montanan, to semi-vegetarian, to whole foods, plant-based vegan.
The question I get most about my veganism is “what made you start?" It’s loaded. Like a baked potato, but without the cheese and sour cream (cuz vegan). I could give so many different answers because none of the changes were immediate. They snowballed and compounded to where I am today.
After watching Cowspiracy in 2015, I was wrought with feelings of tribal guilt and an immediate, pressing need to change. So my remarkably amenable, steak-and-potatoes loving husband and I stopped purchasing meat (with the exception of one restaurant meal per week and for holidays). I also attempted to grow produce in my sunless Brooklyn apartment, but that is a story for another time.
While not perfect, this change forced me to reconsider what constitutes a ‘meal’. In our native land of Montana, meals consist of meat (or “protein”) with a side or two (or zero- if the “protein” is big enough). If your plate lacks “protein”, it’s a damn snack, not a meal. So, I was faced with the stimulating task of creating meals that would be satiating and delicious without using meat. And it was super f*cking hard. Like, it was really hard. I made some terrible food. But I also stumbled upon some favorites: falafel, margarita pizza, bean tacos, giant salads, pastas, buddha bowls, and more. And the more favorites we collected, the less foreign “protein-less” meals became.
That lasted for a few years. During that time and much to my surprise, we both GAINED weight. Too much weight. And it shouldn’t have come as a shock. I had unwittingly replaced the meat with oil-coated veggies and cheese. GOBS of cheese. You know what has a shit-ton of sodium? Cheese (there are 174 mg of sodium in ONE OUNCE of cheddar cheese. In comparison, a small McDonald’s french fry has 160 mg of sodium). You know what has loads of fat? Oil. And cheese. I would make a super healthy black bean chili and “garnish” it with handfuls of cheddar and a truckload of sour cream.
One boring afternoon, I rewatched Forks Over Knives and ruminated on it for a few hours before Dan got home. (If you haven’t seen this documentary, do it. It’s on Netflix. Don’t act like you don’t have it. I’ll wait)
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I thought about our families’ health woes. Cancer, heart disease, cancer, obesity, cancer, diabetes, and did I mention cancer? Everyone was healthy when they were young, the pounds crept on after age 30, and disease hit later. I may have been 90% vegetarian, but my diet and lifestyle clearly weren’t setting me up for a different future. In fact, I had already fallen into my family’s trap of looking for a miracle weight loss solution. You know the tea the Kardashians drink? I ordered it in a moment of desperation. It tastes like pee and it doesn’t work.
So I talked to Dan about it and we decided to go whole-hog whole foods, plant-based for 10 days and just see what happened. An N of 2 trial, if you will.
*For those of you who don’t know what that is, SHAME ON YOU for not watching Forks Over Knives! It’s basically a vegan diet that emphasizes foods in their most natural, unrefined state. Goodbye animal products, oil, high sodium products, refined grains, and refined sugars, BUT hello and welcome to all fruits, veggies, beans, nuts, seeds, mushrooms, and whole grains.*
We kept a notebook of all the health maladies we had to see if any of them would resolve. And we decided to write up weekly meal plans every Sunday (before we went grocery shopping) to make sticking to our experiment easier.
About halfway through our ten day trial, I watched Earthlings. And I realized that my food choices didn’t just affect my wellbeing and the environment, they drive the demand for the nearly 3 billion animals that are killed EACH DAY for human consumption. 3 billion animals. Not so different from my dog and cat. Most living tortured existences, then sacrificed on the altar of human cravings. If I didn’t need meat, dairy, leather, wool, honey, etc. to live a healthy life, why would I continue paying for the carnage? If I claimed to care about the environment, why would I keep voting with my dollar to shore up an industry that is more polluting than the entire transportation sector? And if I considered myself an animal lover, how could I possibly pay for the misery, fear, and pain that our “need” for animal products inflicts on these sentient beings? My little health experiment suddenly became about much more than how I felt.
At the end of our challenge, even with omnivorous guests in town, we didn’t feel the need to go back to our old diet. I dropped 5 pounds in those 10 days and had zero desire to gain them back. The clusters of plantars warts I’d had on my feet for 5 years (despite numerous, torturous visits to the dermatologist's office) started to fade away. We had fewer headaches and were sleeping better. For once in our lives, we understood what ‘regular’ meant. And we really enjoyed the food we were eating.
It’s been nearly two years since then.
We are still vegan- we don’t purchase animal products in any form. But we aren’t perfectly healthy all the time. We eat out about once a week and thereby consume oil and excess sodium. We still order french fries with our tempeh burgers. I still love everything bagels. But about 90% of our diet consists of whole foods that are plant-based without any of the added junk. And I love it. Since that day I’ve gone from 124 lbs to 104 lbs without trying or exercising regularly (yes, I just admitted that I haven’t been exercising regularly. We’ll come back to that). For the first time in a very long time, I feel confident in my own skin. I feel proud of my food and the impact (or lack-thereof) it has on the world around me.
There’s a deep sense of gratitude that accompanies the knowledge that your food is not only keeping weight gain at bay, but actually lowers your risk of contracting certain kinds of cancer, heart disease, diabetes, and alzheimer’s. It feels good doing something that protects the planet, reduces the suffering of animals, AND protects your future.
So, if you’re reading this and you’re wondering if you should give the WFPB/vegan lifestyle a try, I would encourage you to start where you can. If you have the drive to dive right in, awesome. Do it. If you’re intrigued but feeling lost, start by searching for wfpb meals that sound good and look somewhat familiar. Find a sandwich that sounds delicious, or a soup, or a whole wheat pasta, and give them a try! You can look right here on my website! Develop a repertoire of recipes that are tried and true for you and your family. In between those meals, add more veggies and whole grains to your plate. Like a good pair of skinny jeans, it will take some time and a bit of wiggling to get into it. Also, start learning about the way your diet impacts not only yourself, but our planet and the beings we share it with. Don’t wait until you get sick. Don’t wait until you’ve gained more weight and start feeling desperate. Start with one small change. Start with dinner tonight. See what happens.
For health, for the animals, and for the planet,
Courtney