A lot of the people I know at sixth form and my family in general always ask me how I became vegan. The most frequent questions I get are "What were your motivators?" and "How do you stick to it?". All I have to say is that once you've seen something you can't un-see it.
I'd seen a lot of vegans on Instagram and Youtube. I've been subscribed to Freelee the Banana Girl on Youtube for about a year and she's played a massive part into why I have gone vegan. At first i just one day decided I was going to go vegan, obviously this didn't work out AT ALL (anyone who knows me I'm committed to nothing for longer than 3 days). But in the time of trying to go vegan and failing I decided to educate myself. I did a lot and when I say a lot I mean night after night after day after night of research into veganism itself and also animal cruelty and the different food and clothing industries. Honestly, once you know somethings you never want to go back. I stumbled across the documentary EARTHLINGS. It was the most horrific film I have ever seen and I pretty much went vegetarian over night after that. (If anyone is thinking of going vegan or vegetarian I would highly recommend that as it really shows the problems with the food industry and well as the fashion industry).
Going vegetarian was surprisingly easy, it made me feel better as a person as I wasn't consuming decaying flesh which isn't meant to be in my body. However, I still thought going vegan would be so difficult as I truly believed there would hardly be anything that I could eat. (If you've seen my Instagram you will have seen how tasty my food looks and tastes for that matter too). I've never really been stuck with food, even abroad and at restaurants you can just order a few sides and put them together as a main dish and it's really tasty. Veganism is a pleasant lifestyle, but if you're only planning to go on it for weight loss purposes there's no point. It's a life style not a fad diet to pick and chose with when you're a vegan and when you're not. Saying that there are some amazing health benefits from being vegan. I used to have really bad skin, after 3 weeks of being a vegan my skin completely cleared up, it also glowed. My eyelashes, eyebrows and hair have also got thicker, longer and my hair has been more noticeably glossier and just healthier in general.
Another major motivator for me was my general love for animals. I literally live and breathe animals. My best friend is my rescue greyhound Oscar, who I adore more than anything, even though I do post pictures of pugs and frenchies he is my fave and I wouldn't change him for the world. I also have a soft spot for cows, the amount of love cows show to their young is amazing. Nature is amazing in just the way it works and we don't need to consume animal products to live a healthy happy life. Back to cows, I just really love the way cows interact with each other and the bonds they make with humans is also wonderful. I know for a fact that other animals show the same kind of love and compassion between their species and other species so is it really right to be killing them when there is plenty of other food out their us humans can consume. I would highly recommend Cowspiracy, this is also another documentary which motivated my hugely to changing my lifestyle. This documentary shows how cows contribute to global warming nearly as much as humans do due to their mass breeding the the amount of methane they produce and the effect it has on the O-zone layer. It's really inspiring.
Now to answer the second question of sticking to it; like I said earlier I can't commit to anything for longer than 3 days. But, knowing all of the things I know now I could never go back to consuming animal products. I see no need. I'm also not saying that other people consuming animal products is bad, it's personal choice. It doesn't affect my body or me personally that my family still eat everything, we still have meal times together and I haven't been excluded from anything as of yet. My advice would be to do what makes you happy.
There's also a big hoohar about vegans and animal testing, leather and fur. As long as you bought the products before you turned vegan they're still okay to use as binning them would be wasting the animal or the fact the animal was tested on even more. Some vegans give their leather and fur to charities. I have always been against the fur industry, I've never once owned anything that contains real animal fur. However I do have a few pairs of leather shoes, I sold my Doc's but my favourite pair of boots I have are leather, I bought them before going vegan though so at least I'm using them and not wasting them. Moreover, now I would never buy leather anything knowing how the leather is obtained and I do feel guilty knowing whats happened for me to be able to have a nice pair of boots. It's the same with my make up, majority of my make up is MAC or Benefit, lets get one thing clear MAC IS NOT THE ONLY BRAND TO TEST ON ANIMALS AND IT DOESN'T TEST ON ANIMALS IN THE UK. Animal testing is wrong full stop, but there's so many companies which still test on animals it's getting harder and harder to avoid. Some vegan friendly make up brands are Urban Decay and TooFaced, but even so those companies used to test on animals. Animal testing is banned in the UK so the likelihood is that the products you buy from the UK haven't been directly tested or tested at all on animals.
Veganism is something I feel strongly about and no way am I trying to push my beliefs on other people I'm just answering the questions I get and giving my own personal opinions. Thanks for reading my first post.
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