Why I decided to finally go vegan

For some time now I have had this preconceived notion that animal protein is the superior way to consume protein even though I knew I probably had many deficiencies so I don't know why I was so worried about getting enough protein. While in college I have taken many health courses such as sports and exercise nutrition, healthy aging, and chronic and communicable diseases where the data and research show that a plant based diet or majority plant based diet is the most healthy. I almost grew habituated to this concept that you should have this balanced colorful plate of food for every meal, but I would listen to this and go order biscuits and sausage gravy for breakfast. There was this processing error going on in my mind where I thought that if I knew about it I could reap the same benefits which is borderline crazy. Getting into my junior and senior year in college I started to take climate change seriously. It broke my heart with how much deforestation had occurred and was occurring the vary moment I would be feeling these emotions. Yet I had this judgmental bias that vegans or vegetarians were hippy dippy tree hugging people. This bias changed as I started to be flooded with the data, research articles, and documentaries that my highly educated university professors were making us watch in classes. Once again I needed science to correct my science based mind ( Bachelor of Science over here). Months passed and yet even though my heart and mind knew consuming animal products for almost every meal was bad for both my health ( the linkage of meat consumption and Cardiovascular disease is horrible) and that the majority of deforestation on the planet is caused by agriculture profit gain I still never changed my lifestyle. This is not a dis to the agriculture community, heck I was raised on a farm, this is a "as long as the demand is there business will meet those demands" and because of this demand (manly from the US) the beloved forests of our world are being cut down, burned and to never able to recover. This is all because of our beloved steaks, hamburgers, fried chicken, bacon, and cheese. It's funny if you look back at all those items they don't even sound healthy yet we love them because they are in fact unhealthy. This is where I need to make it clear that deforestation isn't just happening to only provide free range for cattle and chickens, but because all of the millions of livestock need even more acreage to produce the food for these animals to eat and live. This doesn't even take into account the water consumption that is needed to provide these animals with life. If you really want a reality check... clean water is being given to livestock at a higher demand than humans in undeveloped countries (also, Flint Michigan in our own country still doesn't have safe clean water but the cows all over do). I must include that cows are not the issue (even though they contribute the most to methane and carbon emission into our atmosphere than your admired truck), but our demand for them is. This is what made my heart and mind finally connect. It was my demand of a juicy steak at every nice dinner, my moms fried chicken, my added cheese on almost everything that was contributing so harshly to the very (and only) home I have ever known, my mother earth. The data is shocking, our planet is almost to a tipping point, and my desire for meat is not as important as the deforestation of the vary forests that ALLOW YOU TO BREATH. If you have read this far I thank you for putting up with my rant but unfortunately I know this post wont do anything to you. You will still order what you want because your pride and ignorance will get in the way of any real change and if you think I am being mean by saying that it's fine because I was just like you. I was presented with the facts and yet no change occurred because my mind and heart weren't connected. So I ask you to watch the documentaries provided below so you can SEE the damage I have tried to get you to understand.

Documentaries on Netflix:

Game Changer

Before the Flood

Cowspiracy

What the health

I ask you now to take it a step further and type in Google Scholar and search for free peer-reviewed articles about the relationships between animal consumption and cancer, diabetes, climate change, and heart disease. I have provided some below:

Meat consumption and your health:

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41387-018-0067-4

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/10408398.2016.1138447

Deforestation on agriculture expansion:

https://www.pnas.org/content/112/24/7402.full

https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/10/10/104015

Practical Steps to Start living intentionally:

My first step was changing to Almond Milk (unsweetened) (If I wanted a creamy latte all i had to do was substitute milk with nut milk. simple)
At first I was mindful about when to consume steak- I would do it once a month and I would make it special.
I opted for chicken instead of steak when I wanted a meat protein.
Learned to love beans. I started to crave rice and beans and I loved that these two items along with some added veggies kept me full for 5+ hours.
Eggplants and cauliflower are wonderful substitutes for meat. (Did you know you can make crispy cauliflower wings?)
Everyone needs to take B12 supplements because its not really found naturally anymore.
Multivitamins!
Pasta with mushrooms and spinach is just to die for.
vegan cookies are wonderful
Baked Asparagus (with squeezed lime, salt and pepper will make your mouth water)