First of
all I’d like to say that I went Vegan because I cared about animals; and then I did
it for health reasons after reading the book 80/10/10 Diet by Dr. Douglas
N. Graham, and it surely was an overnight change.
Let me go a
bit deeper into that: I have been eating meat, fish diary and eggs since little
just as anyone in our society does. I loved cheese; I would put it everywhere,
just think of a dish –anything you can imagine- and I can assure you that I
used to put cheese on it. I ate meat every day but was not a big fan of fish.
Anyways, I started reading the book as everyone on social network was saying
about how good it was. I then remember talking about it to my parents saying
that it was a really interesting reading and I was loving it but I could never
in my life give up all the animal products that I was tremendously consuming on
a daily basis by then. So instead, I thought about trying to incorporate more plant
based foods in my daily intake because -as the book states- it’s the food we’re
designed to thrive on.
By that
time, two videos on you tube went viral: 101 reasons to go vegan and the best speech ever. And it really was that second one that made me jump on the Veganism
–I didn’t even know the meaning of
veganism by that time so I had to do some research. I gave up all animal products and started
eating plants and fruits following the 80/10/10 ratio –which stands as an 80%
of carbohydrates, 10% of protein and 10% of fat from the total calories
consumed per day.
A while
after that I decided to watch a documentary called Earthlings –i.e. living
creatures that inhabits on Earth- and it really changed my perspective forever.
I totally recommend to anyone to watch it because it shows the truth about all
the suffering and murder that is conflicted to innocent animals and I encourage
you to at least take a moment to see it because as painful and hurtful as it
looks it shows perfectly what is going
on. After seeing the truth I realized
that I was on the right path –I’m not saying by any mean that veganism is the
right and/or only way to live- I felt something so strong; a feeling of union
so deep towards all the creatures on earth.
I
immediately felt like it was my job to protect all those innocent animals; I
had to be their voice so I tried to convince my family but it was a total
failure. I was an emotional wreck by that time because I strongly believed that
it was my “job” to speak for the animals and advocate for their freedom AND our
health. I continuously got angry at the people that didn’t envision my point of
view and was not willing to listen what I had to say. As months went by and my
attempts kept failing I started to realized that I could not “force” anyone to
live their lives as I thought because everyone is entitled to have their own
point of view. Since then I’ve kept quiet and accepted everyone choices to eat
whatever they want without saying a word to try to change their mind, but today
I –again- came across another brilliant speech of the same guy as the best
speech ever Gary Yourofsky and the flame in me just got a bit brighter. I don’t
want to try to convince people anymore –mainly because there’s nothing to
convince you about- just as no one convinced me to go Vegan almost one year ago;
I simply was shown the truth and once I was conscious about it I did what I had
to do; and I can assure you that transitioning to a plant based diet is the
best thing I have done in my life.
So the reason
I’m writing this is to make you realize –as long as you are willing to listen-
that there is an alternative way to live. I want to encourage you to just watch
any of the documentaries I’ve listed –and linked- above and/or start doing some
research. You must know that there’s really nothing to convince you -you will
convince yourself once you understand it-, but in order for that to happen the
information must reach to you. So just, please, do yourself, the animals and
the planet a favor.
To read this entrance in Spanish click here.
