Never say never. As stated before in my last entry much has happened during my hiatus. As a new vegetarian, I continuously sought out more nutritional informational to make sure I wasn't overloading my diet on some things, and depriving it of others. From time to time, though, I would browse through peoples online testimonials of their reasons for going vegetarian or vegan. One would think after six months of progressing into a vegetarian diet these stories of awakening and transition would lose their luster - after all, my reasons to forgo my contribution to the misery of up to 45 billion land animals worldwide, minimize my ecological footprint, and protect myself from certain impurities that can lead to life-threatening diseases were reflected countless times in their statements. Instead, they continued to be a source of inspiration, but more importantly, a mirror to my own certain biases toward some land animals' plights, and not others. Cage-free. Free-run. Organic. As an ovo-vegetarian, I wanted my purchases to reflect my convictions. I really believed that as long as I bought from farmers who allow their hens to live in a comfortable environment nothing was ethically wrong with eating eggs; hens lay eggs - period, so if I want to include it into my diet i figured I could at least get 'em from farms with small flocks that were still organic and free-run. I was even willing to pay extra for those types of eggs in support of that conviction. I went to Wholefoods and searched online to find a couple of local farmers that produced such types that fit this criteria, but their websites were rather plain and didn't give me much insight. So, rather than leave this subject alone and living in blissful ignorance, I continued to seek information regarding small flock farms. Turns out, a small flock is typically 500 of 'em still crammed wing-to-wing in a large house. Needless to say, thereafter, I could no longer in good conscious eat eggs ever again. Keeping 500 hens pent-up their whole lives - cage-free or not - coupled with the inhumane euthanizing of newborn male chicks and the practice of de-beaking was way more than what I was willing to compromise in my ethics on animal exploitation. So in late October 2011, I gave up eggs for good.
This was by NO MEANS an easy thing for me to do. It was second-nature for me to just crack a few in a pan, sandwich it between two slices of toasted bread and call it a breakfast. But now that eggs were no longer a breakfast option for me anymore, I didn't know what I was going to do. It sounds ridiculous but... I was nervous and scared. I scrambled (get it) the internet for some quick and easy breakfast ideas. Tofu scramble was okay, but I was growing tired of it, and I found the cream of wheat to heavy when combined with my other breakfast favorites like toast and cereals. It was my good friend who suggested I get back into eating hash browns. I swear he is a genius. Initially, it was a trial-some 30 days going without eating eggs (constant cravings, envy, even borderline psychosis occupied that period) but by December those symptoms had waned. I started to experiment more in the kitchen and now enjoy a plethora of options in the morning.
So had I officially become a vegan? Not quite... at least if you put me up against another vegan by abolitionist standards. Though I managed to kick eating eggs for good, I fell back into the block cheese cycle. Now, when I do groceries, I don't intentionally pick up block cheese or ANY dairy product, but when I am out on the street and I am in a Tim Hortons or Second Cup I don't necessarily deny myself the addictive pleasure of cheese bagels or croissants either. At first, I felt guilty every single time (still do sometimes, I won't lie) for my lack of will power in resisting the hypnotizing allure of cheese, and I tried to curb this habit by only indulging once in a long while, but, still, the guilt creeps in. Fortunately, the more I read about transitioning to a vegan diet, the less I gave myself hell for it. I realized that my intention was to give up cheese for good someday and that I have to respect myself for going about it at my own speed, not others... and certainly not for some social title. I do my best to avoid it... but I don't deprive myself of it, if that's what I want - which is, thankfully, not often. As I learn more about nutritional yeast and non-dairy cheese sauce recipes, just like the hashbrowns, I'm sure living a life after dairy cheese will soon become second-nature ;)
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