What being vegan for four years has taught me

I’ve been vegan for about 4 years now, since the summer of 2017. I think it’s helped me to learn a lot about myself and about other people. I’ve learned that there’s a lot that I can go without and that being vegan doesn’t have to be cultish.

Most of us want to do the right thing, but sometimes we can’t always see our flaws. We were designed to lie and a large majority of us come face to face with cognitive dissonance. We love animals, yet we eat them. We want to help other countries get food, but we waste so much of it. We want to do good things, but when it comes to actually doing it, we don’t want to. I’m not perfect when it comes to this either and really not many of us are. However, if I haven’t done anything else for the world, I can leave knowing I did at least one thing right.

In the developed world, we take more than we need, period. We want the new cars, the new gadgets, clothes that are trendy, food that always taste good and here in America, well, big everything. Although I don’t think I could ever be a minimalists(which I do fully congratulate those who because I know it can be hard) I have made sacrifices when it comes to food. I don’t eat meat, eggs or dairy. Some vegans might not consider me a true vegan because I’ll use honey sometimes, but still these are pretty big scarfices. Yes, things have gotten easier and more people are becoming familiar with the term, but at first it wasn’t easy. I didn’t really know much about what vegans ate or what substitutes their were. Going out with friends was even harder and I wondered if from now on my only option at a restaurant would be a salad. I’m glad that over the years I’ve found that there’s more to it then I knew at the time. That I had more options than I thought I had.