When I was around ten years old, my older sister became vegetarian. Somehow I also couldn’t manage the thought of eating animals anymore just because I like the taste. Especially as it is no secret that most animals have to suffer a lot already before they are going to be killed.

Then I cut out meat for around ten years without thinking a lot more about it. Then there moved a vegan girl into my shared flat. Veganism sounded somehow good to me, but I couldn’t really think of living vegan myself (like a lot of people). I just simply loved cheese! And actually I wasn’t even thinking so much about the reasons for veganism, because on the first glance it might sound radical. And after all cows give milk and it’s not hurting them, is it? And for the chickens: I can just buy ecological eggs. Looking back I might have been a bit naive.

Since I always liked to cook and bake, I wanted that all my flat mates could eat something I for example baked. So I started informing myself what vegans do eat and what they do not eat.

At the same time there was acquaintance who became vegan and she was sometimes writing in vegan facebook groups. So I started reading a bit in some of these groups as well.

Although my flat mate had already moved out, I continued to read more about veganism. And I didn’t know that there are more than 50 million baby chickens shredded or gassed alive in Germany. And I didn’t know that every cow gets inseminated artificially every year in order to produce milk for their calf. And then the calves get violently removed from their mothers and end up as dairy cow or as veal. And that happens every year until the mother gets slaughtered as well because she can’t produce enough milk anymore.

That didn’t match with my beliefs, after all I didn’t want that animals get killed just because of me. As I couldn’t imagine going completely vegan, my goal was just to reduce eating animal products. But I quickly realized that it isn’t complicated at all to live vegan. There are so many alternatives, e. g. rice, soy, oat, almond or hazelnut milk instead of cow milk, soy yoghurt, vegan margarine, soy or rice cream, rice milk chocolate (I love it!), … Veganism is spreading and it has never been easier to go vegan than today! Moreover it was nice to get to know how unhealthy dairy actually is – a positive side effect for me.

So it all started with “I’ll just reduce animal products” to “I live vegan”. Since summer 2013. One of the best decisions of my life!

Vanessa
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