This is the most hated question I have ever been asked. Honestly, I would rather play a game of truth-or-dare with people who know things about me that I never want to talk about or face again. If I had known that becoming a vegan would be so challenging, I would have moved away first to be surrounded by understanding and supportive people. I don't understand why everyone has something to say about my food choices now, but never bothered to say things the first 24 years of my life. Let's just get real for a moment.

It hurts. I've been extremely hurt by people. And for what? Do they really care about the nutrients I'm taking in? If they cared so much now, why didn't they care a few years ago when I ate fried meat 3 times a day, gluten filled breads and pastas, boxed products, and unhealthy fats? Why weren't they so concerned then? I find it hard to believe that people genuinely care about my food choices. I think it's more of a combination of being nosy, thinking they are all knowing and better than me, wanting to put me down to make themselves look better, and maybe feeling a little threatened. But why?

When I ate meat, it was very rare that I ate hamburger meat. It's just one of those things that has grossed me out for years. Do you think anyone said anything nasty to me at cookouts when I only ate the hotdogs? You guessed it, no. So why now? Why do people feel the need to attack me about what I eat?

I'm not talking about real questions and concerns. I understand those and I love answering them! My mom asks me all the time about eating this or that or what she can feed Zaylen or why we choose this over that. Those are questions that are coming from a sincere heart. She really wants to understand and know more. And I'm so happy to talk about everything with her and answer any questions she has. I have friends who ask questions because they really want to learn more. Those are fine, but the attacks aren't. Sending me pictures of meat and telling me to read my Bible are attacks. They hurt. Even though it's tough to get through sometimes and I have to grab a few more vegan cookies to push me through, I get through it. Those people will not ever have any power over my choices or my mind.

I'm going to talk about our food choices and why we choose them. Maybe that will answer some questions and back people off.

Zaylen and I are vegans. To be a vegan means to not consume any animal products. We don't eat meat. And meat means any living flesh. Chicken, fish, cows, shrimp, turkey, pig, deer, anything that has had life. I hate when people call themselves vegetarians while they are digging into a turkey burger. Meat is meat. Zaylen has never eaten any meat product and I haven't eaten any (seafood) in about two months. (I've been a pescetarian since August.) We also don't consume any animal by-products. This includes cheese, milk, yogurt, sour cream, butter, cream cheese, ect. The only exception to this is when we eat out at a restaurant, I don't hound the waitress about the food being cooked using butter. I understand some things are pre-cooked and I already take off the meat, cheese, eggs in rice, no ice in my water, ect. so I try not to be picky about the butter. I was a waitress for 7 years and let's just say picky customers aren't that welcome. Being a vegan goes beyond what we eat though. I don't buy leather anymore and I don't support the circus or any animal captivity habitat that I see as unfit. Zachary is a pescetarian. He eats seafood every once in a while as well as cheese and eggs, but doesn't consume any other meat or milk.

How did we choose this lifestyle? Zachary and I decided together last August that we wouldn't eat meat anymore, with the exception of seafood if we went out. We never brought it into the house to cook, we only ate seafood if we went out to dinner or someone invited us over and prepared it. For a year before this change, I couldn't deal with the smell or texture of meat. I hated cooking it so I would make Zak cook it. I didn't eat it much unless someone else prepared it. I'm not sure what happened or why, but I couldn't deal with it. When Zachary mentioned trying to cut out meat I was all on board! We started that day. We gave away most of our meat and kept a few bags of deer meat and bacon to sort of wean us off. We caved in about a week later and ate meat at a restaurant and we both felt horrible for it! It didn't taste the same and we didn't enjoy it. We did have bacon once after that, ate deer twice and that's been it.

Eating meat had been weighing on both of our hearts when Zachary initiated the conversation. Thank God for men who listen to their spirit. If Zak hadn't have started that talk, I'm not sure where we would be today. When we stopped eating meat, we could tell a significant difference in everything. I loved being in the kitchen again because I didn't have to worry about touching meat or cross contamination (which I'm deathly afraid of!!!) Our bodies felt better, we had more energy, and we didn't feel sick or heavy after we ate. The grocery bill was cheaper and we had a good peace of mind. We knew we were doing what we were called to do.

We also still ate butter, eggs, and cheese, even though it wasn't as much as we used to. I stopped eating eggs and milk 15 years ago. If they were in a cake or a milkshake, I was fine with that, but to consume them plain bothered me. Well, until I got pregnant. When I was pregnant I craved bacon, egg, and cheese biscuits and after I had Zaylen I craved chocolate milk (it was soy though.) Pregnancy is a strange thing sometimes.

Two months ago I watched the documentary Earthlings. It's free on YouTube if you're interested in watching it! Zachary was working late, Zaylen was asleep, and I was sitting at the kitchen table eating shrimp lo mein when I decided to finally watch this film. A few minutes in and I couldn't eat any more. I cried, my stomach knotted up, I felt anger, I was torn, and I was humiliated that I belong to a race who exploits animals the way that we do. I was a mess. And from that moment on I knew I would never be a part of any animal abuse again.

Why did we choose this lifestyle? We didn't. It may sound cliche, but the lifestyle really did choose us. As I said before, this had been on our hearts for a while before we came together and made a decision. We were convicted about eating meat. We didn't know why or what was really going on, but we knew it was from God. We always blessed our food before we ate it and prayed over our finances to cover the grocery bill, but we never even thought about praying over what to eat. We are called to seek God for everything. After becoming vegetarians we realized we need to seek Him for more than we were. The more I dug into this trying to find answers, I came across Romans 14. I'm not going to go into everything the Bible says about what to eat, but I strongly encourage you to read about it for your own understanding.

Romans 14 talks about the strong in faith and the weak in faith and how they do not need to agree on every matter in life. We shouldn't judge anyone based on what they eat. This is such a minor detail in the grand scheme of life. From what I have read and studied, no where in the Bible does God instruct us to always eat meat or never eat meat. Meat wasn't eaten until after the flood when God gave Noah permission to. He gave Adam and Eve and all living creatures green plants for food. After the flood when everything was destroyed, He gave Noah permission to eat everything that lives and moves. I'm sure people ate meat before then since the world was so wicked, but this is the first time it came from God. Then there was the covenant with Moses where God gave him rules about what animals to eat. Only clean animals could be eaten now. When Christ died for us, His blood created a new covenant. The veil was torn, old covenants were thrown away, and we were now able to go directly to God without any barriers. This is the covenant we are still under today, the covenant of Christ's blood. In this new covenant, God made all animals clean to eat in a vision to Paul in Acts.

So we went from vegetarians, to meat eaters, to clean meat eaters, to all animals being clean to eat, and I believe we will be vegetarians again in Heaven one day since there isn't any death in Heaven.

Romans 14:5-6 "One person considers one day more sacred than another; another considers every day alike. Each of them should be fully convinced in their own mind. Whoever regards one day as special does so to the Lord. Whoever eats meat does so to the Lord, for they give thanks to God; and whoever abstains does so the the Lord and gives thanks to God." Paul tells us that we are free to eat what we want based on our own conscience as long as we give thanks to God for it.

Romans 14:20-23 "Do not destroy the work of God for the sake of food. All food is clean, but it is wrong for a person to eat anything that causes someone else to stumble. It is better not to eat meat or drink wine or do anything else that will cause your brother or sister to fall. So whatever you believe about these things keep between yourself and God. Blessed is the one who does not condemn himself by what he approves. But whoever has doubts is condemned if they eat, because their eating is not from faith; and everything that does not come from faith is sin." Paul tells us here to not cause our brother to fall into sin over something we choose to eat. He also tells us that we should follow our conscience when we eat.

I know I said I wouldn't go in depth, but I just got too into it. I hope that clears things up for the people who think I don't follow God's word.

Other reasons why we chose this lifestyle include health reasons, the way animals are treated, sustainability, environmental factors, and world hunger. Vegetarians have lower cholesterol, better blood pressure, less heart disease and cancers, less diabetes and strokes, lower body weight, better moods, better love life, less food allergies, clearer skin, and are overall more conscious about their health than their meat-eating counterparts. We are living proof of this! Once we cut out meat, Zachary's liver issues have mostly gone away, we don't have breakouts anymore, we have more energy, my food sensitivity to fruits has disappeared, and we have healthier bodies. Factory farms aren't sustainable at all. They use a substantial amount of fossil fuel energies that could be better used elsewhere. Our environment is being damaged by factory farms. The amount of water, food, land, and waste they put off is deeply hurting everything and everyone. It's also really selfish of me to eat an animal that consumes more food than some humans do. These issues are real and they are important to me.

The way animals are treated is a huge reason why we live this way. I really don't have time to get into everything, but here's a little summary. The animals you consume are kept in small crates or are packed together their entire lives. Babies are taken away from their mothers at birth, tails and genitals are cut off without anesthesia, infections overtake their bodies from mutilations, bacteria and viruses, or fellow animals attacking each other due to overcrowded conditions and stress, and antibiotics are given to them in their feed of genetically modified corn to fight the infections they get. They are beaten, kicked and hit if they don't do what the humans want and they never see sunlight or feel grass and wind. When it comes time to get slaughtered they wait in a line, hearing the screams of their brothers in front of them, and in the last moments of life they take an electric shock to the head or have their throats slit. Most of the time this doesn't kill them so they are then able to feel their skin being torn from their bodies and their limbs being cut off. Eventually they die, but it isn't a quick and painless thing. This isn't just meat either. Milk, eggs, and cheese are just as cruel. Male chicks are ground up alive in their first few days of life because they don't do anything for the egg industry. Baby calves are taken away from their mother after birth, never tasting the mother's milk, and kept in dark small boxes for a few weeks until they are killed for veal. This is all done so that we can have antibiotic laden, genetically modified, pus-filled milk.

The way animals are raised and killed is disgusting. If you consume animal products, that's your choice, I'm not here to change your mind. But I will encourage you to know where your food is coming from and what's really in it. Find a farmer near you and buy direct from him. Support local meat markets that bring in their own food fresh every day. Watch documentaries that expose the horrors of factory farming. Hunt for your own food, kill it and prepare it for your family. Raise your own chickens and milk your own cows or at least buy local from people who are treating animals better and giving them a better life. Be involved in your food.

Those are the reasons why we live this way; God called us to, we don't support the unfair treatment of animals, and we want to be healthier.

Here we are today. Zachary is a pescetarian. I am a vegan. Zaylen is a vegan. This isn't a "diet" in terms of what we are eating today in order to lose/gain weight or be healthier. This is a diet in terms of our food choice, our food lifestyle. Through this journey I have become a more compassionate human. I have become more alert, more aware, and more conscious of what I support and what I put into my body. This has changed me, but only for the better. I'm not a crazy person, this doesn't mean I'm not a Christian anymore (which is the dumbest thing I've ever heard, "Watch out, she doesn't eat meat anymore so she must not be a Christian now."), this doesn't make me a mean person, or a person you should be scared of.

I want to share what I know about veganism. I want to share what I've learned and what I've experienced with people. If those few people who I learned about veganism from, hadn't have shared what they knew with me, I wouldn't be the person I am today. I have never thrown this in anyone's face. I have never made fun of someone for eating meat. Although, my siblings and I pick at each other about how meat is murder and how I eat like a rabbit. This is truly all for fun. We pick on each other for everything and we enjoy it so much! My siblings are also my biggest support system. They don't eat how I do and I don't eat how they do, but we get it and we love each other through it. My mom is by far my biggest supporter. We don't eat the same stuff either, but she is there to fight the people I don't have time and energy for and she has been my biggest advocate through this.

I don't hold signs in peoples faces telling them to convert or die. I'm not going around slaying things in the name of veganism. I don't stare at plates and put a cover of shame over the owner. I don't give dirty looks or call names. I don't understand what people perceive me as and I don't get why people are threatened by me for not eating certain things. But I'm a little over it and I'm here to set the record straight. My family and I get enough protein, calcium, iron, vitamin B-12, folic acid, DHA, essential fatty acids, minerals, the list goes on and on. We get plenty enough, thank you for your sincere concern.

We don't just sit around a shrine of vegetables, holding hands, eating kale, and worshiping the vegan gods. We live very normal lives and eat very normal things. We have amazing dinners that are better than anything I cooked a year ago. We take showers, we have dogs, we drive cars. Although we aren't as mainstream as most people, we live a very normal life and it's nothing to be scared of or threatened by.

Questions and concerns are more than welcome and I will be so happy to share my knowledge with you, but please stop questioning me out of anything more than pure curiosity. Please stop the name calling, stop the pictures of meat, stop saying "bacon" around me (this is honestly the oldest trick in the book and it doesn't make you look cool), just stop being mean, please. If you have a serious problem with me because of what I eat, maybe you should do some self examining. And if you still have hurtful things to say, keep them to yourself. I'm not not eating meat to make people mad or to get a rise out of people. I'm doing this because it is what I have been called to do. It is what I have been led to do. My conscious won't let me eat meat right now. That may change in a few years from now, it may not, but whatever way I'm led to go, I will go and I will praise God through it. Comments and attacks are just small roadblocks in this great journey I'm going through, I will get through them, but it would be much easier for everyone if the judgment went away.




This blog is getting a makeover right now and will be done any day now so stay tuned for my next post (hint: it's Amish!) and the showing of the new website!

Also, click here to visit the site of All About Vegan Families. This is a community of vegan parents who come together and support each other through raising vegan children. I've faced problems and I know other vegan families have too, this is a welcoming place where we can stand together and share our hardships. advice, stories, recipes, and much more! I am contributing vegan recipes for children to this site, so you can check them out there! If you are raising vegan children, need some support, or are just curious about things, please visit this community!