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Season 2 - Episode 4
Ajua Akilah Hawkins is a wife, mother, and the owner of West Philly based Heirloom - a boutique specializing in tea, spiritual tools, and bohemian decor. Ajua can be contacted at [email protected] or @HeirloomPhilly on Instagram.
Season 2 - Episode 3
Nora Henick is the Founder and Editor-in-Chief of La Femme Collective, a global community created to support and celebrate the career development of women. When not working on LFC, Nora spends her time eating cheese and looking at pictures of puppies.
Photo Credit: Catherine Powell
Season 2 - Episode 2
Shannon Roche is one half of Crust Vegan Bakery, a resident of West Philadelphia, and the vocalist for a punk band called Whipworm. She loves radical politics, vintage kitchenware, hand-written letters, and intersectional feminism.
Season 2 - Episode 1
Cheyenne is a body positive boudoir photographer based in Philly who promotes self love and bad assery in women of all ages, colors, shapes and sizes.
The Puddle Jump Podcast returns on Monday for season two with a guest that I'm super excited to share with you all. Subscribe now on iTunes. Link in bio. #Instagram
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A+ day 👌 #Instagram
Fucking love potato salad #vegan #instagram
@thetastyphilly was so good we ordered twice #vegan #instagram
Two Brew Babes #instagram
UGH I Have To Do Stuff Today: A Series of Superfluous Complaining #instagram
Blog post up on puddlejumpindustries.com about my journey as a vegan. Also I love tacos. Also RIP Prince. Also I'm not wearing pants in this photo. #vegan #instagram
My Journey As A Vegan
I’ve been considering and reconsidering writing this post for days. More honestly, years. I’m not the kind of person to shout my beliefs and opinions from the rooftop, but rather hold them silently and intensely close to my heart. Lately I’ve been learning the importance of sharing personal stories, not despite the topics of contention, but especially the topics of contention. Also, this week we said goodbye to one of the greatest artists to have ever lived who was also a vegan, Prince, so if there was ever a tipping point that pushed me to talk about my own veganism, this is it.
I’ve been living my life as a vegan for almost four years. Before that, a vegetarian for six. People ask me all the time why I am, or became, vegan and in most situations I think what they’re expecting is a short and succinct answer that they can hear and digest in two sentences or less. I cannot do this. My elevator pitch sucks. You’d think after years of being asked the same question, I’d have gotten it down by now. I usually quickly babble some nonsense about how it was ethics that sparked an interest but then health that made me stick around. Sometimes I just say that I was a vegetarian for a while and finally decided to “go all in” which, for some reason seems to satisfy people despite not being an answer to their question. That’s all fine, sure, sure, whatever, whatever. But the whole truth is bigger and runs deeper than can be summed up to a stranger I just met in line for the upstairs bathroom at a house party.
I became a vegetarian for the same reason a lot of teenaged-punk-rock-listening-black-wearing-anarchy-praising-society-rejecting kids did. Because the bands I listened to in the scene I participated in took part in a lifestyle that offered an alternative. A rejection of the status quo and exposure of the unethical practices of factory farming and the meat industry. Copies of books like Diet for a New America and PETA documentaries on DVD were passed around at shows. People in the community talked about animal rights and how we have the power to choose not to have that blood on our hands. In both the metaphorical and unfortunately literal sense. All of this made sense to me and I suddenly felt like a hypocrite. I didn’t know how to continue calling myself a compassionate, loving person while simultaneously existing as the final resting vessel for the corpse of a slaughtered animal – for no other real reason than that I liked the taste. The more time I spent thinking about it, the more I felt weak and pathetic. One day I decided to stop eating meat cold turkey (bad pun intended) and haven’t spent a single moment regretting that decision in ten years.
Becoming a vegetarian overnight is particularly difficult if you were raised in a household of meat eaters and suddenly have to forage for yourself in a world of food that seems foreign and complex. Your first instinct will be to continue preparing the same foods you always have minus the meat, and maybe instead include a processed meat-like byproduct. This is the place where countless “I tried being a vegetarian once but got really sick” veterans are born. If you decide to stop eating meat and try to survive exclusively on faux-chicken flavored tofu patties and cheese fries, yes, you will get sick. I went through this stage myself, and to this day, look back and can’t believe I came out alive.
Despite my horrifying diet that consisted almost entirely of grilled cheese and tomato soup, I noticed something unexpected. I was getting sick less often. I’ve battled chronic sinus infections my entire life, to the point of hospitalization when I was very young. I would get a wicked infection once every few months that knocked me off my feet for a week, at least. The year I stopped eating meat this changed dramatically. My infections went from once every couple of months to a couple times a year. I also suffered from occasional bouts of unexplainable stomach pains that suddenly stopped altogether. If there was anything that finally got my mom on my side of no animal eating, it was this.
Over the next few years I got more and more intrigued by the health aspect of my new diet, though the ethical side was never lost on me. I started getting as adventurous as possible in the kitchen, seeking out vegetables and herbs that I’d never heard of until I sought them out. I read loads of literature on plant-based eating and medicinal herbs. I started seeing a naturopath and began including vitamins and superfoods into my routine. I was going full steam ahead in one direction with things only improving as I went along.
It wasn’t until about six years in that I started to feel that lingering leftover hypocrisy bubble up to the surface once again. This whole while I had abstained from eating the actual flesh of an animal, yet I still consumed the milk and eggs of these animals (eggs, arguably being pre-animals). I felt like I was participating in a system I opposed, and I was deeply plagued by it. Among the many values I had come to appreciate along this journey, was to take only what you need. I had come to view all life as precious, yet I was actively participating in death. I was taking more than I needed at the cost of the life of another. I wasn’t living a life that aligned with my own personal values that I so intensely believed.
Becoming a strict vegan seemed overwhelming, so I decided to do it on a trial basis. Within 30 days, it had become my new normal and I saw no reason to go back. And just like the first lifestyle change, I noticed something this time too. I was getting sick less often, yet again. After I became vegan, my sinus infections went from a couple of times a year, to once every couple of years. On top of that, they were milder and far less severe than in the past. I finally felt like I could fully participate in the lives of the living. This may seem mildly ridiculous, but anyone who has experienced being a mostly-ill child and then suddenly a healthy adult will tell you that it can be overwhelming. I never again would have to experience feeling the hot breath of a stranger coughing nearby in public, and instinctively know I would be spending the next two weeks in bed with a pounding headache and no appetite. I wouldn’t have to stay inside during a rainstorm. I wouldn’t have to cover my nose and mouth when walking past piles of raked leaves. These are all examples of things that in the past would have caused me to get an illness that would eventually blossom into a sinus infection. It was an emotional realization.
Not only did I get ill less, but my general health improved by leaps and bounds. I had more energy. My skin glowed. My mental clarity improved. Bizarre aches and pains that I had long chosen to ignore finally went away on their own. I know it sounds like I’m really trying to sell you on this, and your results may or may not be different than mine should you decide to take the plunge, but I’m just telling you what my personal experience was.
As wonderful as all that was, and is, the most significant and important change that veganism has brought into my life is the spiritual connectedness I feel. Eating solely what grows from the Earth, makes me feel part of the Earth, and that is the most grounding, centering, and humbling thing I have ever felt. It makes for every meal to be an act of gratitude. An appreciation for the Earth and what it provides. I feel connected to all living things, because we are all living off the same Earth. I want to live alongside life, not end it for my own personal pleasure. I want to take only what I need. Our relationship with food says a lot about us, and I want to feel good about mine. Since becoming vegan I feel more at peace. I feel more compassionate. I feel more whole.
When people ask me why I’m a vegan, I don’t know where to start. This is my answer now, but maybe in a year I’ll feel differently. Like life, it’s a long and endless path that is constantly changing and evolving. Maybe you agree with me, maybe you don’t. My intention is not to persuade you to see things my way. The only thing I want to encourage is for people to be their best selves, whatever that means for them. Lately I have been inspired by others sharing personal stories and experiences at the risk of being met with opposition, and I have found encouragement in their voice. My only hope for this piece, is that I can be that voice for someone else.
The perfect mug for a proper cup of English Breakfast for this rainy London weather. Also Morrissey. #Instagram
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V serious business lunch #instagram
"I'm sitting on a bench by the water jawns" #instagram