in which I tackle the Vegan Challenge and ramble about sustainable food consumption
So here’s the thing. I’ve been reading and researching and thinking over the summer.
I had been - and still am - recovering from disordered eating. I binged on and ate things that I didn’t necessarily want to and felt horrible afterwards. And then I did it again. I tried to tackle the issue from multiple angles: mindfulness, relocating, distraction, intermittent fasting, etcetera. I remember making the decision to try and fix my relationship with food and my body image once the whirlpool of college-semester responsibilities was out of the way.
I meant to volunteer on the school farm this summer. The idea was to get my hands dirty in the soil, and build a new appreciation for the origin of food. And volunteering did help - kind of.
More so than the hours spent under the sun and in the rows of cabbage, kale, and carrots, this one book impacted me. Jonathan Safron Foer’s Eating Animals. I was already a pescetarian, but this book made me rethink my reasons for eating certain foods. In a way, the timing of my encounter with this book and the point in my journey to recovery was jarring, and felt like they were at odds. The thought of restricting myself even more, of turning my head from all food containing animal products seemed like it was another attempt of mine to restrict my eating, only this time under the guise of animal rights and environmental sustainability. Maybe meats and animal products were going to be next on my prohibited-foods list, right under bagels, potatoes, rice, pasta, cashews, and cookies.
Despite this anxiety, I researched on. A conversation with an educator at the New England Aquarium. Documentaries: Fat, Sick, and Nearly Dead; Cowspiracy; Food Matters (all on Netflix). Then the Youtube vegan community: Happy Healthy Vegan, mainly, but a few others as well. I started to see how eating compassionately (and I mean compassionate towards animals, the environment, and your own physical health) tied into eating mindfully, and potentially eating in a way that didn’t make me feel guilty and fat after every meal.
As of today, I have been a vegetarian for a couple of weeks. Yesterday, I took on a challenge to be a vegan for a week. So far, so good. No noticeable changes yet, but then it’s only day 2. What makes me happiest during the challenge so far is that I have been able to stop eating when I no longer want to, and I can eat whenever I feel like my body needs it (and importantly, not feel guilty afterwards). I don’t think I will be turning into a vegan anytime soon, but I somehow have a feeling that I won’t be missing animal and fish meats all that much.
My next steps: I have an electronic copy of The Omnivore’s Dilemma. I am taking an English class called “Animals in Global Contemporary Literature” that - if all goes to plan - will help me think about human-animal relations and what I want the relationship to look like, ideally. And lastly, to remain flexible with my eating - I have to make sure I don’t lose this balance of eating compassionately, because if that teeters into a restricted mentality then I will not be doing myself any favors.
