Who all is vegan and why?

[Tabby94]

I'm not a Vegan, but a Veggie. But what I will say, is that from what I've read, being Vegan is the optimum diet.

I'm vegan for spiritual, ethical, and environmental reasons. I've been vegan for about 6.5 years now (vegetarian 5 years before that), but I don't have any vegan friends in real life. I have one vegetarian friend who grew up that way as a Seventh Day Adventist. Veganism is seen as hippy dippy and completely weird around here. Even some members of my own family make fun of my values. I actually live in a state in the US where public schools close for the first week of hunting season because all of the bus drivers call off sick to go hunting.

[Rah nam]

I don't call myself a vegan, and I don't like labels anyway. There are many things a vegan would eat and I would not touch, like grain which is not spouted. I don't touch almost anything that is processed. I only trust what I prepare myself, eat mostly from my own vegetable garden. I make sure my body is in an alkaline state, but then I eat one or two particular yogurts, and raw honey. The only thing I drink is water and green tea.
What I do is, scan food if it is OK for me to eat, it is that simple.

I'm a pescatarian, but I'd like to become vegan. I've been a pescatarian for 5 years. I also do it for ethical reasons, but I'd like to become a veg. I visited and fed turkeys a thanksgiving supper this year. It was amazing.

[mogenblue]

I have a mostly vegan diet. No meat, no eggs, no diary except for an occasional pizza with cheese.

I switched from meat to vegetarian for health reasons. My digestion had some problems and I felt a permanent need to eat. That disappeared with a vegetarian diet.

It didn't help me with losing weight. But when I threw out the last bit of dairy, cheese, my body was suddenly able to tap into the fat reserves and losing weight started to happen without any particular effort.

My vegan diet has made me feel much better in my body. It has also made me more aware of how much food and resources are wasted because of the meat consuming lifestyle of people in general.
Having a vegan diet made it easier for me to oppose to such a wasting kind of lifestyle. I don't want to be hypocrite: if I should eat meat I shouldn't complain. Otherwise I think you should do something about it.

So it made it easier for me to show compassion for animals, without being hypocrite.

Vegan is not so bad at all. Chocolate and alcohol are vegan too. You can still develop very unhealthy habits when you're vegan....

Vegan out of concern for animals, people, and the earth.

In the US food is produced in a very inhumane, profiteering way with lots of poisons added and terrible effects on the soil and animals. So I try to buy organic and local too and use as little sugar as possible, since that also does a lot of harm to everyone.

The nutrition part is a good side effect but really it's about what I can live with as a person and wanting to do what I can. For instance, did you know that for every year one person eats organic vegan 1.5 tons of carbon is saved from the atmosphere? It makes a real impact.

[mogenblue]

Polution is serious business, indeed.

The Netherlands, my home country, is the most poluted country in Europe. In 2011 a report was published by the Dutch Nature and Environment Organization.
The main cause is the oversized livestock. The bio-industry here has completely lost track of what they are doing.

Here is a link to the original Dutch article.

I work with animals and it only makes sense to be vegan. it's not difficult.