Guest blogger Amu Vegan from LIVEKIND BLOG tells readers her story of transitioning to a Vegan Diet.
The city that I grew up in - New Delhi is the state capital of India and the metropolis of New Delhi has a total population of 17 million (compared to New York at 8.1 million). The pace of everyday activities in Delhi is comparable only to a big populous city in the United States (like NY, SF or Chicago) essentially presenting the same challenges, exposures and multi-cultural environment to a child while growing up. My upbringing has been nothing of a specialty. Father worked in a stable Central Government job mother worked as a home tutor for high school and middle school children (does so even today). A part of her income has been dedicated to teaching and providing educational materials for underprivileged children in the community. Many people who don’t even know her name know her as the “teacher aunty”! My elder sister followed my father’s footsteps and now works as a financial consultant in a “big six” financial corporate. Bottom line: I was raised in a big fast-paced city in a well educated middle class family and taught that simplicity, honesty and integrity are the most important virtues to posses and practice.
I ate a lacto-ovo-vegetarian diet most of my life…
Pulses, grains, yogurt, milk, vegetable and fruits made up a majority of our diet, with cheese, eggs, bakery as the “specialty” products, especially bakery which my mother started buying only because of my growing demands. My mother had never eaten eggs until I demanded cakes and pastries be bought which she ate very reluctantly. Bakery products are not a big part of Indian cuisine. However, most desserts are heavily dependent on dairy. As a matter of fact, India is one of the major producers and consumers of milk. Simply put: I was (unknowingly) heavily dependent on dairy products. An animal product I had to take a lot of effort to “DE-INDENTIFY AS FOOD” when I turned vegan.
When I attended college in India I built a fairly large circle of friends. Amongst those most of them were regular meat eaters. While eating out in the campus (which was very, very often) I was always challenged to eat/try how meat tasted. My answer was “I don’t think I can get over the mental block so I know it will not taste like food.” It was not until I turned vegan that I realized the MENTAL BLOCK I used to talk about was a conscious effort by my mind to avoid unnecessary harm. Finally after nearly a year of defiance I gave in one day when asked the question: “How do you know you will hate it if you have never tasted it”.
I started eating chicken in very small quantities. I couldn’t eat a more than a few bites. The dishes were usually smothered with some highly fatty curry sauce. I was never able to bite into a piece of flesh and consume it easily with out a false identity being slapped onto an animal’s fate: a.k.a packaging and processing.
It was very likely the mental recognition of the meat as “NOT FOOD” – that never allowed me to enjoy it as much as my friends did..
Time flew by; undergraduate and masters Degree in organic chemistry – check. By the time I was 23 I had tasted chicken, goat, pig, and very little fish meat I could never stand the smell. – still eating a lacto-ovo-vegetarian diet at home. Beef was not very widely available in India because of religious reasons, sadly enough it is now available in upscale “steak houses” in India. So while with friends I was “the one who is still exploring the wonders of an omnivorous food”, at home I was comfortable eating pizzas (which my sister spent a huge chunk of salary on to pamper me with) bakery and absolutely addictive Indian desserts. Luckily for me, (and !) I did not have a propensity to gain weight and maintained my dress size all the way through my unhealthy eating binges (actually still do though now I try to eat much, much healthier).
I had decided early on that I was to spend my professional life in the pursuit of the truth. Simply put – I was interested in pursuing exciting scientific endeavors with unknown immediate consequences! I desired be become a scientist.
I moved to the United States when I was 24..
and was a graduate student when I met my husband. My life changed completely with one simple question. No it was not the usual one; this was more an academic one!
He was working as an Assistant Professor and an Attending Physician. He was also pursuing a Masters in Public Health and was taking a biostatistics course, which coincidentally, I was taking as a part of my PhD course work. One day after class he asked me “Do you want to study together some time? You seem to be so good at this!” (He later told me that he felt I was a bright student as I used to answer all the questions!). I promptly said yes. The reason I was excited to study with him, in addition to his vibrant smile was, he had already purchased the (rather expensive) required textbook and I felt this was a way to circumvent the expense! I quickly realized that his acumen for probability and mathematics was far better than mine. To my surprise his cooking skills were also extremely impressive. Even to this day there are recipes that only my dear husband makes at home (another bonus!). I made his cheat sheets for the statistical formulae all the way through the course and the finals, he scored an A on the course and I a B+!. We got married in 2009 and since then have moved to Minnesota.
While we primarily ate a lacto-ovo-vegetarian diet we also ate chicken and lamb from time to time. By then my taste buds and mind had adjusted to recognize these as food. I also tasted beef once at Taco Bell – by server’s mistake. Me and my room mate were big burrito fans (I was only beginning to discover THE BIG BAD world of American grocery stores and fast food chains). I grew up shopping exclusively in farmer’s markets and local small business grocery stores eating farm-to-table-fresh fruits and vegetables and 100% home-cooked food cooked every day from scratch. It is a norm in India to shop and eat that way. This was new. This was glittering and big. So we went where all college students go to eat burritos – TACO BELL. I asked for a bean burrito – I got served a BEEF burrito by mistake. The server was very scared when my roommate confronted her. I said “No problem I will try it anyway”. And it did not taste good. It was waaaaay tooo fatty. And way too chewy. I felt well may be this is how it tastes. And forgot about it and continued to eat my “Seven Layer Burrito”.
In addition to extreme wanderlust and our love for hiking there is one more fundamental aspect of our personality that connects me and my husband: our thoughts on food.
It only took a simple question from my mom-in-law and one of my co-workers that made us “really think” about what we were eating.
“..while watching a program on travel channel she exclaimed in Telugu ( Siva’s native language)-“Noru leni jeevalanu champi thinadam thappu kadaraaa!”. It loosely translates to” Is it not wrong to kill and eat voice-less creatures?”
The answer to this question came easily, we gave up on meat and eggs but continued to eat dairy products. This was an easy transition for me because I anyway didn’t recognize these as food while growing up. Dairy on the other hand was the problem. Until I was asked another question this time by a coworker (in December 2010): “So if you eat dairy, what kind of vegetarian are you?”
It was while trying to answer this question that we discussed going vegan. For more on that story read the post on our blog. Since that discussion in December 2010 we have transitioned to a completely plant based diet.
Therefore, it is while answering simple questions that we adopted a KIND DIET - A VEGAN DIET.
Since we decided to adopt a plant based diet we have performed several experiments with food, and continue to do so. Each one has made our decision to eat a KIND diet, stronger. And today our experiments with food have become an important part of our identities. And LIVE KIND RECIPES is where we share our experiments with food. After all, what we eat is what we are. The LIVE KIND RECIPE website is a collection of vegan recipes we eat day to day. The LIVEKIND BLOG is a place for our thoughts on issues that are important to us.
So when asked why you eat what you eat “JUST THINK IT OVER”. With compassion and conviction, you can make a kind choice EVERY DAY. EVERY MEAL.
