In 2006 my mother died of cancer – primarily she was diagnosed with bowel cancer. Later on, it had progressed to lymphs, lungs, liver and spine. After she died, I became vegetarian immediately – with a sense that giving up meat would mean I might avoid a similar cancer trajectory. However, I found it difficult to maintain and within a year I was eating fish again. A pescatarian was where I settled for the next decade.
Then a good friend of mine became vegan. And although it interested me, it didn’t make me feel compelled to become vegan myself or to feel bad about eating fish or dairy. However, I began research for an environmental justice project: Human Aquarium (HA). The plan for HA was an exhibition that put humans in the place of orca whales through a series of photographic images. This was exhibited in an empty shop in Leeds and teh idea was to give the visitors a sense of being inside an aquarium.
In my initial research for this, I watched a series of films on the environment. These looked at the impact of humans on oceans and how places like SeaWorld treat Orca whales. Films I saw included #Cowspiracy #RacingExtinction #TheCove #ForksOverKnives #BlackFish #FoodChoices. These all had strong messages, and many had 30 day plans to become vegan. And I wanted to see if these campaigns were effective, so I signed up for the Cowspiracy campaign. I did it to see if the 30 day action plan to go vegan would work. I was thinking if such campaigns were effective, it might be something to point visitors of our exhibition towards.
And, to my surprise, it worked. By the end of 30 days I had stopped eating fish, eggs and dairy completely.
That was April 2017. And three and a half years later, I am still vegan. The things that made it harder for me to consider being vegan at the time were giving up milk and butter. Everything else seemed do-able, but I couldn’t see how I could replace melted butter on a piece of toast or a little milk in my morning cup of tea. Looking back, I did not and could never exactly replicate these tastes. However, taste buds change quickly enough and it really wasn’t the big a hardship I thought it would be.
The funny thing is, the moment that defined ‘going vegan’ for me, was reading an article about the sea lice problem within fish farming. I felt both sad and disgusted as I read about the prevalence of sea lice attacking fish because of the more cramped conditions, and the restrictions of farming place on freedom of movement of creatures in the ocean. I could not shake the idea that I was ingesting either sea lice or antibiotics (used to prevent lice) by eating fish. Yuk!
After reading that article, I lost my appetite for meat, eggs and dairy overnight. And I began to ‘feel’ emotions that I had blocked out. Like horror and deep sadness. I’d had a sense of disconnect that was now lifted. I could feel the horror of watching pigs eat their own ears; or cows strapped up in metal milking machines to have their milk (produced only to feed their babies) stolen. The idea of animals lining up for slaughter really touched a nerve.Surely as sentient beings they know what is going to happen at the abattoir?
Challenges to being vegan.
Getting used to the foods I could eat instead of fish and dairy was a challenge at the start. Prior to being vegan, I had dairy either eggs or fish at most meals. Working out food portions (which had to increase to be full) and worrying about the fake stories about vegans not getting enough protein or calcium. In the end, I settled on occasional supplements for B12 and vitamin D ( in the autumn/ winter every day). Finding vegan foods that have enough protein and calcium, though, despite the many warnings and articles, was no problem. I feel happy to be vegan and to not be causing more harm to animals or the affects of over farming of cattle especially. Its probably more healthy. I do occasionally miss things that I used to eat. Even so, I would highly recommend if you fancy giving up meat and dairy to give it a go. If you want to take the 30 day challenge from Conspiracy – then click here.
Zoe is an artist, life coach and massage therapist and co-produces Tea and Tolerance and Yorkshire Life Aquatic arts projects, works at Life Boat and Fragile ( Institute for Crazy Dancing). Zoe co-produced Human Aquarium Exhibition Unit 3, St Johns Centre Leeds. Zoe is part of the Unlearning Racism Collective, a participatory project that is part of and accountable to the Racial Justice Network, who address colonial legacies and challenge racial injustices.
In the Zo... 