It took me too long.

I was raised in a household where my parents did not cook meat at home, yet no one was vegetarian. When I was 10 I decided to become an (ovo-lacto) vegetarian for the environment. I remember understanding (as a vegetarian) that it was dumb to be against eating dogs if you ate other animals, but instead of thinking it wasn’t okay to eat any, I took the position that it was okay to eat dogs. (I was vegetarian very specifically not because I cared about the animals, because that’s not what men do…).

Around 18, I felt like it wasn’t “worth depriving myself of taste pleasure” and started to eat animals. Six months on, I was studying with a (carnist) friend of a friend, when he asked me what I thought of bestiality. I had an immediate reaction against it, followed quickly by the realization that it wasn’t consistent to be against it and also be fine with eating animals. Despite full well knowing that dairy was wrong, I still only became a vegetarian again, feeling guilty occasionally while eating dairy and egg products.

It took watching the movie “Chicken Run”, reading a book on eco-socialism, and the boredom associated with a 15-hour plane ride one week an entire year after the above to get me to finally understand what I was being a part of, and I decided to become a vegan.