So how did this all begin? Veganism is a lifestyle choice, not just a diet. Veganism dictates the products we buy, the clothes we wear, as well as the food that we eat. It's a big step. So how did I come to make the decision to live this way?
It all began on an ordinary Friday night in May. My partner and I were following our Friday night ritual: takeaway food and a movie. The movie this night was Fast Food Nation. The DVD cover included the rating at the bottom, with the description: "contains scenes of animal slaughter". Needless to say, I spent the whole film flinching at fast scene changes, wondering when the dreaded moment would arrive. When it finally did at the end of the film, I looked away and asked my partner to mute. I had always been a sensitive person, an animal lover, and this was something I knew I did not want to see. But when the film finished, something clicked in my brain. It was put much more eloquently than I ever could on the package of the Earthlings DVD mailed to my partner's house from the US: "We must not refuse with our eyes what they must endure with their bodies." (Later I reinterpreted this phrase: looking away was not enough and it was this that gave me the final push to watch Earthlings, even though I was no longer an accessory to murder.) Originally, my thinking was that if I couldn't even watch animal slaughter then why was I choosing to be complicit? I made the decision then and there to become vegetarian. For the record, my takeaway that night was one of my favourites: ham and salad Subway with double cheese. That was the last time I ever ate the flesh of another animal.
No comments:
Post a Comment