By Rach Ibum, Wiltshire, UK

There seem to be two types of vegan: those that go cold turkey (as it were) overnight, and those that do it more gradually. My journey was a gradual one. After about six years as a vegetarian and a shorter period as a vegan at University, I fell off the bandwagon spectacularly and became a meat-eater again. I blame the French. Not all of them, obviously, just the ones I lived with. Fast forward to about 2014 and I couldn’t do it anymore. We used to get our meat from one of those farms where the animals were raised very well, which helped quieten that little voice in the back of my head that never really went away. One day we visited and there was a beautiful nanny goat in a pen. We made friends and learned she was to go to slaughter the following week. We bought her and took her home to our farm. The voice was getting louder. 

The first thing to go was milk. I’ve never eaten veal and it seemed nonsensical to refuse to eat it because of calves and yet continue to drink milk, knowing that they are removed from their mothers shortly after birth, so we gave it up. Cheese was more of a sticking point, as it is for many people. I’ll come back to layers of hypocrisy but this was obviously a big one.

One day when I saw a truckload of animals going to slaughter, it made me realize that no matter how well the animals from the farm had been treated, they still had to face that final terrible journey to the slaughterhouse, the stench of blood and terror and death in their nostrils, and the certain knowledge that they did not want to die. So I made it my business to find out what went on inside a slaughterhouse and went vegetarian immediately afterward.

Armed with the knowledge in my head, I still didn’t go vegan straight away. Looking back it was because my attitude focused on the prospect of giving things up that I enjoyed, however much I hated the reality of their production. So I started making a point of making some of our meals vegan, experimenting with alternatives, and playing with flavours. But as a real foodie who lives through her stomach (I blame the French) I couldn’t shake the idea of “giving things up”.

As time went on I replaced more and more dairy products one by one, until I was almost vegan. And then one day it happened; the shift in mindset that I needed. It was no longer a case of “I can’t have that” but “I don’t want that”. And that was when I went vegan and knew it would be for good. The last meal I had containing animal products made me feel ill; I couldn’t finish it. By this point, my taste buds were adapting and I was very familiar with building flavours in vegan food, so the final transition was as easy as falling off a log. Part of me wishes I’d done it much earlier, but equally I knew I had to reach the required frame of mind to make the transition permanent.

I told my partner (may have mentioned he is French) and, though he was vegetarian at the time, he was horrified. I reassured him I would not give him any grief or try to convince him to go vegan, and then made it my business to quietly make All The Lovely Vegan Food. A couple of months later he announced his intention to go vegan too. It’s been just over two and a half years and the best thing I’ve ever done in terms of feeling a sense of peace from living my life according to my values as an animal lover.

We did our first triathlon in 2016, and have been keen triathletes ever since. We wanted to understand what if any impact our transition to a vegan lifestyle would have on our athletic goals and capabilities. The most striking thing we found is that recovery times have significantly improved, with quite dramatic reductions in delayed onset muscle soreness following training. We’ve not found any issues with getting sufficient protein, and routine health checks confirm all common blood panel markers are looking good. 

A final point about the layers of hypocrisy. Animal exploitation is so deeply ingrained in our culture that it’s impossible to be alive without causing some harm. Even as a vegan, there is harm done to wildlife as a side effect of growing and harvesting crops on an industrial scale. It makes no real sense to give up milk and not cheese. On the other hand, the road to Rome is rarely made up of one giant step, but many many small ones, so I make a point of being positive and encouraging to anyone who feels inclined to make even small changes towards a less cruel and exploitative world. Change can’t come quickly enough, but force only leads to entrenchment and resistance.