One of the biggest impacts of my life happened four years ago. I’ve always been an animal lover, all my life I’ve wanted to adopt stray animals. Whenever we passed by pet shop, I had to go in. One day I decided to look up some things about animals to extend my knowledge. I came across a website called PETA2, I watched their violent and brutal videos about fur, fast food companies, how they torture and kill animals. In that moment something snapped, and my ways of viewing things changed forever.
I became very interested in animal cruelty, I saw movies and videos like Meet Your Meat, Earthlings, and Food Inc. I went to a couple of events that PETA2 had sponsored, I started to read a couple a books about being a vegan and I saw how unhealthy it could be to eat meat all the time. Since then Meat started to gross me out, I couldn’t eat my mothers meals without thinking about the poor innocent animals. My mother realized what was going on,she became worried. She decided talked to me about it, we came a conclusion that I would become a vegetarian for a month and if I succeed I would become a vegan.
After we went to the food store, my favorite, Trader Joe’s. They have a wide variety of vegan options and they have a stamp that says VEGAN when its vegan. We bought a lot of vegan / vegetarian entrees. After the month was over, I became a vegan. Which was one of the most hardest things I’ve ever had to do. Not only for me, but for my whole family. If I became a vegan, my whole family became a vegan. When i changed my diet, it made it hard for my mom to cook things I could eat, and everyone would like.
Vegan food didn’t taste the same as regular food. Soy milk was weird for me, I didn’t like it at all. I would skip lunch at school because there was no food I could eat. The first few months, I lost a lot of weight, I was underweight. I only weighed 90 pounds, the doctor was worried so she recommended I see a nutritionist to make sure it was healthy and if it was what would my diet consist of. She explained to me what I’m missing out on since I don’t eat meat, and I needed to take vitamins.
My mother bought me vitamins with iron, vitamin c, omega-3, all the things that I needed that I couldn’t get from not eating meat. After having that talk with my nutritionist, and finding a healthy diet for my age. I have lived a healthy and happier life. I may just be one person, it may not be much, but I know I’m making a difference. A year, I save about 100 animals from being eaten. I’m glad I decided to become vegan. It has its ups and downs but overall I know I’m doing something good, and I’m happy with it.
