When people learn that I am a vegan, the most frequently asked question is, “Where do you get your protein?”  Rarely am I asked, “Why are you a vegan?”  Salon has invited its readers to share their personal stories about being a vegetarian or vegan – or not – and so, here is mine.

Growing up, I always loved animals.  I watched all the nature shows, could tell you the names and habits of numerous species and, foreshadowing my present concern for animal rights, I was quick to protect animals, and even insects, when other kids were being cruel to them.  At the same time, I ate meat; being a native New Yorker and a Jew, kosher delis were my favorite restaurants, and Zabar’s was the promised land.  I never pondered the contradiction between my love for animals and my eating habits.

I stopped eating red meat in college mostly because of health concerns, but also because it just seemed like the right thing to do.   One night, over a chicken meal, I contemplated the bones and skin left on my plate and for the first time, truly understood that these were the remains of an animal that had once been intact and alive.  As obvious as it seems in hindsight, this was an epiphany.  I didn’t grow up on a farm, had never met a live chicken, had never even thought about the animals whose flesh I had been eating all those years, but that night, I stopped eating and pushed the plate away.  I clearly remember the words that ran through my mind:  “This is disgusting.”  Shortly thereafter, I gave up seafood too and became a vegetarian.   To me, meat had been a meal.  To the animal, it had been its life.  It did not have to be this way.  I had alternatives.  For me, spiritually, giving up meat to spare an animal its life was the right thing to do; the ethics of eating animals did not concern me. 

Several years later, I became a volunteer at a wildlife shelter.  We had everything from tarantulas that had been confiscated from a drug dealer, to parrots given up because they squawked too loudly (damn, those things are loud!) to a ferret that had been brought in starving because its owners were only feeding it grapes, ignorant of the fact that ferrets are carnivorous.  While there, I saw a flyer on the shelter’s bulletin board for a rally to protest the fur industry.  The flyer featured a picture of a coyote with its leg caught in a trap.  I had never even thought about the fur industry outside of the fact that rich people wore fur, never considered what happened to the animals that were used to make those coats, but the photo moved me, and I participated in the rally.  One thing led to another, and I ended up with a copy of the book “Animal Liberation,” by the philosopher Peter Singer.  This book is sometimes referred to as the bible of the animal rights movement.

Up until that point, I was a young man in my twenties living in New York whose primary concerns, aside from scraping up enough money pay the rent, were – to quote the late, great, Ian Dury – sex & drugs & rock & roll.  “Animal Liberation” changed all that.  I had never been particularly political, though like all good liberals of my generation, I detested Ronald Reagan, but I was not a political activist.  Reading “Animal Liberation” transformed me into an animal rights activist practically overnight.  Before reading the book, I never really thought about where meat came from.  Meat came from the supermarket on pieces of Styrofoam wrapped in plastic.  It came in triple-decker sandwiches with a pickle on the side.  It came in quarter-sized slices on those famous New York City giant pizza slices, the kind that the guy in the window passed to you on a piece of wax paper, with grease dripping off of it, and cheese so melted and oozing that you had to be careful with your first bite, lest you end up with a wave of steaming hot mozzarella sliding off the crust and scalding your chin.  Farms?  Those were places with men in overalls holding pitchforks, with chickens running around under their feet and pigs wallowing in mud and cows going “Moo” in green fields with a big red barn in the background, right?

To my astonishment and dismay, I learned that this was not the case.  I learned about factory farms, where animals were crammed into tiny, filthy cages too small for them to even turn around in.  I learned how female pigs were locked in gestation crates for their entire lives, how battery cage chickens had their beaks cut off with hot knives so as not to attack each other while confined in cages too small for them to even flap their wings.  I learned how dairy cows with grotesquely enlarged udders were kept almost constantly hooked up to milking machines. I learned how male dairy calves, being useless for milk, were locked in small crates for the sake of the veal industry.  I learned how animals were transported for so long in trucks without food or water that some died along the way. I learned about auctions, where sick and dying animals were heaped onto “dead” piles and left to suffer.  I also learned what happened in industrial slaughterhouses, where stressed out, underpaid workers often beat and electrocuted and abused animals that were already terrified by the stench of blood in the air and the screams of other animals.  I learned that animals were not always unconscious or dead when they were skinned or dismembered.  I learned all this and worse:  the litany of horrors that befalls animals in factory farms and slaughterhouses is like something out of a nightmare, only it is real, and it happens to billions of animals every year.

That was my turning point.  I stopped eating dairy and eggs and chose to become a vegan.  Giving up eggs was easy, but I admit that giving up cheese was a challenge.  I would stop for awhile, then go to a party and, a drink or joint later,  find myself chowing down on pizza or those ubiquitous yellow and orange cheese cubes that only seem to appear at parties.  Eventually, though, through a combination of willpower and ever-improving vegan cheese substitutes, I gave up dairy altogether and one day, found that I no longer missed it.

One time, though, I did buy an egg from a small farmer.  I ascribed no feelings or sentience to the liquid mass inside the shells.  My concern was for the plight of battery hens, who are arguably the most abused of all factory farmed animals.  But hens layed eggs as a matter of course, and if a hen was well cared for on a small farm, by a good person who gave her room to run around and sunshine to enjoy, then it seemed consistent with my concern for the well-being of animals.  The first thing I noticed when I cracked open the egg was how solid and brightly colored the yolk was.  It was completely different from the watery albumen and pale yolks of factory farm eggs.  I fried the egg and started eating it.  It tasted fine, but the more I ate it, the less I liked it.  It evoked a sensation of blood and flesh in my mouth.  It was too animal.  My little experiment was over.  No more eggs for me.  I was staying a vegan after all.

People think that it is hard to follow a vegan diet.  I think a better way to look at it is, it is hard to follow a healthy vegan diet, at first.  After all, consuming nothing but potato chips and soft drinks is vegan, but it is not the prescription for good health.  Becoming a vegan does require a little research, a little know-how, especially for people who have grown up as omnivores in an omnivorous society. 

However, once you know what you are doing, it is easy to be a healthy vegan.  I’ve been a vegan for nearly 20 years, and though I am middle-aged, I still enjoy things like kickboxing and hiking up mountains.  My wife, who has been vegan for almost as long, is also active and healthy; she won’t spar with me, but she will hike up 15,000 feet with me.  Moreover, if you’re fascinated by food and nutrition like I am, you’ll soon become an expert on which whole grains and green leafy vegetables and legumes can provide all your nutritional needs, and which fortified soy milks or hemp milks will give you the B12 and omega 3, 6 and 9 that you need to stay fit.  (A word about B12.  Though various theories abound about whether you can in fact get enough of it from a vegan diet, I think it is wise to eat B12 fortified foods, or to take it in supplements.  For those who say aha!, this proves veganism isn’t natural, I reply, neither are vaccines or air conditioning or dental floss or multivitamins or, for that matter, buying prepackaged meat that comes from factory farms.  If we all revert to a pre-industrial, pre-technological way of life, then I will consider giving up being a vegan).

As for veganism being a life of boring deprivation:  as a proud foodie and someone who is never happier than when he is cooking up a gourmet feast, I swear to you, it ain’t so.  I love to eat, and I love being vegan.  When you go vegan, you learn to look at cuisines from around the world.  As it happens, many of them are already vegetarian and vegan friendly.  Among the cuisines I can always turn to are:  Italian, Chinese, Ethiopian, Mexican, Indian, Thai, Lebanese, Vietnamese, Jamaican, Burmese, Greek, Moroccan, Spanish, Indonesian, Afghani, Japanese, and more.  I have also yet to find a world cuisine that does not have vegan-friendly dishes.  Russian borscht. Irish potato and cabbage stews.  French ratatouille.  And hey, it’s 2010.  Some of the best vegan food I’ve ever eaten was in an all-vegan restaurant in Austria.  Not to mention all the vegan foods that you can find in American supermarkets, like veggie burgers and hotdogs and soy cheese and coconut milk yogurt – the list is endless.  You vegan young’uns (veg'uns?) have no idea how lucky you are.  Back in my day, if you wanted a veggie burger, you had to mash up some lentils and onions and hope for the best, by cracky!  (Actually, lentil burgers are pretty good).

So that is my life as a vegan.  I write about it frequently here in Salon.  Yes, I would like people to see things my way and consider becoming vegan, or at least vegetarian, but I would never force anyone to do so, even if I could.  As I’ve written before, I do not think that eating meat or dairy or eggs makes one a bad person, but eating those foods can support some very bad things, namely, factory farms. If you do eat meat or dairy or eggs, please try to buy it from small farmers who treat their animals humanely, and who use environmentally sustainable farming methods.  They are true heroes, and they need your support.  Besides, their products are healthier and better tasting.  It’s a win-win situation for you, the animals, and the Earth.