I’m thinking of trying to go vegan, and am giving it somewhat of an attempt after being inspired by you & Rekka. If you feel comfortable, would you mind telling me the reasons that led to you deciding to do so, and how long you’ve been vegan?
Rekka and I both had different reasons to turn our diet to an entirely plant-based one. Rekka did the switch faster than I could, so I shall only speak of my own choices.
I was vegetarian for almost 10 years, when we stumbled on The China Study, it initiated a train of thought that would concretize into turning vegan shortly after — But I first had to fully internalise that data to actually apply it. At the time, I was beginning to increasingly question my choices and to validate them against some data or another. Learning about the phisiological changes of consuming meat and dairy, between the China Study and http://nutritionfacts.org, it became more obvious that my dietary choices did not align with my life-prolonging aspirations.
So, at the time my decision first came from an health stand-point. Later came moral, there seemed to be few things that could be as transformative toward a greener future, for earth, as getting rid of factory farming and fishing. Humans currently produce food for 10 billion people, but about a third of the crop is fed to animals, which leaves about a billion people without enough food. Going vegan would go a long way in helping end world hunger. It was becoming clear that if I wanted to act both rationally, and environmentally, I'd have to fully change.
Lastly, I got thinking a lot about speciesim, and came to look into the ethics of meat-eating, cultured meat, dairy production, etc... I failed to validate the choice to cosume animal products in any form against any form of rational thought. Reducing human and animal suffering, as well as waste, aligns with my views of behaving rationally on earth.