How has becoming vegan improved your life?

So many ways, but the one I’ll say is i eat much healthier now. I used to never eat my fruits and veggies, and i lived out of the freezer with prepackaged meals. Now i could go live in my garden

one way that being vegan has improved my life is that it’s reduced the stress of cognitive dissonance, by which i mean i feel like my dietary choices are in line with my values and beliefs. i’m a practicing Buddhist and not killing is the first precept in Buddhism - and there’s millennia of history of at least vegetarian if not entirely vegan cuisine coming from countries and societies where other people took that precept seriously.

for me personally, another moment that impacted me was when my wife and i adopted two cats that had been discovered in an empty house. they were such playful, intelligent, and obviously feeling creatures; what in my life made me feel like cows, pigs, or chickens were any different?

anyway, that’s sort of what’s improved. it’s definitely created more complications too as so many others have pointed out. my wife’s not vegan, which bothers me occasionally. my mom totally doesn’t understand what being vegan is; she seems to think it’s basically keto somehow? i travel a lot for work and in some of the really rural places i visit, finding vegan options can be tough. i don’t mind that, but when i travel with co-workers they love to give me shit about being vegan. i keep showing them delicious food options (for example, Frisco, CO, has an amazing Vietnamese restaurant with some of the best vegan food i’ve ever had), but they still like to mock. oh well. i hope that by living according to my values, i will have an impact on them even if they don’t admit it.

How has becoming vegan improved your life?

I can look animals in the eyes without guilt.

With respect to the social isolation veganism can cause, I moved to a way less vegan friendly place about 4 years ago. I don’t really have any IRL friends here and it’s wild how much more peaceful I feel than I don’t need to navigate eating with carnists. I had a family member visit a while back and she got a burger when we were out for lunch (it was a food court, otherwise we took her to vegan places or cooked at home) and I thought to myself “I haven’t felt this feeling in a long time!”. Once and a while I find myself forgetting carnist options exist lol.

I’m not saying this is healthy or good for everyone and I really feel for people who have people they love and live with who are not vegan. Being someone who is truly happy when alone helps a lot.

I’m having the most difficult and stressful year of my life and yet my blood pressure is down, my physical fitness is the best it has been in a decade and my junk food consumption is almost non-existent.

No longer feeling any dissonance when interacting with animals and sharing my love for them is a huge relief as well.

Considering I no longer get out of breath when I walk, deal with indigestion, or have rough skin I’d say life has improved significantly since I went vegan.

Though, as I’ve mentioned previously, I sometimes feel a lot more lonely and isolated from the rest of the world. I live in a pretty big and diverse city so it’s genuinely nonsensical to me how few vegans I’ve actually come across in real life (I’ve met, like, four other vegans, one of whom “isn’t vegan” anymore.)

As for what I’m up to, I’m moving to a different house so I can finally start my garden up again. It’s been way too long lol.