Like a whack-a-mole, things I have to deal kept popping up.  I attended an all-day leadership workshop at the office and one of the planners of the workshop purchased bags of chocolate bars for the afternoon break.  ‘Fuck me’ I thought when I saw them at 7 am, I love chocolate!  None were vegan.

At lunch time, I grabbed one of the vegetarian sandwiches and picked off the cheese. I also tried to ignore the fact that mayo was on it.  First, this happened because I wasn’t ready to tell people at work I was vegan, so they didn’t know to order me a vegan lunch.  Second, I wasn’t ready to tell people I was vegan because I didn’t feel strong enough to be ‘perfect’ and I didn’t want to be judged if I slipped up.  I also didn’t feel like defending my choice.  Many times when I talked about veganism, I had to defend my choice or reply to ludicrous comments such as ‘soy is bad for your health’ or ‘lions eat meat’ and ‘but we have canines.’ I wasn’t yet able to succinctly articulate myself, nor did I want to get into a debate on the various nutrition myths that exist with my colleagues.

I was just getting my sea legs and still wobbling my way to a vegan lifestyle, but it was very energetically draining to consistently justify my choices.  I wasn’t looking for an argument or a debate. I just wanted to quietly eat my lunch at work.  Lastly, I didn’t bring enough food nor did I have time to run out and grab food.

The vegetarian sandwich I had at lunch was pathetic.  It had a skiff of lettuce and a couple tomatoes slices.  When the chocolate bars came out at 4 pm, I had already been hungry for two hours.  PLUS, the chocolate bars were on my mind since 7 am.  When someone walked around with a bag of chocolate bars, I reached in and grabbed two.  No one knew I considered myself vegan.  Plus, at this point, I was still eating gummy bears and how much milk was in milk chocolate anyways was what I told myself?!  I felt my justification for eating gummy bears applied in this case so told myself it was ok.

My gummy bear justification was that gelatin isn’t a co-product of the industry it’s a by-product.  Meaning, the animals weren’t kept in confinement and killed so we could crush up their bones, they were there because of meat and dairy – the flesh and secretions being the main product, the gelatin being the by-product or waste if you will.  Since gelatin wasn’t the number one reason they were living a life of horror and ultimately meeting an untimely death, I justified that it was ok-ish to consume gelatin.

I also decided that milk in the chocolate bar wasn’t really dairy.  I mean, dairy was the third ingredient listed BUT it’s not like I was buying cheese. Cheese was for sure diary, directly diary.  Chocolate bars and gummy bears weren’t a direct secretion so I decided it wasn’t that bad.

Isn’t it funny that YOUR OWN BRAIN will challenge you and convince you to go back to your old ways even after YOU made the decision to change?!  Gosh as if friends, colleagues, family and medical professionals weren’t enough to deal with, I had my own brain to go up against too.  Come on.

Naturally, eating the chocolate bars set me off on a predictable binge.  It was early November so there was lots of leftover Halloween candy on sale and I started eating all of it.  Once again, the morning belly aches returned, the cravings, the lethargy, the weight gain and all other predictable things.  This was another obstacle I had to work through.  An opportunity to take a deeper dive into what I really needed to make the full shift to vegan, which most certainly included planning better in the future.

I confided in a friend about this.  She simply said to me ‘think about the cows’ – the chocolate you are eating contains dairy from cows, think about their experience and what they go through to end up in your chocolate.  Think about the calves separated from their mothers at birth.  Think about the bull calves (males) who are either killed shortly after birth or are chained up to a hutch and raised for veal.  Think about the mothers hooked up to milking machines day in and day out, getting impregnated every year and every year, bellowing for sometimes days when their baby is taken away yet again.

Plus, she added, there are vegan chocolate options available, so you aren’t giving up chocolate.  You are replacing the ingredients just like you have done with everything else.  She was right.  I wasn’t thinking about the cows.  My brain was doing more time thinking about justifying my actions and making excuses to go against my own morals than it was thinking about the cows.  She said exactly what I needed to hear.

That day after talking to her I walked by the Calendar Club and ended up purchasing a Cow calendar. I hung the calendar in the room where I get ready in the morning so that every single morning and night before bed I would look at the cows and remember why I didn’t want to support their exploitation. It worked.

I also thought more about the gelatin and while I had decided gelatin was a by-product of the animal agriculture industry, I thought about the fact that I did not want the ground up body parts of any animal who suffered and was killed against their will.  My body is not a graveyard, I do not want crushed up pieces of fear and death and suffering in my body.  When a product lists any kind of gelatin, whether it is beef gelatin, pork gelatin or just gelatin, I think about the discarded body parts of all of those amazing souls who each deserved better, but who instead lived horrific lives so we could eat them.  I did not and do not want to put that kind of energy in my body.

Chocolate and gelatin were the final things for me to eventually let go of and this work event highlighted the need for me to come out as vegan so that my choice could be supported, and I could order a vegan lunch option the next time OR feel comfortable enough bringing my own lunch.

Also, I may have dreaded questions at the beginning of my journey but I’ve heard it all by now. If anyone has a question, I’m here for it. I love questions now and if you are wondering about something or have fears about going vegan, I’m sure I have an answer and/or can point you to a reliable resource. Ask away, no judgment.

Peace, love & plants,

Michelle 🙂

p.s. Purdy’s has VEGAN chocolate. They have Himalayan Salted Caramel and Sweet Georgia Browns (similar to a Turtle). They are delicious and sometimes they even have ‘imperfect bags’ of vegan chocolate for cheap available near the till. Squish is my favourite brand that has some vegan gummy options, but there are lots of other options for both chocolate and gummies, just read the label. 🙂