Why I'm Not a Vegan

Sarah was one of my roommates in college and one of the four girls I traveled abroad with one semester. And to this day, I consider her one of my closest friends. She is sarcastic to a fault, jaded, wise, wry and very private.  We were opposites in so many ways. I was a straight A student, obsessed with reading and writing, attending lectures on campus and, in general, being the typical college idealist. I took over the Environmental Club, I was the secretary of the Young Democrats, I was a member of the Student Union Board, and I was an Orientation Leader for incoming freshman.

To someone like Sarah, I was insufferable.

Sarah smoked. Heavily. She could drink like a sailor, she had tattoos, and she cursed in the most eloquent of ways. She participated in no campus activities, she only tried hard in classes that interested her, she was into Kubrick films and indie music, and it wasn't uncommon for her to put wine in her coffee thermos before her morning classes.

She was the coolest person I'd ever met.

And my love for her was reciprocated. This I knew. But she gave affection so rarely, and compliments even less, that when it came out, I sat frozen in disbelief on our living room couch. It went something like this: "Meg, despite my natural inclination to despise people like you, I love you." And she expressed it in equally terse ways. Once, when I signed up all of us in the apartment for a 6 am walk for diabetes, she reluntantly got up, glared at me with her mop of tight curls in a frightening state and said, "I'll do this once. For you. But never wake me up again. Even if our place is on fire."

During our semester in London, my admiration of Sarah grew stronger. A truly defining moment in our friendship--and my life, honestly--was when the five of us were at the university pub with our calendars sprawled out planning which countries we would visit over the course of the semester. A backpacking-through-Europe algorithm.We all wrote down our top three places to visit and then devised a complicated process of matching top desires with flights in and out of England, school holidays and rates on hostels and museums. In the midst of this chatter, Sarah said, "Hey, don't overbook the semester. I mean, after all, we are in f**king London. Let's spend some time exploring it."

Despite proudly hosting her annual "Fat Girls Slumber Party", Sarah struggled internally with body image. She hit a dark period a year after graduation and decided to live life differently. She applied for a graduate program at a top school in Social Work. She went on a strict no-carb diet, she joined a gym and she quit smoking. Such life-changing efforts that, upon hearing about them over email, I had to laugh.

Was it that I didn't believe she could do it? Or was I scared to lose the Sarah I knew?

I suppose a little of both. As a goody-two-shoes farm girl, I led a constrained life in the way of sex and alcohol and drugs. Sarah was the epitome of indulgence. I had once begged her to join the Environmental Club, and she had once told me to loosen up more at parties. Now to hear she was proposing a life of restraint felt like my way of living was being infringed upon. That my life of moderation she had so often laughed at, was now something she was going to do. And maybe even do it better.

Was I threatened?

You betcha.

When I saw her the next year she was 50 pounds lighter, was enjoying the rigor of graduate school and was a minty-fresh nonsmoker. A year later she had shed 30 more pounds and had ditched her shapeless clothes for an amazingly chic wardrobe. A year after that, she showed up to meet my baby, was now a vegan, and was wearing an adorable pair of shorts and an embellished cardigan. Seriously, this was crazy. She had gifts and hugs and handmade cards. She was giggly, though her humor was still biting. She was softer, kinder and more loving. She was, above all, happy.

She brought me organic wine, wrapped the baby's present in hemp and talked endlessly about her neighborhood's amazing farmer's market. And when she went to throw away her Trader Joe's organic almond butter jar, she looked around our kitchen and said, "Where's your recycling?"

"Well, in the garage, but we don't do plastic. Just glass and magazines," I stammered.

"I'm really surprised you don't recycle more," she said.

Now, I must emphasize that she placed no emphasis on any words. It wasn't said in a judgmental way: "I'm really surprised you don't recycle more." It wasn't said in a superior way: "I'm really surprised you don't recycle more." And it wasn't said in a way that was pressuring me into action: "I'm really surprised you don't recycle more." It was said as Sarah says all things, without judgment or ulterior motives.

And to her, that was probably the extent of her thought. She remembered our days in college when I would leave 15 minutes early for class, take a used Target bag and pick up litter on my way. And now, she visits me in my home and is not surprised to see that we do, in fact, recycle, but that we don't recycle more. Because her logical side would tell her that a person's passion for a cause should grow over time. Not lessen.

And she was right. I was so passionate in college. For so many causes. And I had lost that, just a little, as I progressed in life stages like marriage and children. Her simple remark made me feel that I had fallen away from the things I used to love most about myself, those things that truly defined me.

After she left I explained my disappointment in myself to my husband. Told him how when I was in college I had purpose and drive, and I was making a difference. That Sarah--who once was annoyed by my enviro-charitable-active lifestyle--was now living what I had once preached, while I wasn't even recycling number 5 plastic. To be fair, I consume many more beverages that come in glass bottles than plastic jugs, but still.

He laughed at this, saying, "Meg, when you were in college, your biggest stress was finals. You lived in campus housing and your parents paid for your health insurance. Saving the environment is what you are supposed to do in college."

"But I still value all the same things I stood for back then. Am I still pushing myself? Look at Sarah. Look how she's evolving. Every time I see her I am in awe of her growth, her determination, her goodness."


"Yes, but just because she's evolving doesn't mean you are regressing. Look at our lives. We recycle, we donate part of each paycheck to charity, we had a 'green' wedding, we read, we buy local, we stay informed, we drive tiny, little, nothing cars that almost run on air, we pay our taxes, and you spend your professional life helping nonprofits. That's a lot."

"I dunno....shouldn't we do more? Like be vegans?"

"You'd give up pizza?"



But Sarah's comment had put me on the defense. Mostly because when you become a mother, you become very defensive. Because motherhood, apparently, is a sport. And that means there are winners and losers. And teams. And you gotta pick one. Practice, spread the word, only read material that supports your cause, and most importantly, look down on those on the other side.

Which means you can't just breastfeed and go on with life. You also have to wear your child, make your own baby food and diaper them in organic cotton. Then you must tell the world about it at every chance as though all babies need your saving. You can't just feed your baby formula, put her in a crib to cry it out and diaper her in cheap throw-aways. You have to be completely defensive about it all, roll your eyes and say the other side is crazy, and then feverishly search for articles that say formula babies aren't doomed for asthma and poor math skills. And you most certainly can't mix and match between the two because then who the hell would support you? It's a polarizing phase of life.

So, the day after my daughter's birthday I told my husband I was ready to step out of the chaos of motherhood, move on from mourning my college self, steer away from extremists and start living my life in a more natural way. Nope. I don't mean organic and hormone free. Just natural to me. To do the things in parenting and life that make sense to me. To push myself only in areas that truly matter. So for that, I had to sit down and determine what those were.

I was surprised to find that very few of my causes centered around parenting. Lowery's fine. Happy. Bright. I'm giving myself a goddamn break from all that worry. When she goes into her tantrum-throwing phase, I'll start reading myself into a confused stupor, but for now she can just play in the mud while I have a beer.

And I was pleased to discover that most of the things I still care about are the same as they were in college. I don't think I've waned in passion; I think I've gotten smarter in action.

I'm still 1) an environmentalist, 2) a feminist, 3) a liberal, and 4) a voracious reader.

But instead of starting a club to organize Ride-Your-Bike-To-Class-Day, or coordinating the first community-wide recycling service in my home town as I did during my college years, I now focus on the small things in my life like using reusable grocery bags, cloth diapering part time and, recycling lots and lots and lots of glass bottles.

My feminism has taken its own unique path. I still staunchly stand up for women and their rights, but my new form of feminism is focusing on raising a daughter with good self-esteem and a healthy body image.

My liberalism gets stronger by the day, but now that I'm in a position to teach young college students about politics, I've discovered the importance of remaining moderately centered to be able to teach them both sides of the issues. If they happen to leave the class a liberal, that's just cake.

And I still read. When I get down on myself that I don't read as much as I did as an English major in college, I remind myself that I'm probably reading the same amount of words, it's just many of those words are usually imbedded in obnoxious classics like Goodnight Moon and Hand, Hand, Fingers, Thumb. 

In college I think I might have truly believed that if you weren't supporting a cause, my cause, it was because you were ignorant on the issue. If you weren't saving the planet, then you must not understand how shitty we are being to it. If you weren't a liberal, you didn't care about people. If you weren't against war, you were an asshole. And I'm not saying I still don't feel some of those things sometimes, but I've learned to respect and assume the knowledge of others first.

So I look at Sarah with respect and adoration. She's not jumping on a bandwagon. She's into yoga, veganism and recycling because she naturally grew from a place of apathy into one of caring. And I applaud her ability to drastically change her life while still maintaining her sense of self and her same gloriously vulgar mouth. And the best part about all the transformations and causes she's taken on is that she doesn't give a shit if anyone else embraces them.

More than anything, I think what she said in that London pub truly conveyed the difference between Sarah and me, and the reason I want to be more like her. I was and am more focused on the world, the bigger picture, saving things like the Planet and The People and spreading that message on bumper stickers, facebook and to my friends. Meanwhile, Sarah is focused on improving the one thing she can truly change, herself. And she does it quietly. Trying to cover every mile of Europe proved impossible. But we enjoyed every square inch of London.

I am amazed that Sarah, who was once so out of control, can stick to a diet with no meat or cheese or milk or honey. And I've briefly considered the possibility of trying it out myself. I know how awful chicken farming is, the laxity surrounding genetic modification and the meat packing industry, and I understand the dangers of mercury poisoning.

Despite knowing all that, I won't be a vegan for one simple reason:

I f**king love meat.

And I want the world to know.