Phase 2, Day 34

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Breakfast: pear with almond butter/flax seed meal; mug of green tea

Lunch: 1 slice whole wheat bread with Gardenburger soy patty and vegannaise/mustard spread; 1/4 of a nasty, underripe nectarine; diet Dr. Pepper

Midafternoon snack: cherry sugar-free popsicle

Midafternoon snack: grapefruit sweetened with Splenda

Dinner: "Healthy Harvest" spaghetti (not whole grain, but not all-white) with Trader Joe's canned marinari and frozen vegan meatballs; piece of sourdough baguette [I planned a meal of black bean frijoles but burned the beans, so that will have to wait until tomorrow night]

Exercise: none

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I had figured that most of the people who would visit this site would already be vegan. But I've come to realize that some (most?) of those who come are interested in veganism, but haven't gone down that road themselves.

So I've decided to write today a little about why I'm a vegan. It's not because it's a healthier way of eating. A well-planned omnivorous diet can be equally healthy; a badly-executed vegan diet can be pretty bad for you. (And obviously, since this site is dedicated to the South Beach Diet, veganism alone is no guaratee of a small pants size). It's not for environmental reasons. Undoubtedly, a vegan diet does put far less of a strain on the earth's resources than one that includes meat. But to be perfectly honest, I'm a half-hearted environmentalist at best. I'm lackadaisical about recycling. I'm never moved to write letters to the editor about air pollution, or strip-mining, or oil-drilling in Alaska. When I get worked up about an environmental issue, it's because of it's effect on animals.

I'm a vegan because I don't want to participate in the industrialized, commericialized abuse of animals. It's not even their deaths that bother me so much as the misery we inflict on them in life. I don't understand the motivations or moral world of hunters; I don't understand why they enjoy what they do. But there's an honesty, at least, in their actions. They eat meat without shying from what it takes to obtain it. And a deer shot by a bullet in the woods suffers at most for a few seconds if the shot is good, to a few days if the shot is bad and she escapes and takes a long time to die of her wounds. But an animal on a factory farm suffers exquisitely from birth to death, an expanse of time that can range from minutes (male chicks) to years (breeding pigs or dairy cows or beef cattle).

I'm not especially articulate on this point, but many others have been. This is a more compelling defense of veganism than I could ever offer. The page you will click on has no upsetting images, but don't go beyond that first page unless you are prepared for progressively more devastating pictures of animals on factory farms. You have been warned. It might take you a long time to decide to go beyond the first (or second) page, and I wouldn't blame you for that. It took me years to face the realities of what we do to animals on factory farms, and seeing these images so vividly still makes me cry.

I'm not a perfect vegan. I'm not even a perfect vegetarian. It's virtually impossible to be either in the modern world. But every little bit I can do is better than nothing. I don't beat myself up over slip-ups or temporary failures of conviction. A good person seeks to make her actions consistent with her beliefs as much as she can, understanding she can always do better, and then striving to do so.