Yuck… plus sadface.
Go vegan ya’ll! 
Some people won’t eat animals that appear intelligent, and that’s fine, but I think the bigger question is what they feel. Anyone who has been a caretaker for an animal knows that they experience happiness, fear, anxiety, sadness, surprise, curiosity, trust, shame, love… That’s what makes me pause to question the morality making them suffer and die for the sake of a meal.
I’ve been vegan for 12 years, and started in my early 40s. By that point I had spent years in front of the computer, and gained a lot of weight. I didn’t smoke or drink, and didn’t eat junk food. I thought I ate pretty healthy, and I exercised a bit every day. So I was baffled how I could be in such poor shape. I decided to approach it from an academic standpoint. No fad diets or gimmicks or articles from pop culture magazines, just ‘what does the scholarly research say’.
The main thing that kept coming up was to stop eating animals. Second was try to stop eating things that come from animals (cheese, eggs, milk). Third was learn to cook. Then there was more obvious stuff like exercise more, but those first 3 were pretty radical changes for me. After awhile I kind of tuned into the ethical and environmental aspects, but for me it was mostly a health issue in the beginning. I wouldn’t even say that I learned to cook, but I did collect recipes and cookbooks with a vengeance. That made it an easy transition. And the hyper awareness about what I was actually eating sped the weight loss, though a vegan diet isn’t a weight loss diet.
Same. I’ve got vegan faux leather dress shoes for business meetings. Vegan Skechers for every day wear, like going to the store. But I do a lot of walking, and since New Balance discontinued their double extra-wide vegan walking shoe, I’ve had to go back to leather. Damn my pancake feet. It’s a compromise, and I’m fine with that until something better comes along.
It’s my right to eat as I choose. I also hold a Vegans right to eat as they choose. Much as I do anything else.
You can dance around the town square naked, with a tea cosy on your head if that’s what makes you happy… just don’t require me to do it.
That being said I can honestly see where someone working with anything long term can become turned off by it. I had a friend who grew up on a chicken farm … needless to say she couldn’t bear to eat it anymore because the smell brought back too many memories.
I worked in a Pizza shop as a second gig for several years and for quite some time after I couldn’t bear the grease smell some food places have … and if you have worked with it long term you know what I mean.
Bottom line though … I’ll never feel guilty about the honey I like on my yogurt and that’s ok … regardless if others think so or not 
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It’s funny but recently the same type of research into diet led me to a modified Paleo rather than the opposite end of the spectrum. Humans are omnivores, but I get it if you can’t eat meat. As long as you don’t tell me to stop, we’re good.
I say modified Paleo because I can’t bring myself to give up a good hearty homemade hearth bread or dairy products. More research is showing that Paleolithic people were grinding grains in some locations and even fermenting beverages. As for the dairy, it’s only a relatively recent development that an adult human can digest milk products - many still can’t. I’m just one of the lucky ones that can, and can’t seem to give it up.
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I do subscribe to your theory, RKK.
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Okay, let’s eat…
Of course.
Ahhh, okay. Next time I’m going with a tea cozy. Won’t make that mistake again.
I started working in a pizza shop when I was 13, and did that kind of work all through my youth. If I counted it all up, including later years doing it as a side gig, I probably have nearly 20 years’ experience cooking American-Italian food for pay. I never developed an aversion to the product though; even now avoiding meat and cheese 98% of the time, stromboli remains practically irresistible, perhaps more so.
I didn’t have any of the animal farm experiences like those described above. I was raised on a fatty German/Slovakian diet in which every single meal included meat, starch, and bread. Canned corn or green beans in butter (if not pierogies) served as the common “vegetable,” and leafy stuff was only for skinny girls trying to stay skinny. Combine that with the pizzeria food I was eating regularly on the job, plus a pack of Marlboro Menthols a day, and I was a prime candidate for the myocardial infarction I experienced at the ripe old age of 32.
For many years after the ensuing bypass surgery, I continued to smoke and eat relatively freely while “struggling” with the nicotine addiction and weight control. In 2007, after many attempts, relapses, and several years of curating the secret-smokers/breath-mints club, I discovered the secret to getting myself off tobacco, but the old eating habits continued.
In February of this year, it was finally time to make a true change. All the “moderation” bullshit in the world was never going to work, so drastic measures were in order. After reading a book on the subject, I undertook a plan often referred to as “the potato hack”. For two weeks, I ate nothing but potatoes; only steamed, boiled, or microwaved; no salt, no butter; just potatoes with skin, and water. Effectively, it was like going cold turkey on flavor. It was hard. I could eat all the potatoes I wanted, but by the 11th day, I could only choke down a single one, and that’s how I finished out the 2 weeks; one potato a day. For 12 weeks after that, it was only vegetables; still no salt, no butter, no nothing; but they didn’t need it! The potato hack worked. After the flavorless 2 weeks broke all my habits and addictions, greens and beans were delicious and desirable. I still thoroughly missed meat, bread, and dairy, but such notions seemed so much less significant than before. The importance of enjoying a day’s intake was almost entirely gone, and I was able to focus on the objective of re-casting my body to that of a healthy person, much the same way I was able to re-cast my self-image as that of a non-smoker back in '07.
Now, I’m 80 pounds lighter than I was in February, and “moderation” is once again something of value. I can eat whatever I want as long as I don’t do it habitually, and my body seems so much more capable of processing it without harm. So except for a couple self indulgences every month, my diet is somewhat coincidentally vegan, (although some vegans I know eat a lot more salt and oil than I do). I feel and look better, but more importantly, I may even live long enough to post this voluminous rambling.
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That’s a remarkable story, Hotbutton. Congratulations on your success with it.
Thanks B. I just wish I’d known about the tea cozy sooner. 
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I just noticed … This is a thread under “Traditional Illustration”.
Uh oh. Sorry about that. Mods, can you move this to Digital?
Thanks,
Line
We’ve gone so far afield on this one, I don’t think it matters where it is or where it goes.
I think it’s because LineDetail drew the illustration. The illustration sparked a whole other discussion, which might have made the purpose of the original post less clear.
We don’t really have a digital illustration category. Unless I’ve misunderstood your reason for posting it, we can leave it where it is, I think.
All the same – I still eat meat, among other things, and stay bon vivant.
This conversation has become so interesting hearing the different background stories!
I totally agree on this one. And all thanks to @LineDetail 
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I moved it to General as we don’t have a Digital section.
… and of course I just saw Just-B’s response lol …
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You crack me up
and I am a firm believer is whatever works! We all have our struggles and have to find ways to combat it. What you did sounds like it worked very well. It might cure me from ever wanting potatoes again lol … They are always my downfall in any diet. I need me taters … I can’t help it … I’m a good Irish lass
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The good thing about potatoes is that they can be made into almost anything. I’m not sure that two or three weeks of nothing but potatoes would make a very balanced diet, though.
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Dutch people enjoy their potatoes aswell, mostly cooked with gravy and kale.
I personally prefer them mashed and as fries. Still learning to like sweet potato though 
You guys are making me hungry… I’m already hungry. I’m extra hungry now.
I’d like some vegan spaghetti…
Line
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