There are many reasons to become a vegetarian. Out of religious beliefs, for health, animal-advocates, or simply a deal with God.
Take my parents-in-law as an example. They were meat eater until a family member fell ill. Feeling hopeless, a Hindu priest suggested that they sacrifice one thing in exchange for the health of the ill one. Ended up they chose to let go of eating meat, and somehow their dream came true.
To me, no such drama blissfully, I did have different thoughts about eating meat.
Is Vegetables Boring?
I grew up with Mom’s signature curried chicken wings and caramelised onions with pork chop, and a repertoire of several stir-fried vegetables. I hardly knew anybody who was vegetarian, but only one girl in my class, whose skin was always flawless and ivory. These people would never understand what is pimple (I hated them). Other than that, some adults would take a green route solely on first and fifteenth day of a Lunar calendar to pay homage to Buddha. And what do they eat? Trays of neon-light coloured soy based meat tasting sweet and sour were always a mystery to me.
Something Wrong with Eating Meat
Life moves on, I came across several documentaries about the meat industry and the slaughtering scenes bothered me. ‘Should I be a vegetarian?’ A moment of doubt flashing through but it didn’t last long. Cruelty will be forgotten and pleasure swap in place — showing from TV and social medias that how scrumptious are hamburgers, steaks, roast meat.
Vegetarian Cooking and Dining Out
If I were to completely wipe out meat from my diet, I’d have confused in the supermarket, grabbed a trolley but don’t know what to put inside. At the end of a busy day, the energy to plan a meal is almost zero. So I ended up fetching some chicken and vegetables to stir-fry in a quickest and easiest way.
Eating out was not easy either. Back in Hong Kong, we used to go YumCha and hardly any dimsum is suitable for vegetarian. While everyone is eating har gau and siu mai, can I be the only one eating plain cheung fun? At this stage, becoming a vegetarian seemed to be too difficult.
Life moves on without a sign turning to a vegetarian (I still don’t), but things changed after I married to Curry Boy, an Indian who eats mostly vegetables and cooks veg curry once a week.
While we gradually increased plant-based into our diets, there were alarming news scattered around like mercury seafood or chicken flu, urged us to focus back on vegetables. But sooner or later, we tend to forget everything and back to the same old same routine, until a big wave turn everyone’s life upside down.
A Book that Changed My Diet
2020, COVID hit. We just moved to Germany, soon trapped by lockdown, and I had so much time to stay home and read. Then I came into contact with the best-seller book ‘HOW NOT TO DIE‘, written by Dr. Michael Greger. Only then I knew that eating meat can cause chronic diseases; how animal fats do harm to the body; and how healthy a plant-based diet is.
I was never so moved by a book. I guess it reassured me that many diseases caused by a poor diet, and a good diet can heal and revive fading health.
3 Documentaries
Then, my wobbly plant-based belief is further cemented by 3 documentaries showing on Netflix.
The Game Changers
This one tells how professional athletes can take their fitness to the next level with a vegan diet.
The most impressive message is the comparison between the blood after eating meat and the vegetarian diet. The former is turbid, while the latter is clear. When animal fat continues to accumulate in the blood vessels, it can cause many problems and diseases.
Cowspiracy：The Sustainability Secret
This movie uncovers how eating meat affects the ecological environment and climate change.
Beef comes from a cow. It needs to be fed with grains and grass which also require a lot of water and energy. Then the cows fart and poop. All these link to global warming and the question to sustainability.
Bear in mind that the final scene is shockingly disturbing. Take away a life that you raised and lived with, just because you want meat, is something I could never understand.
Seaspiracy
Have you ever wondered where are those aquarium stars come from? I still remember pouring out trying whale sushi in Japan, which actually had no taste at all. Why eating whales? The truth behind killing whales and dolphins (and sustainable fisheries) is revealed in this movie.
After adding up all the pictures of slaughtering, animals’ suffering, meat links to disease developing, whilst vegetables bring strength to the body, I naturally stopped eating meat.
Hidden Prejudices
Curry Boy, as a more plant-based eater than me, however tried to calm me down after witnessing my reaction to those documentaries.
He said, ‘when you believe in something, you will find a lot of evidence to prove what you believe. The books and documentaries are overwhelmingly support plant-based diets, but there is nothing mentioning the down side, which is not showing the whole picture. We are already having a balance diet, and we don’t have to change everything in one shot.’
I somehow, agree to what he said.
Here I want to point out one thing from the book ‘HOW NOT TO DIE’. The author tends to not labelling vegetarian/vegan, because these labels only emphasise what you don’t eat. He prefers using whole-food or plant-based nutrition to describe his eating habits.
Likewise, no label can be put on our diet, but the current approach is to eat mostly plant-based, completed by a small amount of seafood, eggs, meat and dairy products. Keep a healthy diet everyday is more important than rushing into a particular one. And I believe, vegetables are always good for us.
