Tomorrow, January 19, 2016, I "officially" become vegan. I say this because I pretty much decided at the beginning of 2016 to make the full transition to veganism, but I still had non-vegan food products in my pantry and freezer that I had just bought. Once I had finished the last of those, I would be able to say that I actually am a vegan.
I have been vegetarian since July 2, 2012, so I have just passed the three-and-a-half-year marker for being meat-free. With every year, I came to a new realization of what really is and isn't veg-friendly. Since you may be curious, here's a rough timeline:
March-April 2011: going vegetarian for the first time
July 2012: going vegetarian anew
January-December 2013: eating vegan two days a week
~2013: finding out cheese has rennet
~2014: learning about lard, gelatin, carmine, shellac, and other animal by-products (I think this period of discovery probably started sometime in 2013 and continued into the following year)
October 2015: finding out refined sugar isn't vegetarian/vegan (learning about bone char)
January 2016: making the switch
In hindsight, it seems that I was always heading toward veganism (or, at least, toward something beyond basic lacto-ovo vegetarianism), and recently, I must admit that I questioned myself a lot about my dietary habits. "Wouldn't it be easier to just go fully vegan," I wondered, "instead of being super-strict vegetarian and having dozens of animal by-products to avoid while holding onto the few that you find 'ethical'?" The other day, one of my teachers curiously asked me why veganism was better than vegetarianism, and I had to stop and think for a moment, but I finally answered, "I didn't think vegetarianism was enough, ethically."
Since my first attempt at veganism flopped and I felt miserable all the time, I am making more of an effort to research on my second go at it. (E.g. I put flax oil in morning smoothies for the omega-3s and just picked up a canister of nutritional yeast to add B12s to my diet. Also, I'll be drinking more almond milk for the calcium and vitamin D, but I'm taking some pills to supplement it.) In one of my Pic a Day posts a few months ago, I said that to be vegan, one has to be good at food alchemy. So I guess I can think of it, from this point forward, as becoming an apprentice in food alchemy.
P.S. When I see this symbol on food, it makes my life complete! And if I ever get a tattoo, I swear that this will be it. (Kidding. Kind of.)
