12 yrs ago I was a vegetarian who absolutely loved cheese and milk. I also had trouble losing weight, lack of energy, excess mucous (gross i know), bad digestion, depression and PMT (big time).
Within a month of excluding animal products from my diet I saw a positive change in all of the above health problems, especially the depression and the amount of energy I had. For once in my life I felt comfortable in my skin and felt lighter both physically and mentally. (haha i just read this back and it sounds like one of those infomercials :s) Anyway on with the story. My boyfriend continued eating dairy for another couple of years and then decided to stop also. Again within a short time he was feeling physically and mentally healthier but the most noticeable difference was that he no longer suffered from severe asthma attacks. Up until this point he had needed to carry a ventolin spray with him wherever he went but since excluding dairy products he has not used it again (over 9 yrs). He has had a few mild attacks but was able to breath his way through them and when we investigated we found he had unknowingly consumed something that contained a dairy product (red wine was the worst for this).
So I guess what Im trying to say is that for both of us our decision to go vegan was health orientated rather than for animal rights reasons (although being chased and chastised by a chicken after stealing her egg did help my boyfriend finally make up his mind). The fact that our eating habits are no longer contributing to animal cruelty and are alot more earth friendly are both added bonuses that have strengthened our opinion that this is the way we want to live.
When I first became vegan most people had no idea what that meant and would stare blankly at me until I explained that I did not eat animal products. They would then take a step backwards, look me up and down as if I was anouncing I had some kind of disease, and ask me 'what the hell did I eat then?' One bright spark even answered his own question with 'peanuts and lettuce?' (he was a giant of a country boy from north Queensland) Even with a complete lack of vegan products on supermarket shelves back then i was still surprised at peoples narrowmindedness when it came to the variety of plant foods. For me going vegan had opened up a whole new world of flavours that i had been missing because they had always been overpowered by cheese, eggs or milk. At this time there really werent any products specifically made for vegans in any of the shops where we lived (apart from the Sanitarium range of tin stuff like nutmeat etc). I hadnt even heard of tofu or tempeh and they definitely werent available til years later. I also didnt have access to the internet back then so I pretty much had to make things up as I went along converting our favourite dinners to being animal free. In a way I think we ate a lot better back then because we didnt have access to these products especially the sweet treats, so we were eating fresh fruit when we wanted something sweet and loads of fresh veges w/ rice or pasta for dinners. About a year after going vegan i was walking past a bookshop and spotted this book and another whole world of cooking opened up
