Cory Kilduff got me into veganism. He planted the vegan seed in my head in high school, and it finally blossomed into lacto-ovo vegetarianism about six months after I graduated.

I remember feeling guilty during my initial year of vegetarianism when I happened to see Cory while I was wearing a leather coat (I had it from before I was vegetarian, but still). And another time when he was over and I used real milk on my cereal. He never tried to make me feel bad, but I saw my own wickedness glistening in the reflection of his compassionate eyes. A year after going vegetarian, I took “the next logical step” and became vegan.

Though there were other vegetarian and vegan friends who influenced me, and my own pangs of conscience once I internalized the “meat is murder” argument, I always considered Cory to be my main inspiration. When I thought of veganism, I thought of him. But now I can’t do that anymore, because he is no longer vegan.

Let Them Eat Meat: I haven’t seen you in a while. Tell me about yourself.

Cory: I originally grew up in Dallas, TX, but got to Austin as quickly as I could, where I lived for about 10 years while playing in a hardcore band called The Rise, and going to school for graphic design. For the last year, I have been living in Leeds in the UK, and producing electronic music with a friend, under the name Ocelot. Most of my life is spent either on tour or in front of a computer working on music.

LTEM: Based on when I knew you in high school, and the couple of times I chanced upon you in Dallas vegetarian restaurants afterward, you were the most committed vegan I knew. If anyone was going to be vegan forever, it was you. What happened?

Cory Kilduff: You know, I wish that I had a specific moment I could point to, even if just for myself, but it was a process. I think I was at a point where I didn’t want to be so black and white in my life anymore.

I’d had loads of conversations about being vegan, and it wasn’t the animal products that I disapproved of, it was the method. For instance, the conversation I had the most with people always ended up in a verdict of, “Oh yeah, if I had my own cow that I knew was treated well, I would make use of that milk.” And the same with eggs from home-kept chickens, and so forth. I suppose there’s a slippery slope from there.

Maybe I just didn’t have the energy or passion for it anymore. It had been almost 10 years. I remember getting a cheese pizza with friends, and I never looked back. It’s a lame answer, but more than anything, I think I just ran out of steam on it. I got tired of thinking about it, and a diet having that much defining power on me.

LTEM: Some people who get into veganism for animal rights reasons eventually decide there are more important causes than animals. Did that happen to you?

Cory: No, I still very much care about animal rights. My methods are way less activist, though. I don’t believe in protesting being used as commonly as it is, or drawing attention to yourself.

Much like you said, I felt like the greatest and most rewarding impacts I ever had on people was just through knowing them and talking to them when they were interested enough to ask questions. It’s much nicer and more effective than yelling at people on the street and forcing them to look at vivisection pictures or something.

There was a moment I was at a protest against Macy’s, I think for selling fur coats, and across the street was an abortion protest. I felt disgust toward them for holding their aborted fetus signs and such. Instantly I recognized the irony in my emotions, and I’ve never been to a protest or organized animal rights effort again.

I suppose I do feel like there are more important issues than animal rights. How can you not with wars, health care, and the vast catalog of human rights issues in the world? Fortunately, I approach it all with a look-in-the-mirror sort of way, which never forces me to prioritize those things.

LTEM: Did you go from vegan to vegetarian to omnivore, or straight to meat?

Cory: I had the middle step where I was vegetarian for probably two or three years before I made the final plunge, and even that was a process.

I was not feeling well for a while, and I didn’t think I was giving my body what it needed to heal, so I decided to experiment and start eating white meat. I think I got a couple turkey sandwiches, then graduated to a chicken breast sandwich, which was way weird at the time.

I still have a hard time with BBQ chicken, or something where I have to really get in there and pull stuff apart. I avoid that. But I’ve gone on burger tours of cities to find the best burger.

LTEM: How long ago did you quit being a vegan/vegetarian?

Cory: About four years ago.

LTEM: Are you happier as an omnivore than a vegan?

Cory: I wouldn’t say happier, but I feel a little less isolated.

LTEM: Ex-vegans have a reputation for being really into meat. Are you a meat fanatic now?

Cory: I wouldn’t say I’m fanatical about it, but maybe I appreciate a great steak that much more, haha.

LTEM: What is your favorite meat?

Cory: There’s nothing like a great fillet Mignon. Somehow Morningstar Farms never perfected the microwaveable fake one of those.

LTEM: How does a person go from thinking that eating meat is pretty much the most horrible, repulsive thing in the world to eating it without reservation?

Cory: With enough time you can get used to the idea of anything. If you start losing the passion for something, and that little crack is allowed time to grow, eventually you wake up every day a little closer to changing your mind. It’s one of those things that I didn’t want to keep doing just because it was a habit.

LTEM: Is there anything you won’t eat now?

Cory: I’ve never eaten any seafood. Nothing about morals, I just don’t have a taste for it. I suppose the only leftover remnant of veganism is I won’t eat veal, but that’s pretty normal, even for people who were never vegan.

LTEM: Did you have a dark night (or nights) of the soul where you had to unlearn veganism and accept that eating animals is okay?

Cory: Not too many - I wouldn’t have started if I wasn’t ready. It was baby steps, though. I think I only ate chicken for about a year before going to red meat.

Oh yeah, I remember that I had this rationalization that in all my time being vegetarian, I never had a meaningful interaction with a bird. Like you can look at a deer or a cow, and there’s some acknowledgment that you’re both there. So I started with birds, cause they never seemed to give a shit if I was not eating them.

I also accepted this idea about the natural order of things. Not thinking that it mattered at all anymore in the huge scope of the universe. That if we were all some cosmic happy accident, and most other animals were eating other animals, why was I not?

LTEM: Are some people vegan in an attempt to achieve meaning in this cosmic happy accident?

Cory: I’m sure for some people, especially young people growing up in the suburbs. It is something they can reach for to define themselves and give meaning to something, other than going to the mall.

LTEM: Vegans want to know: do you ever feel pangs of guilt while eating meat now?

Cory: Yeah, occasionally. Usually it’s only when I bite down on a tendon or something, and I think, “oh yeah.”

LTEM: Did you have vegan friends who were disappointed with you?

Cory: Definitely, and they should be. It’s what you want from them, as long they aren’t dicks about it. I didn’t consult anybody when I stopped eating meat, and I don’t feel any responsibility to get approval to start again. I always felt it was a personal choice. I don’t think I lost any friends over it, though.

LTEM: How did you break the news to them?

Cory: My group of friends was a mixture of meat eaters, vegetarians and vegans. There was one year where this became pretty fluid. It was more of an event when someone stopped, and not a lot of judging.

I had a friend who had a huge tattoo across his chest that said “VEGAN,” and he went down hard - straight to burgers one day. We all joked, saying he needed to start dating a girl named Megan and change the “V” to an “M” on his tattoo.

There was only one friend I kind of hid it from for a few weeks, and then I was on the phone with him, and I slipped and said, “Hey, I’ll call you back, we’re running to McDonalds.” I think he was more disappointed that I was giving McDonalds my business than the fact that I was getting some McNuggets.

LTEM: Any other interesting post-vegan encounters with your vegan friends?

Cory: I honestly don’t think there was much of note. I didn’t hang with an animal rights crowd anymore, and all my friends were around me a lot of the time, so it went away really fast. We all had other things to do and care about. My friends were good about it.

LTEM: Have any of your vegan friends since left veganism? Or leave veganism before you did?

Cory: I may have been the last one out. Thinking about it, I think I only have one vegetarian friend left.

LTEM: Vegans believe that anyone who is vegan for a while will get violently ill when they first start eating meat again. Did you experience that?

Cory: I was totally worried about this, which is why I started with sliced turkey sandwiches. Out of all my friends and myself who have started eating meat, I have never seen anyone even get a case of meat sweats. It was a thoroughly delicious experience. You just forget how good things were, like Chick-fil-A, pepperoni and tacos.

LTEM: Vegans are often uncomfortable with ex-vegans, especially ex-vegans who were vegan for a long time. One of the ways they dismiss them is to say that anyone who becomes an ex-vegan was just never committed enough. They were vegan for the wrong reasons, and basically were never truly vegan at heart. But I know that doesn’t describe you. How would you respond to that characterization?

Cory: It doesn’t bother me, but it reeks of everything I hate about religion. Just this extremist black and white view of things, the pack mentality that I don’t have time for. It’s unrealistic, and I have friends - real ones - who don’t judge me based on my diet.

I mean, look, I don’t knock their hustle, and I still respect that decision, but this one is mine. This is how I live my life. If they want to think I was never committed enough that’s okay, it’s their issue now, not mine. I guess I wish for them that it was more of a personal journey and less of a crusade.

LTEM: Will all vegans have to cave in eventually, either from health problems or social problems? In other words, is ex-veganism just veganism + time?

Cory: There’s certainly plenty of people that carry it on for a long time (unless I’m wrong, Ian Mackaye and Paul McCartney come to mind). I think it’s just a such an extreme form of protest/activism that most people lose the motivation for it over time.

It’s not something that is isolated to veganism. Most people have things that are important to them in their youth, but when they have families or get older and have other things to concern themselves with, those things that were once so urgent fade a little.

LTEM: What got you into veganism in the first place?

Cory: A combination of my sister (who is still a vegetarian, but an ex-vegan) and punk rock. I always had a soft spot for animals, and with the information I was exposed to through those sources, it seemed logical after a while.

There was a dinner I was having with my family, and we were talking about animal rights (I was talking about animal rights and my parents were tolerating it is probably more accurate), and at one point my sister sort of abruptly said, “Cory, why aren’t you vegetarian?” I didn’t have a good answer. She had completely and fairly called me out on it, and I stopped eating meat within a couple days of that.

It took a couple years to get exposed to actual veganism after that, but after learning enough about factory farming, it became the next logical extension of the morality reasoning.

LTEM: How long were you vegan?

Cory: I think vegan for six years, vegetarian for ten.

LTEM: Any regrets about being vegan for so long?

Cory: No, it was where I was at, and I’m happy that I could stand by my convictions at the time.

LTEM: Were you ever rude about refusing non-vegan food?

Cory: I hope not. If I was, it was unintentional. I’m not the kind of person to send food back at a restaurant, and even if I found something on my plate I had requested substituted, I would just push it to the side of the plate and continue. My parents raised me well, and I’m from the South. It’s all, “No thank you”s and “Yes, please.”

LTEM: Does being vegan make it harder to take in new cultures while you’re traveling?

Cory: I guess if you consider food part of culture then yes, but if you’re vegan I suppose that’s part of the culture you’re not interested in experiencing anyways.

LTEM: Did you ignore information that didn’t tend to encourage your veganism?

Cory: No, there’s no way my natural curiosity would allow that. Plus, I like to know all sides of things for when I get into conversations, and to challenge my own beliefs. It’s the same reason I listen to Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity now. Know your enemy, and if you can’t question your own beliefs, how do you begin to know if you’re right?

LTEM: How does being vegan affect someone’s mentality?

Cory: I’ve definitely run into a lot of vegans with a superiority complex and can’t stand to be around people who aren’t vegan. Like they aren’t worthy of their respect.

LTEM: What is the most absurd vegan trait?

Cory: Thinking that everyone will have thought about it at one point in their lives. There’s this block for a lot of vegans that they don’t understand people are raised eating meat, and for most people it never crosses their mind to even question that (especially in Texas). And I never understood that instant judgement or sour face I would see when they would meet someone who hadn’t yet been exposed to the idea that maybe eating meat was not a great thing.

LTEM: Vegans often say, “Vegans don’t get sick.” How did that work out for you?

Cory: That was not my experience. But let’s be fair, most vegans are not great at it. They live off bean burritos and candy. I mean, most of us live in cities - it’s not as if they are farming on their student apartment balcony, they are figuring out that they can still eat soft batch cookies from 7-11 and Sour Patch Kids.

It’s not really wellness they are concerned with. And honestly, are we really supposed to believe that because you didn’t get that cheese pizza, you’re impervious to the flu?

I’ll say this though, miso soup with tofu is still my go-to meal when I’m sick - in partnership with great antibiotics, of course.

LTEM: What do you think about vegan parents raising their kids as vegans?

Cory: It kind of scares me, because I’ve never really met that many vegans that really do it right and take care of themselves. Even when I was vegan I didn’t think I would raise my kids vegan, certainly vegetarian until they could understand the concept. After that, you can’t stop them from having a meal at a friend’s house when they sleep over or something. And if they wanted a hot dog at a ball game or something, I wasn’t gonna deny them that. At that point, it’s their choice.

LTEM: What milk replacement did you prefer: soy milk, rice milk, almond milk, oat milk, quinoa milk, or other?

Cory: Vanilla-flavored soy milk. Which I still drink, though mostly because I am naturally lactose intolerant, haha. I know all the substitutes, cause I’ve lived with them my whole life. When I was a kid going to summer camp, I had to carry my own cartons of “dairy ease” with me to the cafeteria for my morning cereal.

I can eat cheese and small amounts of ice cream, but I don’t handle straight milk very well. I know this gives so much ammo to the veganistas, but it doesn’t mean I have to go to an extreme either.

LTEM: When it came to mock meats, were you more of a soy boy, or a seitan worshipper?

Cory: Mostly soy stuff. Gimmie Lean sausage was amazing, but the seiten chicken was great for cooking with.

LTEM: Did you ever think you would eat actual meat again?

Cory: When I was vegan, I didn’t.

LTEM: Did you hate non-vegans? Or at least find them lacking?

Cory: No, I always had non-vegan friends. Like I said, it was a personal choice. I did have a hard time dating girls who weren’t vegetarian, though.

LTEM: How did you feel about lacto-ovo vegetarians? Compromisers? Hypocrites? On the right track but not going far enough?

Cory: Yeah, ok, I did think that was bullshit.

LTEM: Were you a purity vegan? Would you avoid anything that had even the slightest amount of animal product in it?

Cory: Yeah, I had that Animal Ingredients A-Z book, and would check things for a while, and then I got my routine at the grocery store. I think what a lot of people don’t realize is that it’s mostly brand choices, and once you know them, it’s all second nature and you don’t have to think about it anymore. Like you know that you can’t have Mrs. Bairds white bread, but you could have that Pepperidge Farms Italian white bread, or that you can’t have Prego pasta sauce, but you can have Ragu or something (I may have that backwards - it’s been a while).

LTEM: Why is purity so important to vegans?

Cory: Cause why do it if you’re not gonna do it? And it’s all about money. You don’t want to give your money to a company that supports something you don’t believe in. That’s the whole thing. Being vegan is really about taking what little power you have as a consumer. In that context, all these people spread across the globe are making a collective impact without organizing or talking to each other by hitting a company like Procter & Gamble in the only way that it might hurt them.

I was reading Cyrena’s interview, and the part about purity reminded me of another movement: the “freegans.” It goes back to what I just said about it being an economic thing. These guys believed they didn’t have to eat vegan if they got it for free (usually their preferred method was dumpster diving, as this achieved maximum punk points too, haha). A lot of vegans weren’t too into this idea because it was like these guys had found this loophole and then weren’t involved in the whole pleasure-denying aspect of it, I guess.

LTEM: With its obsession with rotting animal corpses and the cancery, heart-attack-ridden fate that awaits meat eaters, is veganism a sort of denial of death?

Cory: Not for the many vegan smokers I knew, which is probably a whole different blog.

LTEM: Is the need for humans to eat animals an unfortunate flaw in the workings of this world?

Cory: I go back to the idea that this earth and the things in it are a happy accident, and this is the evolutionary point we are at. Maybe we won’t be someday. The human body certainly doesn’t need meat, but as a society we are set up that way for now, and it’s obviously more convenient to eat meat.

LTEM: What was the first food you ate to break your veganism?

Cory: Gatti’s all-you-can-eat pizza buffet. Cheese pizza only, no meat.

LTEM: Did you feel like non-vegans suddenly saw you as a fellow human being again?

Cory: Totally. But mostly cause we were bored college kids. Anything was a major event. “Oh, Cory’s gonna eat cheese pizza, I’m there! Lemme call Ben and Danny, they’ll wanna come too,” haha.

LTEM: What do people mean when they tell ex-vegans, “Welcome back to the real world?”

Cory: Veganism is such an extreme practice of an ideology that I think most people see it as a little cultish, and let’s face it, most vegans really reinforce that stereotype, and usually act really pretentious and annoying about it to their meat-eating friends when they first go about it.

LTEM: As a non-vegan now, do you understand why non-vegans find veganism irritating and try to get vegans back into meat eating?

Cory: I always got it. That’s why I tried to keep it to myself unless people asked, and tried not be a dick about it.

LTEM: Is it less stressful to go to restaurants?

Cory: Very, and being able to stop by any fast food place on the way home is awesome. It’s like my life is convenient again.

LTEM: Do you still like to go to vegan restaurants and eat vegan food?

Cory: Yeah, I don’t do much of the meat substitutes anymore, but if I go out with vegetarians in a new town, it’s not a bother.

LTEM: Do you feel bad about getting people into veganism?

Cory: Haha. No, people are responsible for themselves, and it’s not like I got them into huffing paint or voting for a Republican. Sometimes I feel like I’ve disappointed people a little, but I’m not gonna make decisions about my life based on what people I may or may not disappoint.

LTEM: Any advice for the vegans out there?

Cory: As a general broadcast to vegans, I would just offer that being vegan isn’t a personality trait that defines who you are, it’s a lifestyle choice, and if you aren’t careful, it can become just as extreme and isolating as something such as right-wing evangelicalism.

It’s a personal belief, and you can’t expect other people to always agree with you, much as you might want them to. It should be something you do for yourself, and in that instill the confidence and personal reward that you are doing what you can.

It’s also good to realize that anytime you have an extreme point of view, you’ve got to have the extreme sense of humor to match it. Taking yourself too seriously is a sure-fire way to set yourself up for some massive fail.

LTEM: Is there anything you miss about being a vegan?

Cory: I was way more creative with cooking. That’s something I’d like to get back to. I was making brownies with some friends a couple months ago, and and they realized too late that they didn’t have any eggs. So I remembered my vegan days, and said use a banana - one banana equals one egg. They were astonished at my knowledge, and I was a fucking champ that day. Thanks, veganism.