Elise Kendall was born into a vegetarian family. She was lacto-ovo vegetarian for most of her life, vegan for two years, then vegetarian again, and now an omnivore for the past year and a half. You can read her blog entry about it here.

Not to be confused with here, which is where you’re about to read her ex-vegan interview.

Some vegans think that being raised vegetarian or vegan is the best thing that can happen to a person. Having tested that theory out, do you agree?

I have never grown up eating more typical food, so I am not sure “what it was like growing up” that way. If I ever do, then I will report back and compare!

I lived in a very hippy/new-age sort of town and I went to a Waldorf School there. Honestly I don’t think I often thought (when I was growing up) about not hurting animals. It was just the food that my family ate. As I grew older I felt proud that I was vegetarian and that I always had been, although I never felt like it made me better than people who weren’t.

Did you ever resent the restrictions or feel alienated?

I didn’t feel like I was forced into it, because I wasn’t. My parents had split up by this point and they’d both left the Transcendental Meditation movement that they’d been involved in when we lived in Sydney.

I’m not sure exactly when my mum started eating meat again but for pretty much my whole life she would have ham or chicken if we went out for dinner, although she didn’t cook it at home. I did try chicken a couple of times when we came down to visit my Grandma. They gave me chicken breast and it was really gross. I may have tried other meats at other times and it was always really disgusting. I just started off vegetarian and was convinced that I hated meat.

I didn’t feel alienated at all because, going to the school I did in the town I did, being vegetarian was pretty normal. It wasn’t like my diet was the most restrictive — there was one girl who was not allowed any refined sugar at all. She used to steal my sandwiches out of my schoolbag because she was so hungry and jealous of my delicious jam or Vegemite sandwiches. I’d actually class my diet as being one of the less restrictive! There were a lot of kids who were sugar-free or wheat-free on top of being vegetarian or vegan.

A Vegemite sandwich? Only bread and Vegemite?

Just Vegemite and bread. Delicious! Vegemite sandwiches are very common and not at all restricted to vegetarians. In fact, the more hippie kids would not eat Vegemite and my sandwich-stealing friend was not allowed Vegemite or wheat bread. She had miso on rye bread instead, which is not nearly as delicious.

Did you ever know of any vegetarian or vegan kids to trade for meat from the meat eating kids?

I think it was probably fairly common. We used to have soup days where the class would all get together and make soup. There was ordinarily one vegetarian soup and one chicken soup - then we just ate whichever soup we wanted to! I am pretty sure that our dietary restrictions were much more important to the parents than to the kids.

Every vegan parent’s worst nightmare. Did being raised vegetarian instill those veggie values into you more strongly, or were you less committed because you were born into the beliefs and didn’t choose them yourself?

Looking back and looking at myself now, I think that I am not a very committed person. I don’t have that… fervency. I am someone who seeks comfort in familiarity and routine, but I am not a believer in anything and I don’t think I’m the sort of person who becomes one.

Some people seem to go from fanatical Christianity (for example) to fanatical anti-religion atheism… I’m not sure that it’s possible for me to get that worked up about something, or that committed to a cause. I have always been able to understand multiple sides of a problem and all through my life when people are fighting around me, I really don’t get why they don’t see what the other person is trying to say.

I could never be an activist because I would sympathise too much with ‘the enemy,’ I think.

Have there been any reactions to your veg*an betrayal?

I was talking to someone recently and I mentioned something about how I used to be vegetarian, and he asked what made me decide to “go back to” meat. I said it wasn’t “going back to” so much as “going to” and he remarked that becoming an omnivore after being vegetarian from birth was very unusual. I have no idea how unusual it actually is but people’s attitudes seem to be that they can grok why someone who used to eat meat would want to go back to it… but someone who had always been vegetarian wouldn’t have a reason to start eating meat.

The few early encounters you had with meat weren’t very promising. What was your reason to start eating meat?

Well I’d been thinking for a long time that introducing a bit of meat into my diet might be a good idea for health reasons. I wished I could eat meat, but felt like I couldn’t because I always just found the thought of eating meat to be really really gross. It’s the flesh of a dead thing. That was why I became vegan - not because I thought that it made any real difference to the world, but because when I thought about where milk and eggs came from… EWWW! But veganism proper was pretty unsustainable for me. I just couldn’t get enough protein for my needs and had to go back to eggs and dairy. So I just kind of suppressed that disgust, I guess.

I began to suspect that beans and lentils were triggering my abdominal pain. I had absolutely no desire to eat tofu (which didn’t seem to trigger me as badly for some reason) three times a day, and I don’t really like dairy products very much. I enjoy cheese a lot, but I really didn’t want it to become my major protein source!

My boyfriend refused to eat tofu at all, which made things slightly inconvenient. There was some talk of having tofu for dinner one night, and I teased him about avoiding tofu for no good reason. “I’ll eat steak if you eat tofu,” I challenged him, and I was totally thrown when he agreed immediately and happily put away a large bowl of tofu hours later. He even enjoyed it and now has no problem eating tofu! I think until that point I didn’t realise how inconvenient he found the fact that I refused to eat meat. So we went out to a steakhouse and I got the vegetarian meal (and tried some of his steak!).

How was it?

I pretty much just had one bite. I don’t think that the experience of actually eating meat was mind-blowingly good or anything, but I was optimistic about it getting better once I did it a few more times.

From that point on I made a conscious effort to try to learn to like meat. I ate small amounts at a time. It didn’t taste bad, like I’d remembered from childhood, but it just didn’t seem like something you should be eating. I would be sitting there chewing and it was like eating some kind of deliciously flavoured and textured cardboard or paper or something.

But after a few months of practice, meat started to taste like food and I was able to cut down on the beans. My stomach is still causing problems, but I really notice it if I eat beans and lentils (which is a shame, because they are delicious!). I’ve also recently been placed on a fructose-free diet which seems to be helping. I’d really hate to be wheat-, onion- and fruit-free if I was also trying to be vegetarian or vegan! And if I was trying to do that while minimising my legume intake? Yeah.

Then meat exceeded the low expectations you had for it?

I’m not really sure what I expected, but I didn’t expect that other things I’d always hated would suddenly become palatable. I used to really hate chicken breast - even when I ate chicken I would only ever like the thigh and leg or the wing or something. After I started to like red meat, I also started to like chicken breast.

I never expected that I would be the sort of person who would really love eating a huge chunk of meat. I know a lot of people who do eat meat but they like it to be smooshed up and well cooked and disguised by other things. I’m not as disturbed as I thought I would be by just eating a big steak or something. I really love steak!

Have you had any memorable encounters with vegans as an ex-vegan?

Well my housemate’s friend’s girlfriend’s vegan social group were at a vegetarian pizza place, which is just around the corner from my house. So we went down there to say hello and while I was waiting for my pizza there was a guy there who, ah, made it clear that he would like to get to know me a little better. When he discovered that I was no longer vegetarian it became obvious to me that he divided the world up neatly into three groups of people:

1. Vegans.
2. People who don’t care (ie, Bad People).
3. People who don’t know any better.

Unfortunately for him I didn’t fit into any of these categories so he did his best to re-convert me to veganism, lest his psyche shatter. He kept trying to “find a solution” for me which did not involve me eating meat. “Have you tried…” he kept trying to ask me. I found it really difficult to express to him the fact that eating meat was just one of many MANY things that I have tried and that it seemed to be working pretty well.

I also went to a vegan pancake event recently and had a similar conversation. I tend to easily get into conversations with vegans talking about veganism … just talking about what fake cheeses taste the least awful and what vegan restaurants are any good. Then I feel like I have to come clean when they ask “so how long have you been vegan?”

These people were less rude about it but it was obvious that they had never considered that someone may not be able to be vegan for health reasons. The vegan = healthy connection is just so strong that they had difficulty comprehending it and were pretty dumbfounded.

Do you think something could be physically bad for us — veganism, say — yet still be the right thing to do?

I have difficulty believing in absolutely right and wrong things for everyone. For me, my health and physical comfort (ie, not being in pain or having an upset stomach all of the time) is a very high priority. Maybe other people find that ethical discomfort is more painful to them than physical discomfort.

Like a lot of veg*ans do, you blamed yourself for issues like not having the stamina to exercise or being sleepy all the time. Why is it that vegans prefer to blame something inevitable about themselves rather than something they can change, like their diet?

I think that part of it is a reaction to the attitude that a lot of people have, which is to blame all of a veg*an person’s problems on their diet. Whenever I went to see a doctor and mentioned that I was veg*an, they’d immediately pounce and look at my eyes and my fingernails and then, almost disappointed, would remark “oh you’re not anemic”. Like that would be an easy answer for whatever ailment I happened to be expressing.

And I don’t want to be like those doctors and put every problem I ever had before the age of 25 down to the lack of meat in my diet. I am pretty sure things are not that simple! My grandmother has never been vegetarian and she has chronic digestion problems the same as I do, for example. Meat hasn’t been a cure-all for me at all.

Even though every doctor I ever saw wanted to blame all of my problems on my diet, after the blood tests came back, they overwhelmingly told me that my diet was NOT the problem and that I ought to be perfectly healthy. Even when I told them that I was open to the possibility of introducing meat into my diet, I was always told that it was not necessary.

But for the first time in my life, now that I eat red meat about 3 times a week, I have low iron. Like really low. I have had to take iron supplements which I’d never had to take before. So I am pretty sure that our bodies are super complicated and we really don’t know everything.

Is there anything you miss about veg*anism?

One thing that I did miss, which is very silly, was that when I was veg*an I rarely had to make a decision about what to eat when I went out to a strange restaurant. Because there would be so little to choose from! “Luckily” I’m now on a different set of diet restrictions (low fructose) so I’m back to having that problem!

I never really got into any veg*an social groups or anything that I’m now excluded from. It turns out that everyone I live with was vegetarian at some point and none of us are now. So we enjoy eating vegetarian food pretty regularly. We generally eat meat 2-3 times per week at home.

So really it’s all been gains! I’m hoping that my stomach will get better enough that I can relax my fructose-free a bit when I go out. It really is fantastic to be able to leave the “special dietary requirements” field blank on wedding invitations!

If you leave veganism and then post a blog entry about it, I will find you. Well not really, but if your omnivorous re-birth entry includes the phrase “brain fog,” there’s a good chance I’ll stumble across your blog one day.

But that’s not how I found Stella’s blog. In her leaving veganism entry, there was nothing about brain fogs, mind clouds or even cerebral mists. That surprised me; most of the ex-vegans that I’d known and read about only started to question their consistent, unassailable philosophy once physical deterioration struck.

So how did Stella free herself from the prison of vegan logic without that little nudge from bodily collapse?

Read on and find out.

What got you into veganism?

I’d been vegetarian off and on for about seven years, including one stint of near-veganism during college (totally vegan at home, pretty strict vegetarian elsewhere).  My first and main motivation was, as for most vegans, to reduce animal suffering.

Being a native Texan, I had always eaten plenty of meat, but I preferred the more processed varieties, even as a child — ground beef, chicken nuggets, hot dogs, sausages.  Anything that looked like an animal part always disgusted me, especially chicken legs and wings or fish with the skin on. My father, a typical East Texan, always went deer hunting every year, and I went along a few times, always thinking to myself, if I see a deer, I’m going to wave my arms and yell, “Run, run!” However, I was not an “early articulator;” I never disliked the taste or smell of meat in general, and I never felt any deep conflict or guilt as a child about consuming animal products.

I read vegan literature off and on throughout college, and considered becoming vegan, but was never able to overcome the cultural enjoyment of Texas food along with my personal love of cheese, milk and Mexican food.  Yet I couldn’t shake the feelings of guilt about killing other sentient beings.

Were you an animal lover?

I would’ve never called myself that, but I had grown up around dogs and cats and didn’t see any difference between eating livestock animals and eating them.  It began to weigh more and more on my mind, and, as I got older, I began to seriously consider vegetarianism as a way to both remove my own guilt and as a boycott mechanism against industrial agriculture, particularly factory farming.  I felt that becoming vegetarian, or ultimately vegan, would shut down the guilty voice of my conscience.  I could remove myself from the cycle and have no part in the death of any animals.

When I was in grad school in the UK, I became vegetarian, and kept that up for about six months while living in a dorm, making liberal use of Linda McCartney brand processed meat substitutes and Tesco vegetable gravy granules.  Then I moved in with a boyfriend who was very intolerant of my desire to be veg*n, and I went back to being an omnivore for a further three years.

When I found myself rather involuntarily repatriated to the US in 2005, after a nasty break-up, I was pretty set on resuming my vegetarian diet, and I felt for a long time that I would eventually transition to veganism.  It was a diet/lifestyle I viewed with a mixture of admiration and curiosity, and one that seemed to align perfectly with my anti-capitalist, anti-exploitation views.

After nine months in my hometown of Paris, Texas, during which time I was a reluctant omnivore, I moved to Austin in May of 2006 and became vegetarian in September.

Probably a better place for it than Paris, Texas.

It was easy in Austin.  I was happy as a vegetarian for a while, but always had a nagging feeling that I would eventually become vegan.  I was a little intimidated by the vegan foods, supplements and ingredients, though, so it took me a while to really make the commitment.

In February of 2008, I decided to give up dairy for Lent.  Looking for recipes and support online, I found a vegan forum and started reading and learning more.  I posted some questions about eggs and was rather taken aback by the judgmental, zero-tolerance responses I got from the vegans, but I was already pretty much on bandwagon of vegan logic, so I decided to give up eggs.  For the first few weeks I craved cheese, but then it became surprisingly easy (especially when I started mainlining avocados and olive oil); so, after Lent, I decided to keep being vegan.

I was very comfortable in the online community I’d found, and I tentatively became active in the Austin vegan community, mostly through my now-defunct blog, The Vegan Tree House, and with a few people I met online and at Wheatsville Co-op.

During this time, I also read more and more vegan literature, and became increasingly drawn to abolitionist arguments, struggling with the idea/belief that exploiting animals is always categorically wrong.  However, I was also increasingly interested in environmental issues and realized that meat-eating could certainly be sustainable (e.g. hunting and using the whole animal) and, in many places on Earth, unavoidable.  I didn’t begrudge Inuit people their seal and seafood diet; and I didn’t really have as much animosity toward hunters as most vegans seem to feel.

However, throughout my time as a vegan, I felt very committed to the diet and its associated, generally internally consistent logic.  I was definitely one of the vegans who frequently said it was “one of the best things I’ve ever done,” and I certainly did not foresee giving up veganism, much less reverting to being an omnivore.

How long were you vegan?

About six weeks shy of two years.

That’s not nearly as long as the forever you thought you were going to be vegan. How did you get out?

I first started reading Derrick Jensen’s work about four years ago, when I checked out his book Walking on Water: Reading, Writing, and Revolution from the public library.  At the time, I was considering getting a teaching certificate and becoming a high school English teacher, but I had reservations about many aspects of the education industry. When I happened upon his book and read the flap, I sensed a kindred spirit.  From there, I began to read some of his more “anarcho-primitivist” work, and, for the most part, found even more incidents of kindred thinking.

Throughout my time as a vegan, I continued to read his books and articles, along with other authors I discovered through him or got interested in because of ideas presented by his books; these authors were all over the map, diet-wise, and I usually found myself exasperated by their justifications for meat-eating, or what I saw as their willful ignorance of vegan arguments.  Michael Pollan comes to mind as an example of someone on the “vegan shitlist” whose logic unnerved and enraged me when I was a vegan.

I also remained disappointed in Jensen’s love of salmon (both in the water and on his plate), and I remember engaging in several long discussions of his work with other vegans.  I particularly remember joining the vegan chorus in bashing his friend and colleague Lierre Keith’s then-recently-published book, The Vegetarian Myth. Which of course I hadn’t read.

However, I frequently linked to Jensen on my own blog, because I felt that the importance of his environmental arguments overshadowed my personal disagreement with him on the ethics of eating wild-caught salmon.  And, really, I didn’t see how I could dismiss as categorically wrong the idea that it might be better for humans to live in a natural, symbiotic relationship with salmon than to dam rivers to provide irrigation to Cargill or Monstanto’s industrial soybean farms and electricity to urban tofu eaters.  All along throughout my vegan journey, I was willing to admit that, yeah, in an ideal world, it might be preferable to eat animals.

I’m almost surprised you didn’t leave veganism earlier.

Like many vegans, I tended to view the contemporary arrangement through the lens of a “fallen world” approach and concluded that, as long as there were factory farms, it was better to be vegan. I also harbored pipe dreams of someday having a plot of land on which to raise organic food for myself and my family, and I wasn’t ever sure I wouldn’t raise chickens purely for their eggs and manure fertilizer.  However, at this time I still thought that a technological answer to my existential food chain dilemma would appear: veganic permaculture, hydroponics, human evolution, something.

Then around Thanksgiving this past year, I started taking this logic and concern with sustainability further than I had before.  It wasn’t any health issues (though looking back I think there were some), and I wasn’t having any uncontrollable cravings for butter or bacon. All along, I’d been feeling an internal tug of war between veganism and sustainability.  I broached this subject with fellow vegans, who predictably parroted the vegan talking points about cattle using more land and water than grains per caloric volume, and insisted we didn’t have to choose between compassion and sustainability.

Yet I never felt I got any satisfactory answers, and this conflict remained unresolved for me.  I was continually exploring it, and increasingly being open to ideas and facts that were taboo to vegans.  In my experience, a significant majority of vegans are urbanites, well removed from the realities of both farming and subsistence hunting.

But you were in touch with these realities?

Despite coming from a quasi-rural, Southern, hunting background, and having a sizable share of relatives and ancestors who were cotton sharecroppers, hunters, squirrel eaters, and subsistence farmers, I nevertheless had virtually zero knowledge of agriculture or hunting.  I knew nothing about soil chemistry or the necessity for organic inputs to grow food.  I had no idea the extent to which modern mass agriculture relies upon petroleum-based fertilizers.  I understood a little about “maintaining populations” of deer, and I was aware of the feral hog problem in Texas, but I had no idea about the realities of human subsistence or ecosystem balance.

I would never have admitted this as a vegan, and I would’ve probably looked down upon anyone who considered these fields of knowledge worthwhile.  It seemed inevitable to me that humans would continue to “evolve” into vegans, mostly of the urban variety.  We would rely more and more on vegan foodstuffs produced through a combination of organic permaculture and mind-blowing technological advancements.

Hell, I didn’t even think that was necessary; I really believed we could survive as a species eating only plant-based foods and using only plant-based materials.  We would become more and more enlightened, eventually eschewing the nasty business of hunting and fishing and pasturing and exploiting and killing.

Do you remember a specific turning point?

It was getting colder and I missed the fluffy, cloudlike duvets I’d had on my bed in the UK. I went to the store and looked at the astonishing array of them.  I had to choose between real down and “artificial down,” and I couldn’t decide what the “right” thing to do was. (Of course the right thing to do in an ideal world wouldn’t involve me standing in a wide aisle under fluorescent lighting, looking at twenty different blankets produced in a Third World sweatshop, but I digress.)

The down duvet was out of the question; it was of death.  It was made of the lives innocent birds, raised for their feathers and no doubt tortured throughout their short lives. On the other hand, looking at the artificial down duvets, I couldn’t ignore that they were made from polyester, which of course is a petroleum-derived industrial synthetic.

I debated myself:  I want to keep warm.  I do not have access to raw, organic, vegan fiber.  I also do not have access to wild or sustainably farmed geese.  I cannot afford to buy a blanket made from either of these sources anyway.  An artificial down duvet, made of petroleum derivatives, has contributed to the destruction of whole ecosystems in the extraction process and has contributed to the deaths of potentially hundreds or thousands of individual animals (including humans) through oil spills, pipelines, wars for oil, industrial processing, industrial factory smoke, industrial wage slavery and, finally, transport in planes, trains, and automobiles. The down duvet of course caused all of this, too, as it is also an industrially-produced consumer product, plus it also resulted in the torture and deaths of the birds whose feathers are sewn inside.

I realized then that I’d been fooling myself regarding the magic of vegan consumer choices, and that I cannot escape the system of exploitation.  I realized that in a healthy, natural, functioning ecosystem (or society), free of industrial exploitation, the best solution to my winter warmth problem would be to use feathers (or fur, or wool, or whatever material is supplied by my landbase).  Unlike petroleum-based products, or huge quantities of mass-produced plant fibers requiring massive fertilization inputs (also derived from — you guessed it — petroleum!), feathers are a renewable resource.

Of course, like my vegan logic, this logic is working in a hypothetical universe.  Like I said, I have no access to wild or humanely raised geese.  But standing there in the blanket aisle, I realized that no matter how much I wanted it to be true, veganism was not and could never really be sustainable.  Minus the industrial infrastructure, exploitation, and petroleum inputs, all these things I assumed enlightened future humans would rely upon in an enlightened vegan world would vanish:  artificial down duvets, vinyl shoes, polar fleece North Face Jackets, soy candles, the lot of it.

So you bought the down duvet?

No, I bought the artificial one!

Baby steps.

Then I finally read, among other titles on the vegan shitlist bibliography, Lierre Keith’s book The Vegetarian Myth. It provided a jumping-off point for a broader exploration of agriculture, nutrition, and ethics — way beyond what I expected when I decided to open the scary, evil cover. I am not at all ashamed to admit that it did push me over the edge.

I regret the uninformed (and uninspired) attacks I had previously launched against her work. I now think it’s a very important book, not just for vegans or ex-vegans, but for the environmental and anti-capitalist movements more broadly.  I think she wrote it honestly and earnestly; I think she has been on the same quest so many of us vegans and ex-vegans have been and are on.  She understands why vegans are vegans, and, like me, admires and agrees with a large portion of their logic and approach.

I think she’s right about the quasi-religious aspects of veganism insofar as it functions as a belief system or even, sometimes, a cult.  I think she’s right about the unsustainable nature of both industrial agriculture and veganism.  And I share her sense of pain and frustration at realizing that this is in fact the case.

But this book provided a powerful catalyst for understanding my own interest in veganism and how to use that compassion and concern for fact-based ethics to begin creating a more sustainable — and, thus, ultimately, more compassionate — way.

Lierre Keith was vegan for 20 years before health issues forced her out. Health wasn’t why you left, but you mentioned having some nutritional problems with veganism in retrospect.

I never saw any marked difference in most of the areas both vegans and anti-vegans often cite as improved by their dietary choices.  I had no increase or decrease in acne, my allergies were and are terrible (ah, Austin!), my eyesight neither worsened nor improved, my hair and nails are the same thickness and texture, etc.

But I now wonder about a few things.  I definitely experienced the “brain fog” you describe, and now never fall asleep sitting at my desk in the middle of the afternoon despite a full night’s sleep.  I also had, after nearly 20 years with no tooth decay, four fillings for cavities last year, about a year and a half into my veganism.  Having read of other vegans’ and ex-vegans’ problems with cavities, I wonder if my diet was a factor.

I wasn’t a perfect, macrobiotic, healthy vegan but I didn’t subsist on junk food, either.  I love to cook (and blog about it), so I made tons of home-cooked vegan meals, usually using fresh organic ingredients, although I did have a few junky standbys in case of emergency (such as vegan queso and Amy’s frozen tamale pies, which I still eat).

Did you believe the urban legends about vegans getting sick when they eat animal products again?

When transitioning back to omnivorism, I had little fear about becoming sick upon eating animal products, though I was careful not to gorge myself on meats or anything like that.  The first thing I ate were fried (local, organic, fresh) eggs with homemade pesto and cremini mushrooms sauteed in butter, and it was one of the best meals I had ever had.  I never got sick or had any upset stomach issues upon returning to meat, milk, or any other animal product, but this may be because I was only vegan for about two years.  I suspect this might be a real side effect for some vegans.

The one really interesting and almost immediate improvement I noticed was that I felt more full, longer — and within two days I stopped craving carbs.  Don’t get me wrong, I am a bit of a carbaholic and always have been, but, while vegan, I had an insatiable hunger for pasta, potatoes, bread, and the like.  I can now eat a one-cup serving of carbs along with meat and/or vegetables and feel satisfied.  I also find myself hungry for all the food groups, not just carbs.  I didn’t realize how profoundly carb-driven my diet was until I started eating meat again.  This was a side effect I was not expecting at all.

Some people become vegetarian after quitting veganism, but you went straight back to omnivorism. Why didn’t you consider vegetarianism to be a worthwhile compromise?

Because I came to change my views on the nature of humans’ relationship to animals and vice versa.  A symbiotic relationship in a whole, healthy ecosystem is what I think we should be working toward, not an unattainable vegan heaven on earth.  There are the realities of human nutritional needs, the co-evolution of many species of livestock, soil’s unavoidable need for decomposing organic matter in the form of manure, the fact that many areas of the earth are simply not suited for agriculture of any kind, and so on.

Vegetarianism doesn’t present as much of a problem, since vegetarians still rely on animal products and generally do not eschew leather, tallow, gelatin, beeswax, whey in paper towels, etc., as vegans well know (and decry). My boyfriend, for instance, was mostly vegan while I was — as a show of solidarity and to avoid hearing lectures about the evils of milk in coffee. But he never sends anything back in restaurants, reasoning that it would be less sustainable and thus less compassionate to waste food rather than just eat the cheese.  This drove me up the wall when I was vegan.  I was personally disappointed that he didn’t see how morally wrong it was to eat a bagel with real cream cheese.  HA!

He is still vegetarian. Of course, he may not have the same deep, internalized desire to eat meat that I do.  Sadly, he’s a Yankee.

Some individuals will no doubt always choose this path, either for moral or taste reasons, and I don’t think that presents a significant problem.  However, veganism goes beyond this personal choice into a lifestyle, belief system, ethics, and proselytizing movement, and, as such, is problematic insofar as it is actually hindering long-term sustainability.

Did you know any vegans in real life who were disappointed by your going back to omnivorism? Any omnivores who were elated?

Those were pretty much the reactions, yes.  Not too surprising.  I had a few friendly emails from vegans who respected my decision and wished me luck and no ill feelings, and I had more than a few ranty emails not dissimilar to true believer religious harangues, in addition to the expected catty chatter in my former online community.

I even got a few long, argumentative, self-righteous emails from people I have never met online or in person, which I did find rather surprising.  I am just one person, yet my decision to eat an egg is so important that you want to personally send me a 3000-word email about why I am wrong?  It is rather reminiscent of the Christians who feel the compulsion to continually remind you that if you don’t agree with them, you’re going to hell.

I also thought it was somewhat shocking but telling that a few vegans who I had become quite chummy with online immediately unfriended me, without comment, on Facebook, despite no terse words between us personally.  Again, this isolationist, with-us-or-against-us mentality is frighteningly similar to some of my less positive experiences with religion.

All the omnis I know were very excited — more excited than any vegans were when I became vegan — and I had multiple offers for free “Central Texas BBQ Tours.”  Many of my omni friends and I are working together to learn more about supporting local, organic, humane and sustainable agriculture.  It’s been a fun journey with them so far.

I do think that one of the main problems vegans face is the self-isolation created by their lifestyle.  As they well know, because of all the crap they get, food is a deep, deep part of culture and family.  I think they tend to underestimate the importance of this, though I do agree with them that “tradition” on its own is never a solid justification for anything.

Are omnivores more annoyed with veganism than vegans realize?

I think vegans realize how irritated omnivores are, but assume omnivores are defensive and feel guilty; that’s what I believed, but now I think omnivores often (not always, of course!) have a healthier relationship to food, not viewing it in such absolutist and dogmatic terms.

Vegans are being honest when they say they are happy eating vegan — I know I was.  However, the first time I ate an egg again, and the first time I ate a cheeseburger, I felt relieved and deeply satisfied.  I am sure most vegans would say this was because I was selling out and taking the easy route and predicating my enjoyment on murder.  But that kind of black and white thinking is what turns so many off to veganism, or to the broader cause of ethically-informed or sustainable eating.

What else irritates omnivores about veganism?

Many vegans are proselytizers and judgers (as was made painfully clear to me when I told vegan friends I planned to eat locally produced, organic eggs from pastured hens).  And the vegan’s absolutist refusals to eat something that has a small amount of milk in it, despite having driven to the restaurant in an oil-powered automobile - I can see now how these contradictions are obvious to thoughtful omnivores.

As a vegan, I was always incensed when omnivores called veganism “extreme,” and countered with the talking point, “not as extreme as torturing and murdering animals!”  But now I see the omnivores’ point. Veganism as a form of activism for animal welfare or environmentalism would be equivalent to me as a feminist refusing to use any product that was made by, developed by, produced by, advertised by, or profiting a misogynist (or anti-choice legislator, or rapist). While I do personally avoid supporting misogyny wherever possible (starting with never dating Republicans!), to avoid all media, movies, literature, sports, etc. tainted by anti-feminists would be socially and psychologically suicidal.  As with animal exploitation, people exploitation is inescapable.

Vegans are indeed taking an extreme stance in refusing to use anything derived from an animal; though, of course, even they draw the line somewhere — vegans use computers, for instance, and computers contain animal products. Even most vegans would find someone who really avoided all animal products extreme, because that person would necessarily be a zealot and a hermit.  So I think it’s the preoccupation with animals and diet purity that really irritates omnivores.  It seems rather arbitrary and almost hilariously fundamentalist.

Speaking of fundamentalism, you said you agreed with Lierre Keith’s characterization of veganism as cultish. What about vegan behavior strikes you as religious-like?

I saw immediately upon leaving, both through revisiting some of my own statements and through the swift reaction of the vegan community, that veganism does share some attributes with a classic cult, including: self-isolation from society; adherents who are increasingly dependent upon the movement for their view of reality; making sharp distinctions between “us” and “them” that are not up for discussion; exclusivity (“we are right and everyone else is wrong”); instant acceptance from a seemingly loving group; and a philosophy that seems logical and appears to answer all or most of the important questions in life.

However, I would like to point out that not all vegans are ideological vegans, just as not all Christians are ideological Christians.  To me the issue isn’t so much that an individual believes certain things or wishes certain things were true or performs certain rituals; the real problem is when ideology becomes more important than the humanity of those outside the group.

But it remains unavoidable that if you truly believe that killing animals (or even “exploiting” animals for their eggs, say) is categorically wrong, then you must speak or act against it. A parallel would be the way in which religious anti-abortion activists believe that a human zygote or fetus, at any stage, is morally a human being and it is therefore wrong to injure, hurt, or kill said zygote or fetus (a belief very few vegans seem to share, interestingly).  Since they believe all forms of abortion are ethically equivalent to murder, they must speak and act against it.

Food is murder, say the vegans, and omnivores are the food choicers.

And why food?  For instance, almost all of the vegans I know, including the ones who berated me for turning my back on the cause, drive cars.  They are not absolutists about carbon emissions or supporting wars for oil, both of which arguably kill more animals (not to mention humans) than my choice to eat a locally farmed egg.  It just seems to be a misplacement of focus and a waste of energy to me.

Of course, we should all do what we can, and try to embody our ethics as much as possible — but, unfortunately, that isn’t very far in an industrialized, capitalist, declining society.  Neither my nor your consumer choices are going to save the planet.  And 7 billion improved consumer choices won’t save the planet either, because the problem is consumerism itself, tied into the fact that 7 billion people on earth constitutes a likely irreparable overshoot.

How could people who are so anti-religion accidentally become quasi-religious themselves? Are atheist vegans drawn to veganism to fill a religious function in their lives?

Like many vegans, I’m an atheist.  Veganism was not a surrogate religion for me, but the internal consistency of its logic (some of which I now see as dogma) appealed to me.

In my experience, most vegans view their dietary and lifestyle choice as eminently reasonable and unassailable, and therein lies a good deal of its appeal.  It makes sense that such a belief system would attract atheists, agnostics, skeptics and other freethinkers.  I admire this commitment to facts, logical thinking and consistency, coupled with compassion, and I think we should apply this standard to all forms of belief. However, I think that vegans are working with incomplete or incorrect information insofar as they believe veganism is sustainable and is, therefore, ultimately the most compassionate way of life.

Vegans like to think they are undeniably logical and that their philosophy should be self-evident to everyone.  However, their starting point is “killing animals is always wrong.”  This they cannot and will not question.  They do have lots of “proofs” of this stance, including, most convincingly, that animals are sentient and feel pain.  Of course I agree with that. But I no longer agree that killing animals is always wrong.

Is eating an industrially-produced, factory farmed burger at McDonald’s necessary?  Of course not.  But are animals a necessary part of the human food chain and of human agriculture?  I’m afraid so.  I, too, wish we could survive and thrive without using any animal products, but I no longer believe that’s possible, certainly not in a long-term, healthy and sustainable manner.

Like religious true believers, ideological vegans start with a dogma and then seek to defend it, rather than taking the more scientific route of continually evaluating all the available evidence and testing their own beliefs against the constraints of reality.

What do you miss about veganism, if anything?

Nothing, honestly.  I could say I miss the community, but as it was largely predicated on groupthink and cliquey-ness, that’s not really the case.  I feel rather similar to how I felt when I left religion and realized I was happy as an atheist.  I feel that the world is broader, more nuanced, more complicated, more inexplicable — but more magnificent, too.

In some respects, I can’t believe I was ever vegan at all and I feel a little silly having bought into it so completely; on the other hand, I learned a lot about food, cooking, and my own motivations and ethics.  I also learned that judgmental people (which I definitely have a tendency to be myself) are not only annoying, but almost always counter-productive, something I hope to take with me and incorporate into my often-outspoken atheism and feminism. And I learned that butter is a miracle.

Tommy Tepper and I were housemates at a vegetarian and eventually vegan co-op house in Austin, Texas together. If I remember right, he was there for the transition, helping to increase the vegan vs. vegetarian ratio in the house so we could finally get that organic milk and those free range eggs out of there.

Tommy is easily one of the nicest guys I have ever met, but he was ruthless when it came to his vegan cooking career. Though it took me about a year and a half of on-and-off volunteering at Casa de Luz (Austin’s macrobiotic restaurant) to get a job there, Tommy was hired after only a few volunteer shifts. Well, it’s easy to see why they’d want him around - the man oozes positive ch’i.

Once I finally got hired too, we were vegan co-workers as well as fellow vegan co-op dwellers, but it wasn’t a huge shock for me to recently learn that Tommy was no longer vegan. Actually, the only shock was that he was still vegetarian!

What inspired you to first start giving up animal products?

I had to do a persuasive speech for a college class on being vegetarian, and while I was researching the topic, I learned all this stuff on veganism and I just thought to myself, “I have to stop eating all animal products right now.” And so I did.

Even though you had previously been vegetarian, once you were vegan, did you tend to look down on vegetarians and all their inconsistencies?

Yes, I did judge vegetarians a bit at first. It felt to me that being vegan separated you from others and that one must be 100 percent about it, or not at all. But after a while I realized that being vegan was not for everyone, and that it was perfectly okay if it worked for me (at the time) and not someone else.

How long were you vegan, and how long have you been vegetarian overall?

Eight years being vegan, twelve years overall as a vegetarian.

What were your main reasons for being vegan - health, the environment, the animals, or all three?

At first it was solely for the animals and the environment. Later, health became an additional factor.

Though you worked at a macrobiotic restaurant, I’m not quite sure how into macrobiotics you were; were you interested in macrobiotics before you got the job?

I knew very little about macrobiotics before I worked at Casa, but I was interested in learning more about it.

Did you believe that brown rice, as a perfect balance of yin and yang, was the ideal food, as George Ohsawa says in You Are All Sanpaku?

I believed it was an ideal balanced food, but that you needed other food besides just brown rice.

That’s good, since someone died from trying to live on an all brown rice diet. It seems that the dogmatic nature of macrobiotics sometimes attracts very fervent followers. In my experience, a lot of vegans (if not most) are not members of an organized religion. I was raised without religion, and I think that’s one reason that macrobiotics appealed to me, as an audacious philosophy with a lot of answers. Do you think veganism can work as a substitute religion? Or is there something else to explain the atheist/agnostic vegan connection, like that vegans tend to be more liberal, and liberals are often less religious?

Although veganism can be considered a way of life/a belief system, I don’t think that it is a substitute for religion, at least it was never for me. I think it is more that, yes, vegans tend to be more left-leaning and with that, less religious/dogmatic, and to some extent more open to varied experiences, lifestyles, and change than people who are set on tradition and religion.

Did you have any problems with veganism when it came to traveling, or not having food to eat at social gatherings, or feeling alienated from non-vegans?

No, not really, I usually tried to not make it that well known that I was vegan…meaning I wanted people to know I was someone named Tommy, before being just some vegan guy. I did have some trouble eating in Mexico (outside of Mexico City), but otherwise traveling and/or social gatherings went well as long as I planned ahead a bit.

While you were vegan, did you ever think you wouldn’t be vegan one day?

No, I thought I would be vegan for the rest of my life.

What made you start thinking that you might want to start eating animal products again? Did macrobiotic leader Michio Kushi getting colon cancer shake your faith?

Kushi had nothing to do with my personal decision. It all started when I was planning on hiking the Appalachian Trail (which I still have not done yet) from Georgia to Maine, and I realized that it would be really hard to be vegan on the trail and possibly very unhealthy to hike for six months without eating animal products. So I decided to start eating dairy and eggs in preparation for the hike. And although I ended up not going on the adventure, I stuck with just being vegetarian because I felt good eating that way. Actually, I feel better and have more energy since adding dairy back into my diet.

Vegans often find the idea of an ex-vegan incomprehensible. How could someone who once believed so strongly in animal rights suddenly forget all that and go back to eating animal products? Well, how could you? Did you stop believing in veganism? Or did you feel like veganism was still right but you were no longer up to the challenge?

I stopped believing in it, yes. It was hard at first because it was such a change of thinking on one level, but yet it seemed logical to me at the time and I came to believe (as I still feel currently) that just thinking about the food you eat and where it comes from is what’s important. For example, I started feeling that people becoming more aware of their food choices and understanding that they don’t have to eat meat every day or with every meal is more critical than being strictly vegan. Plus, the idea of being so one-sided on an issue started feeling really wrong to me.

How did you break your veganism? Was introducing animal products back in a bit of a process?

I just thought about it and did it, really. I started with just cheese and yogurt at first and then eggs a few months later. The first thing I ate was a slice of NY Pizza at this amazing pizza place near Yonkers, and it was so good! I ended up getting two slices, even though I thought that I might get sick, but I felt great afterward!

Since the site is called “Let Them Eat Meat,” I have to ask… Just as vegetarianism can be a way to transition into veganism, vegetarianism can be a way to transition out of veganism to eventual omnivorism. Why have you stuck with vegetarianism? Could you ever see yourself eating meat again?

I am vegetarian mainly because I love to grow and cook the majority of the food I eat and I still can’t see myself growing turkeys (for example) and raising them for their meat and then killing them, cooking them, and then eating them. I actually have no desire to eat meat and especially since I cannot (at least at this time in life) kill an animal for food, I choose not to eat them. Although I don’t think it will ever happen in my lifetime, I don’t completely rule out the possibility of eating meat one day. Again, being so one-sided is not really for me.

In 2000, when I moved into one of the two vegetarian co-op houses in Austin, Billy Thogersen lived in the other vegetarian house. We saw each other at parties, and I imagine we bonded to some extent over our mutual veganism, but at first we weren’t as close as actual housemates might be.

Then in 2001, I co-wrote and co-directed a musical with my friend Joe. Since Joe and I were more familiar with the Austin co-op scene than the theater scene (and since there was more talent in the co-op scene anyway), we scoured the cooperative houses for stars. We cast Billy in a double role as a gun-toting Student for the Constitution and an anti-Ecstasy activist done in by the child safety lock on his gun.

Though the musical didn’t have anything to do with veganism, a few of the lines did hint at the dietary persuasion of its authors, and Billy got perhaps the most vegan line of the show: “Eat brown rice. It’s the perfect balance of yin and yang.” We didn’t single Billy out to deliver that line because he was a vegan, though — almost all of our cast members were vegan. Billy was invaluable as an actor, techie and friend for that production, as he was for our following show, a live musical sitcom.

Once I left Texas, Billy and I didn’t really stay in touch. That changed this week when he submitted a photo of himself as a sickly vegan to this blog, and told me that he was no longer vegan.

So you were vegan, and now you’re not. Let’s start from the beginning, shall we?

I need to go back to 1990 when I was living at the decidedly non-vegetarian New Guild student housing co-op. I knew what a vegetarian was in theory, but for me the concept had no basis in reality. A really cute girl named Jacqueline, who turned out to be vegan, lived there at the time and a crush ensued. My fascination with her piqued my interest in the diet. A short time later, I experimented with not eating meat for six months and was quite surprised that I was still alive at the end of the experience. I resumed my previous crap-based diet.

I moved into the House of Commons vegetarian student housing cooperative in 1996. It didn’t take long before I’d fully accepted the superiority of veganism. Just for kicks I’d occasionally eat some meat, just so I could say I wasn’t really a vegetarian. That’s the kind of person I am. But by 2000 or so, I completely stopped eating meat, except for a few memorable occasions.

Now it’s 2009, almost 2010, and a few days ago you email me to say that you have started to eat meat again. What happened?

When I came home from work about three weeks ago I walked up to the screen door and took in a pleasant aroma. Confused about what to eat and hungry, Christa [Billy’s wife, an ex-vegan turned vegetarian] had broken down and bought a chicken that was now roasting in the oven. We have been eating a meat-and-fresh-vegetable-based diet since then.

Did she have to talk you into eating the chicken, or were you in the same place as her psychologically? Were you secretly ready to eat meat even before she was?

I’d say that Christa was in a very different place from me psychologically, but with the same result: namely, it was time to try something else because the veg thing was not working, despite trying just about every permutation of a vegetarian or vegan diet. I didn’t need any prodding to dig into the chicken. Now that you mention it, perhaps I was secretly ready to let go.

How did you feel after eating it?

I felt fantastic after eating the chicken on the first night. The first thing to go away was the constant soreness of my bloated gut. I chock this up to not trying to eat like a cow, stuffing myself with huge amounts of grains and other low calorie foods in order to be able to make it more than two hours before I was famished again.

I’ve also noticed that my allergies have disappeared almost overnight (after 10 years of debilitating problems) and my eyesight is improving. I’ve lost all cravings for sweet foods. If you knew me before, you’d be amazed. All I could ever think about was eating brownies or cinnamon rolls. Giving into the never-ending sugar cravings wrecked havoc on my system, but I was a slave to impulses.

If that isn’t enough, I can now stay awake all day. Just a few weeks ago I’d find it hard to keep from sleeping 3-4 hours during the day on the weekends, and for an hour or more after work each day. I can see what I’m writing and I barely believe it myself, but it gets even better: All of a sudden I can ride my bike up the hill to get to work. And most importantly, my brain seems to be working again. I can concentrate, have a sense of serenity, and am happy with myself and the world. And for so long I thought I was just a smug, irritable, depressed person. Well, I guess I’m still smug.

That sounds like my experience as well. I’d had problems with constant sleepiness since first going vegetarian, but eventually I realized that my brain was in a fog almost every single day. For a while I simply convinced myself that I wasn’t a very sharp thinker anymore and there was nothing I could do about it. Why are vegans so afraid to blame their diets that they would sooner blame themselves?

Food is one of the most deeply rooted attachments humans have. Water, sex, and for some, inebriation, are the only more intense drives. It’s no wonder that vegans wouldn’t want to place blame on their diet. It would be an indictment of who and what they are, literally.

The “fog” you talk about is exactly what I experienced. I used the word out loud on many, many days when describing to people how I felt. And I too had resigned myself to being less intelligent than I had been. I said to myself, “I’m getting old. My brain just doesn’t work as well anymore,” over and over again. The thought of this now almost brings a tear to my eye.

Did you have to talk yourself back into the idea that eating animals could be okay morally?

I’m still wrestling with the idea of eating the animals, but I’ve been working on a number of good rationalizations to make it easier. If I take the human point of view, as in Diet for a New America, it’s pretty easy to come to a vegan conclusion. By “human view,” I simply mean examining the world in a rather one-dimensional way, using simple observations of animal behavior and a lot anthropomorphizing. My experience with the world leads me to believe that I’m not so high and mighty that I can remove myself from mess of reality.

After reading David Holmgren’s Permaculture, Joel Salatin’s You Can Farm, and of course the even more fringy Nourishing Traditions and The Vegetarian Myth, I’m certain enough that it is not immoral to consume meat that I’m willing to do it.

So now all that’s left is what happened between these vegan and ex-vegan bookends. You mentioned in your email that you were vegan while in Hawai’i.

I was there for about 8 months in 1998, house-sitting for my brother and his wife while they were on Navy deployment. I had just read (and fully accepted) The McDougall Plan and put it into practice, all while living by myself in a strange and bizarrely hostile US state. (The Hawai’i Walmart devotes an entire aisle to potted meat…)

What got you interested in McDougall’s low fat vegan scheme?

I was interested in making my vegan diet even more extreme, both for its own sake, and for all the purported great health reasons espoused by the book. Although I pretty much took in the arguments hook, line and sinker, I’d like to state for the record that the incredibly clunky graphs and thin data never sat well with me.

How did the Hawaiian low fat vegan experiment begin?

First, I cleaned out (ate) all the frozen meat that was left in the house. I made an interesting video of the process, including what appears to be me going slightly insane.

I had this idea that I would get a 50 lb. bag of oats and sort of work from there. I developed a menu according to the McDougall guidelines and stuck to it for months. I also came up with an exercise routine, but it wasn’t very successful since I could barely run 200 yards before practically collapsing from lack of energy. After about 4 months I began to get mad cravings for fat, and finally began to give in to them once a week by getting a couple slices of cheese pizza.

Do you wish you’d experienced Hawai’i as a practicing omnivore?

It wasn’t too bad being a vegan in terms of missed opportunities for enjoyment. Even when it would’ve been convenient to eat meat, I got to chew on the satisfaction of being right. My workmates in Hawai’i never could let it go. They’d always say stuff like, “Why don’t you get you one pig, bra?”

One day I took in one of my McDougall “cookies” for one of them to try. Keep in mind that I didn’t add any fat (I mean, oats contain 15% fat and are already quite suspect because of it) and just a touch of sugar. One woman kind of rubbed it against her front tooth and then spit into the garbage can.

Why are vegans often content with mediocre food, like that inedible cookie?

Righteousness makes an excellent sauce for mediocre food. Since it’s often a struggle for a vegan to eat at all when out in the real world, you get used to taking what you can get. Over time, your bar gets lower and lower.

It’s true, you can almost taste the morality in vegan food. Speaking of that, it seems like people who aren’t religious are more likely to fall into veganism. Also, I’ve noticed that a lot of vegans grew up on fast food junk, or at least lacked an inspiring cuisine at home, before realizing that they were clogging their arteries and torturing innocent animals. Did this fit with your upbringing at all? Do you think there are certain traits that make one “susceptible” to the vegan argument?

Interesting points. That certainly fits in with my experience. Perhaps you could add to the list: exposure to other vegetarians, willingness to be “different,” being “eco,” control freaks, smug people, bulimics, children provided with excess cute stuffed animals…

Did you experience any alienation as a vegan?

I never really felt ostracized. These days most people accept vegetarians as legitimate, even saintly. As long as I spent most of my time in the safe veggie circles, which I basically did, there was no problem. Because of my fear of people, I rarely ventured into potentially meaty situations.

On the few occasions when I would be offered meat and had to awkwardly turn it down, I doubt I was feeling any more uncomfortable than if I had to say anything about anything at all. In other words, my social handicap was beyond anything related to being a vegetarian.

Did you try other vegan offshoots like macrobiotics and raw foods, or did you stick with low fat for the most part?

The low-fat approach simply did not work for me. I gradually gave up after doing a yeoman’s job. I was very interested in other vegetarian ideas, like macrobiotics and raw foods, but never adopted them.

I was disillusioned by the McDougall diet failure and was thoroughly in a vegan rut for years. After years of careful study and constant fighting, I simply assumed that veganism was right for every reason. My actual eating criteria became “anything vegan goes,” which in some ways is a very strange diet.

Beginning a few years ago, in response to feeling like crap all the time, Christa and I began a more systematic approach to eating. The culmination is a renunciation of vegetarianism.

How so?

I can’t speak for Christa, since I believe her experience has been quite different from my own. As for me, the systematic approach began with learning more about farming and agriculture, especially firsthand through gardening. Both curiosity about alternative ways of eating and slowly deteriorating health led to actually trying eating differently.

The first thing to change was to eliminate soy. This made a big difference by itself. I then began eating much more fat, especially coconut oil, and phased out canola oil. Again, I perceived improvement in my health. Around the same time, there was a concerted effort to avoid processed foods.

When I first read some of the stuff in Nourishing Traditions, I laughed about Fallon’s suggestions for tricking children into eating sweetmeats. Only after many discussions and reflection over a year did the option of eating meat enter into my realm of possibility. I’d say that The Vegetarian Myth was the breaking point.

Did you try vegetarianism before eating meat again?

I changed over to a vegetarian diet about a year ago in response to a nagging feeling that something was missing from my diet. And I did indeed feel better, pretty much right away.

I remember a guy that I hadn’t seen for years came up to me after I began eating eggs and dairy, and the first thing he said was, “wow, you’re looking good.” When I asked what he meant he said that I “looked really thin and sick before.” At the time I brushed off the comment as silly and uninformed, especially coming from someone who looked as unhealthy as he did to me.

Then you saw that there was an entire blog devoted to just that very subject. In retrospect, did you notice sickliness in other vegans while you were vegan? If so, how did you rationalize it away?

My mental image of a healthy person changed as a result of my total buy-in to veganism. I embraced the results of a vegan diet: Sickliness = Perfect Health. What I ended up perceiving was vegan people in top physical condition and the rest of the population in various states of disrepair. I paid special attention to the pudgy marshmallow-looking people to make myself feel better about being a vegan.

The extremely fit meat eaters posed more of a problem, but I figured their arteries were probably about to pinch shut, making my diet superior once again.

Vegan sickliness does at least seem to be a different sort of unhealthiness than what a bad omnivorous diet can do. Though some vegans may be tired and weak all the time, do you think they are safer from chronic diseases like heart attacks and cancer?

It’s entirely possible that vegans are safer from heart disease and cancer relative to people eating diets that are even worse. I’d say that I was suffering from fatigue and an irritable bowel condition after only a few years of being a vegan. I believe that being in a poor state of mental and physical health over a long period will likely cause chronic illness.

At the time you were vegan, you must have felt that you were benefiting the world and animals in some way. Now that you’re no longer vegan, do you still think that you accomplished something tangible in that time?

Thinking back, I indeed felt like I was benefiting the world through veganism, but even then I understood that my diet probably didn’t keep a single animal from being slaughtered. As for a tangible result, I was partly responsible for multiplying tenfold the available number of vegan products, especially “frozen deserts.”

How is it that people who once believed so strongly in veganism and/or animal rights can eventually forget all that and go back to eating meat? Does part of you still believe it, except that you don’t feel up for the challenge anymore?

I haven’t given up. I take humane animal treatment, sustainability, health and social justice seriously. When I told my brother I was eating meat, his first response was, “so you’ve come over to the dark side.” And my response was that I sincerely now believe that it is not the dark side, to which he muttered, “hm.”

I’m also humbled by the experience of so fully believing in something and then letting it go. It’s true though that I’m not up for the challenge anymore; the challenge of always feeling like an irritable stuffed sack, crapping six times a day and constantly wishing I were eating a donut.

How is your life, post veganism?

So far so good. My concern is that it might actually be even harder to eat than before.

What makes it harder?

Right now I’m finding my non-vegetarian diet more difficult in part because I’m still in the process of working out all new meals. After 12 years of vegan and vegetarian cooking, I became quite adept at putting together meals quickly without having to think about it.

I was initially worried about getting meat that I’d be comfortable eating, but now that I’ve been looking around I see that there are small farmers all over the place selling fresh grass-fed animal products. I think the biggest adjustment has to do with eating smaller amounts of grains, and being careful with grain preparation to avoid ingesting the toxic compounds.

I had a little freak-out at first when I thought about the large vegan and vegetarian cookbook collection amassed over the years becoming obsolete overnight. But it turns out that it’s pretty easy to adapt the recipes. For example, instead of egg replacer, you just use eggs. Instead of “screeze,” just use some cheese. Meat makes an excellent substitute for tofu, etc. etc.

Omnivorizing vegan recipes? Genius. Is there anything you miss about being vegan?

Veganism was only a bad experience in light of the inadvertent impact on my health. The most fun years of my life were spent as a vegetarian, hanging out in tight community of 25-30 people. But my renunciation of vegetarianism is complete and without reservation. I thought I’d “miss it,” but I really don’t.

The one exception would be having to now carry the weight of killing an animal to sustain myself. As a vegan, I felt I wasn’t directly responsible for the death of animals, or at the very least, that I was doing the least harm. I miss that enlightened feeling.

Christine Lehman became a “Let Them Eat Meat” reader the day after she left veganism. She seems to have found the site through the entry “Have Fear of Animal Products, Will Travel,” which would be appropriate, since unhappy traveling as a vegan played a major part in her leaving it after about four months.

Her blog, called “The Curvy Catholic,” is described as “The blog of a married conservative Catholic vegan who loves the Three Stooges.” Once she gets around to revising that, I wonder if she’s going to change that to “Catholic ex-vegan” or just drop the vegan entirely.

Let Them Eat Meat: What brought you into veganism?

Christine Lehman: I read a harrowing book called Slaughterhouse by an investigative reporter named Gail A. Eisnitz.  She went undercover at several different USDA slaughterhouses and found that all those lovely-sounding humane regulations we consumers have insisted on over the years are simply not enforced - that the animals die in terror and pain, and often are very unhealthy.

I’m sure I’m not the only person who’s encountered the ugly realities of today’s factory farms and decided that the only way a caring person can respond is simply to stop eating meat altogether.  And since I’d also read that dairy animals eventually wind up being slaughtered in those same places, I decided to go “whole hog” (sorry!) into veganism.

Did you notice any health benefits, or at least changes, while a vegan?

I really WANTED there to be!  One of the main reasons I switched, besides the animal welfare aspects, is because I fell for the Skinny Bitch assertion that dropping all animal products would result in a significant weight loss.  Since I was in Weight Watchers and my weight had stalled for several months, I thought that sounded great.  Unfortunately, it didn’t work in reality.  My weight stayed pretty much the same.  To be fair to the vegans, though, I have to say I don’t think I stayed on it long enough to experience any long-term effects, either good or bad.

You announced it rather proudly on your blog when you threw your hemp hat in with the vegans. Did that announcement make it harder for you to quit veganism later?

Yeah, I do have a tendency to announce my most dramatic, personal decisions online.  About ten years ago I became an atheist for a while, and the posts I made as “atheistgal” are still floating around in cyberspace, even though I returned to Christianity a few years later.  (Let that be a lesson to you - nothing EVER disappears from the Internet, unless of course it’s something you WANT to find.)

So yes, in a way, going public about my decision to become vegan did make it harder to swallow my pride and announce that I’d given it up later.  But that was nothing compared with telling my mom she was actually right!!

How did she react when you told her that?

I wasn’t actually going to tell her until Christmas morning (sort of the ultimate “cheapskate Christmas present”!).  However, sadly, last week my wonderful Uncle Bill - her older brother - died after a long struggle with Alzheimer’s.  My mom was feeling so sad about it that one day during a phone conversation, I told her, figuring it might cheer her up a little.  And it did!  To her credit, she refrained from saying “I told you so” - even though she did tell me so!

As much as you seemed to believe in veganism at first, you got out relatively quickly. What shook your faith?

I started noticing that most of the food specifically marketed to vegans seems to be a lot more unhealthy than the food it’s supposed to replace!  Specifically, check the sodium levels on some of those meat substitutes out there.  It’s kind of scary!  Also, I got a little tired of the fact that veganism seems to be almost a religion.  Heck, strike the “almost” part!  Read some of their online message boards and see what happens to the poor heretic who confesses she’s trying her best to be vegan, but wouldn’t it be OK to occasionally have a glass of milk or some real cheese?

Two religions does seem like it could be overkill. I gather from your blog that you are Catholic. What did other Catholics think of your choice?

Actually, along with my husband I am now Eastern (Byzantine) Catholic.  Eastern Catholics are very similar to Eastern Orthodox.  The Orthodox have lonnnngg fasting periods during the year - their Lent is 50 days (rather than the West’s traditional 40), and during those fasting periods they essentially “go vegan” - no animal products of any kind.  So during fasting periods, I fit right in.  And since my husband was used to cooking vegan meals during those times, he had no problem with my decision, and even came up with some yummy meal ideas.

The only problem I could foresee was - I’d be fine during the fasting period, but what was I supposed to feast on when it was over?  I hadn’t really given up anything!

What were some other difficulties you had with veganism?

I could never really agree that it was intrinsically wrong to eat animals or use animal products.  I thought, and still think, it’s possible for animals and humans to help each other.  I think it’s called “mutualism” - we give them things they need - food, shelter, companionship, free health care, grazing land, etc. - and in return they give us milk, eggs, and their flesh to eat.

Too often we have broken our side of that bargain, particularly with the infamous and justly despised factory farming system.  We should insist that any animals who are going to die to provide us with food should be treated like ROYALTY.  They should live as happy and healthy a life as we can possibly provide for them, and be killed as kindly and painlessly as possible when that time comes.  We’re supposed to be the most intelligent species on the planet - why can’t we make that happen?

I bet a certain author named Michael Pollan might agree with you. So with the vegan police and the double religion and what to do post-Lent, this all outweighed what you thought you were getting out of veganism?

Yes, as I mentioned when I commented on your blog, my husband and I took a trip on the Amtrak Coast Starlight at the end of August.  I pre-ordered their “vegan meal” option, and was dismayed when, meal after meal, my husband was presented with a mouth-watering array of delicious-smelling choices, while I got the same thing:  a plate full of yellow rice with a big yellow piece of fake meat.

The first time it was, “Oh, doesn’t that look yummy!”  The last time it was “OHMIGOD I have got to have some REAL FOOD!!”  Once I got home I was able to go back to my regular vegan choices but it did make me aware that this might not be as easy to sustain, long-term, as I’d originally thought.

And one more difficulty: there is just something about the word “Vegan” that grates against my spleen.  I HATE saying “I’m a vegan”.  I don’t know why, but I just do.  I hate ANY way of eating that requires you to adopt a whole philosophy to go with it.

Bottom line:  I became a vegan for a while out of a very real concern for the way animals are treated in our modern farms and slaughterhouses.  And I still have that concern!  However, I think supporting small farmers who ALSO share those concerns and are trying to treat their animals right is the best way to deal with that problem.

Veganism provides a more clear-cut way of doing things. You simply cut out all animal products. However, for someone who decides that factory farming is wrong but meat itself isn’t, the situation is more ambiguous. Do you only eat foods from pasture-raised animals on small, local farms? And if you still eat factory-farmed products, how do you justify that?

Here’s what I’ve (tentatively) decided:  for any meat I buy for MYSELF (or my husband), with my own money and for my own use, I will indeed do the best I can to always buy humanely-raised meat from local farmers; if not directly, then from stores like Whole Foods that at least attempt to do the same.

However, when I’m eating something that someone ELSE has spent THEIR money on, and gone out of their way to cook for me, I’ll eat at least a little of it.  Even as a vegan, I tried not to be openly judgmental or hostile to meat-eaters.  Vegans will probably say that shows I was never really committed to veganism, and they’re probably right.  Because I really, really hate “isms” of all kinds!

Some people will say I didn’t try this long enough.  On the contrary, I think I gave it more than a fair trial.  When I read about something that sounds reasonable and plausible, I will give it a shot.  If it works, I’ll stick with it.  If it doesn’t, I’ll move on.  (That same philosophy has led me to some interesting places in my life, like radio stations and nudist colonies.  But I digress!)

Any vegan regrets?

Notice the location of the photo of me as a vegan - it’s the home of my all-time favorite writer, Betty MacDonald (“The Egg and I”).  Even though almost all my life I’d wanted to go there and see her farm on Vashon Island, now that I was a vegan, I couldn’t bring myself to eat even one lousy stinkin’ egg there, in her honor!  What a waste!

Too bad her book wasn’t called “Tofu Scramble and I.” But at least that shows that you were a committed vegan after all. Is there anything you miss about being vegan?

Well, there’s that heady feeling of moral superiority you get when you become convinced that you are saving the lives of thousands of innocent animals.  That’s certainly an esteem builder!  I don’t really miss the food itself - by which I mean the “vegan substitutes.”  Even though I’m no longer limiting myself ONLY to those types of foods, I still plan to continue incorporating more non-animal foods into my daily diet.  Nothing wrong with that, as long as you’re eating the real foods and not the “chreezy” substitutes.

Tristan Jones is friends with Colin Fuller, the ex-vegan I interviewed last week. I haven’t really met Tristan (though we were in the same vicinity once), so pretty much all I know about him is what he says in this interview. The only introduction I will give, then, is that Tristan has made “Let Them Eat Meat” history by being the first ex-vegan I have interviewed who hasn’t become a regular meat eater. He is now a lacto-ovo vegetarian.

Let Them Eat Meat: What got you into veganism?

Tristan Jones: I spent my years in college concerned with eating a really healthy diet — only whole grains, mostly vegetables. After I graduated, I decided to be vegetarian again for environmental reasons (raising animals for meat is tremendously more inefficient and requires significantly more landbase and resources per calorie than vegetables, nuts, or beans). After about a year of running the vegetarian gamut — from pescetarian to strict vegetarian — I decided to become vegan.

I had some very dedicated vegan friends, both animal liberationists and straight-edgers, and they were a community I felt very comfortable in. They made it easy to transition to veganism. I figured, hey, if I’m already halfway there I might as well not make any (what seemed at the time) arbitrary decisions between what animal products I would and wouldn’t eat. So I stopped eating eggs and cheese and honey. It was fun, being part of the vegan community.

How long were you vegan?

I was vegan for a little over seven months.

Vegans often say they feel better once they go vegan. Was that the case with you?

In some ways yes, in some ways no. Dairy kicks up your mucous production, so quitting dairy made me feel cleaner. Getting my protein from nuts and beans felt great. The worst feeling about being vegan was being so limited in what I could eat outside of my home, and not having the money to really do that.

Were you a purity vegan?

I would avoid anything with the tiniest animal product — from whey to casein — but I was okay with eating off of surfaces/eating out of pots that had meat in them at some point. It wasn’t such a big deal to me, since I was still holding to the spirit of veganism.

In retrospect, does anything seem absurd about veganism?

I think the idea that veganism is a diet that is universally applicable to everyone, all over the world. There are serious economic and cultural realities that veganism likes to gloss over. Not everyone has access to earth balance or nutritional yeast. Efforts by groups like peta to boycott entire nations — like Korea — because of some specialized dietary habits is ignorant at best, and racist at worst.

A lot of vegans openly hate peta and think that peta harms the vegan cause by making vegans look bad. Were you in the anti-peta camp as a vegan?

Yeah, the more I think about it, I have to say “absolutely.” I am sort of opposed to a lot of their tactics and ideology on a bunch of different grounds. I think it’s unfortunate that a lot of people automatically correlate veganism to peta. I think peta wants it that way.

Were you ever rude about refusing non-vegan food?

No, but I knew a lot of vegans who were. I always tried to be really sensitive to other people’s diets, because mine was such a marginal one. I was hoping that in being kind to omnivores regarding their different diet, they would be kind to mine as well, and make me feel less marginalized. That wasn’t my experience, and over time I became very resentful and bitter whenever an omnivore made judgments on who I was simply because I was vegan. It was awful.

Did you judge them in return?

No, I didn’t. I really think the best one can do, when one feels that they are acting ethically, is to be an example or inspiration or to help enable others to follow those same ethics. Non-vegans weren’t immoral, they were just different people, but if they wanted to get on board with what I thought was the most ethical diet, then I’d help them achieve that.

When you were vegan, did you think you would ever touch an animal product again?

Yeah, I thought I’d be vegan forever (though admittedly, I still had openness to the idea of eating meat I’d raised myself, someday, when I’d moved back onto a farm).

Did you suddenly quit being vegan, or did you psychologically ease into it for a while?

I was already considering giving it up. I had issues with the industrial processes, or corporatization of my diet. I couldn’t have been a healthy vegan without nutritional yeast or supplements, and I didn’t want to give control of my body over to corporations.

Most vegans do rely on fake meats, various industrial extracts, and vitamin supplements, both for taste and nutrition. Does all the scientific manipulation required suggest that humans aren’t meant to be vegan?

I want to preface my answer by saying that I think a lot of what people argue humans are “meant to be” is ridiculous — we have the ability to reason and act ethically against aspects of our natures considered otherwise violent. I don’t think that saying “veganism does not correlate to human nature/biology” is an appropriate reason to criticize or leave veganism, because driving cars and making films and living in a democracy and developing an ethic isn’t a biological fact of human existence, either. I think humans are also not “meant” to eat the amounts of meat (or food, generally) that we do.

That being said, I don’t know that veganism can be divorced from industry. When you get down to pure nutrition, a vegan diet free of supplements really can’t provide enough B12 for a vegan to be healthy and strong. If you’re comfortable with having to rely on supplements (and if you’re approaching veganism from an animal-rights perspective) then I think veganism can work quite well for some people — but not for me, personally. People like fake meats because they taste good and it makes the transition from omnivorous to veg*an really easy. Unfortunately, soy really isn’t that good for you.

My opposition to the necessity of industry and science in the production of foods and supplements is part of a political/environmentalist ethic that I take very seriously, and is not unreasonable, either. And that’s why I left, ultimately. Needing supplements that are produced and shipped industrially is carbon-intensive. Most of the things one would need to have a robust and nutritional vegan diet aren’t locally produced, and can’t be produced at home. My ethics incorporate a lot of biocentrist environmentalism and DIY.

Did anyone seem to think you looked healthier after eating animal products again?

No, definitely not. In fact I think I was healthier back then than I am now. The foundation for my diet was always maintaining all aspects of nutrition — iron, B-vitamins, folic acid, etc — so I was never an unhealthy vegan. Who knows if that would have been the case if I’d kept it up for years.

Did anything specific happen that caused you to make the switch?

I started dating a girl who was omni and she ate a lot of sausage and cheese. Being vegetarian seemed like a good compromise — it was a small compromise, but not a complete sell-out.

Did you think about trying to get her to become a vegan?

I considered it; she offered to go vegan for a month, to test herself. But like I said, I was already considering leaving veganism. It was a convenient way to leave the diet. Still, most of the cooking I would do for her would still be vegan — actually, a lot of the food I cook for myself today is still vegan, just supplemented by eggs and cheese.

What was the first thing you ate as a non-vegan?

Cheese, mang. A really tangy hard cheese my girlfriend got at Whole Foods, of all places.

How did you break the news to your vegan friends?

They were a little disappointed, but we still love each other and I have tremendous respect for the fact that they’ve stuck with their veganisms — passionately — in a way I didn’t. They were glad I wasn’t eating meat, but I guess that’s not a big surprise.

Who quit veganism first — you or Colin?

I think I stopped being vegan before Colin. When I quit, Colin seemed disappointed. In some ways I’m afraid it kickstarted his process of moving away from veganism. Like I said, I have crazy respect for people that keep to their ideals — dietary or otherwise — and to think I contributed to other people leaving what they once so passionately believed in makes me feel pretty remorseful. I don’t think I disregarded my own ideals because they’re rooted in anti-industrialism and hierarchy, but I know some people would disagree with me in some pretty important ways.

Why haven’t you gone all the way back to eating meat?

Meat still puts tremendous strains on the environment. Whether it’s the inputs of water and fuel per calorie of meat or the deforestation of places in the developing world for grazing land, meat has really important consequences that I can’t morally ignore.

I also have ethical considerations for the rights of animals, but I don’t delude myself into thinking that eggs can’t be taken from happy chickens; I’m from a farm, after all, and we have very happy chickens. They’re healthy. Those are the eggs I want, not from chickens with clipped beaks trapped in tiny cages.

Do you think you ever will have meat again?

Oh, I have! I’m especially fond of the lamb my parents raise down in Virginia. I’ve known some of those sheep personally so I have fewer ethical qualms about eating them than grain-fed feedlot beef from the Keyfood. I have bites of friend’s food every now and again, but I don’t think I’m missing much.

Some vegans say that because they cannot kill an animal themselves, they will not eat animals. Would you be able to kill one of the lambs on your parents’ farm?

That’s a really difficult question. I have never killed one of the sheep on my farm — though I’ve consumed them. I’ve handled their dead bodies. We have them butchered by a local farmer, a friend. I think this is something that I will inevitably have to do if I’m going to feel justified in eating meat, even if only occasionally. Perhaps I should abstain until then.

No, no, I was just asking! Maybe this will help you feel more justified. A book called The Vegetarian Myth argues that killing a wild or grass-fed animal causes less death than eating a plate of brown rice, because of all the ecological damage that agriculture causes.

Agriculture causes a lot of ecological damage regardless of whether it’s for livestock or for vegetables. But remember, my main ethic has never been an animal-rights ethic, but rather an environmentalist one, so the argument that grass-fed kills fewer creatures is moot for the sake of my argument. Livestock requires an immense amount of grazing land, especially for beef. It takes 1,000-2,000 liters of water to produce 1kg of wheat; it requires 10,000-13,000 liters of water to produce 1kg of beef.

Fifty-six million acres of land in the US produce hay for livestock yet only four million acres produce vegetables for human consumption. The amazon rainforest is being deforested for grazing land. Cattle produce significantly more methane than vegetables (though rice is a main contributor to greenhouse gases).

Industrial processes of slaughter require the shipment of cattle to feedlots and a reliance on feeding cattle grain, which is unhealthy for them and requires the corporatization of the food chain by really atrocious agribusiness like Cargill and Monsanto. Our food supply in America is really fucked up from the bottom to the top, and our really heavy reliance on meat and corn and soybeans for feed is really just one component of that.

But couldn’t you use those same statistics against eating dairy? Or in favor of eating grass-fed beef from a local farm?

I’ve thought about whether or not I should be eating cheese, but I think the reality is that much more land is being deforested/degraded for meat-specific consumption, especially as developing nations like China and Brazil increase the demand for meat. (As an aside, biofuels also contribute to the same deforestation I was talking about).

Dairy farms are relatively small-scale operations where most of the milking is done on-site. Beef farms require that industrial, centralized system of feedlots and grain delivery. I know both small-scale beef farmers and small-scale dairy farmers, and their operations are just worlds apart.

So again, I really believe that eating local is important; I think there’s something really important in at least knowing where your food comes from. The issue of grain-fed vs. grass-fed is that I do believe animals should be free to live according to their natures, and cattle are ruminants; they don’t eat grain, they eat grass. That is a biological fact of a cow, and I think it’s unethical to eat meat that denies cows that nature.

When you also consider how many antibiotics it takes just to keep those cows alive and functioning on feedlots until they move to the slaughterhouse, it makes a compelling case against non-local, non-grass-fed beef. And this doesn’t even begin to discuss the effects of industrial beef on human health.

I suppose within my framework of ethics I could still eat meat, but I have some issues with the intrinsic nature of the exchange of capital for animal meat. If I knew the farmer, like I know my parents, and perhaps knew the animal, then I would be comfortable eating that meat. I feel like if I am going to take the life of another animal for my own sustenance, then I owe it to that animal to at least know who raised it, how it was raised, and whether or not it was treated humanely — as you can guess, this really severely limits my options.

Also consider that I don’t think meat more than a couple times a week is that good for you, and it just becomes easiest to identify as a vegetarian, at least for as long as I live in New York City.

Vegans often ridicule the idea of “happy meat,” because they say that even if the animals are raised in good conditions, it is immoral that they must meet their demise at the hands of humans. Do you think veganism helps or harms the cause of getting rid of factory farms and providing more local/organic/grass-fed alternatives?

Veganism is always questioning the legitimacy of the ethics of animal welfare (if we kill humanely, it is still appropriate to consume animal products?) on the grounds that it’s a half-assed argument and that animal rights (correlating to veganism) is the conclusion of any thorough ethical exploration of the relationship between humans and animals. I think there’s a lot of merit in that. I just think that our diets exist in more contexts/dimensions than only the relationship between people and animals.

I don’t think the ideal of an entirely vegan society is realistic, so local/organic/grass-fed alternatives are always going to exist, even as vegans decry those practices. If anything, it’s important that there are those willing to challenge the practices of meat-raising, in whatever form, to keep all of us on our toes and to continuously question what we are doing, why we are doing it, and how we are doing it.

Do you miss anything about veganism?

I do miss the community, and the fun of discovering new foods and cooking methods I wouldn’t have otherwise known about. Veganism taught me a lot, though, especially about considering where my food is coming from, from “farm-to-fork.” I ran across a quote the other day — “you need to eat food that has a story behind it that you can be proud of.” Being vegan helped me to really ask where the things I am eating are coming from, and that’s something I always loved about it.

The first time I met Colin (and I’m pretty sure the last time I saw him), it was at a party of a mutual friend of ours, Tristan, also vegan at the time. What stood out to me immediately was the sweatshirt Colin was wearing - a dark hoodie with the letters V-E-G-A-N splayed out across his chest - and simply from that, I felt an affinity with him, or at least like I already knew a lot about him.

I suppose I did. I knew that he didn’t eat animals, and I assumed that from wearing vegan apparel that this abstinence was fueled by staunch ideals. Later I learned that he was an investment banker, a total surprise at the time.

Hearing a year or so later that he was no longer vegan was just as surprising, but perhaps made more sense than him being vegan in the first place.

- Introduction by Cyrena

Let Them Eat Meat: What got you into veganism?

Colin: I became a vegetarian to lose weight. I’ve always been a chubby dude and I just figured that it could help to stop eating meat. Being unable to just go out and eat a cheese steak at the deli or something actually does help. You have to find hummus or whatever. I’ve also always had bad food allergies, I think I’m lactose intolerant or just allergic to dairy. And for fun I just wanted to see if I could do it, if I had the discipline to completely eradicate a common thing from my life.

I then did the tiniest bit of research and found out that most cheese has rennet in it. Rennet is like veal stomach or something, they use a small amount to produce the cheese. So, in effect, all the cheese is basically meat, and all the people that were vegetarian because they felt compassion for animals but ate tons of cheese were, in effect, totally stupid.

I also started learning about factory farming and how awful it is. One thing that really stuck in my mind was the concept of pigs being really smart. I have a great deal of admiration for animals, but I was especially confused by the situation of pigs. They’re supposed to be smarter than dogs, one of the smartest animals, and yet we treat them like total garbage. Kinda sad, y’all.

The big tipping point for me becoming vegan was the book Skinny Bitch in the Kitch or whatever it’s called. A friend had it in her kitchen (she got it for free from some editor friend). The presentation of the book is pretty dumb and is obviously aimed at chubby women with low self esteem, but a lot of what the book said was very straightforward and made sense to me: animal protein makes you fat, if you want to not be fat, do not eat animal protein. Period. So that was it.

LTEM: Do you still think that animal protein causes chubbiness? Or was it the inconvenience of procuring vegan food that caused you to lose weight?

Colin: Animal protein makes you fat, but there’s food made of vegetable matter that makes you fat too. The ironic part about me losing weight from veganism (I did lose a fair amount of weight) was that although I was physically more attractive, I was now incompatible with 99 percent of the female population. I would think about meeting a vegan girl, and how great that would be. I said that I would never date an omni girl, that they were disgusting.

Eventually I guess I got into the concept of dating a non-vegan person, but I always assumed that a mainstream woman would be really turned off by a man being vegetarian. There’s a stigma. I don’t know, the whole situation sucked.

Now I eat meat and I’m still single. Heh.

LTEM: Do you remember any other paradoxes or problems you had while being vegan?

Colin: Being vegan can be incredibly inconvenient from a social perspective. About a month after I started eating meat again, some omni friends invited me to Rockaway Beach. They were picking me up in their car and getting sandwiches en route. They always go to this stupid normal deli near their house and it would’ve been impossible for me to get something vegan (aside from plain bread). I just got whatever they got. I really enjoyed the ease of this situation and was kind of amazed by how less fun the whole beach trip would have been if I were vegan.

LTEM: How long did the veganism last?

Colin: Strict veganism for about 10 months. I have a businessy job and I even went and got some really shitty moo shoes and paid way more for them than I would have for leather.

LTEM: They are expensive, aren’t they? I think people go there and get ripped off just to say they got their shoes at a vegan shoe store, since there are much cheaper vegan shoes elsewhere. Did any of your businessy co-workers make fun of you for your veganism?

Colin: I was a vegetarian at the last bank I worked at. There was a fellow there who made light of it, but he made light of just about anything he could, so I wouldn’t say that this semi-playful hostility was directed at my dietary choices. I have a boss now who used to make fun of my veganism, but now that I am not vegan his jokes have generally veered into proclaiming that I am a homosexual. He is not a person that my office would consider funny. Relevant and humorous: “BEEF AT GAY INSULT: VEGETARIAN SUES.”

Just for the record, I am all for being made fun of, if it is funny.

LTEM: Were you a purity vegan, or would you make exceptions sometimes?

Colin: I totally hate with a pure passion any person who says they are “vegan but I eat eggs” or some idiot shit like that. Part of what I really appreciated about veganism was the lack of ambiguity. You either consume animal products or you do not consume animal products. I like that, I like the lack of a grey area. Although in reality it is pretty much not valid because maybe your shoes were made with iridescent and you don’t realize it or you think it’s not a big deal or it’s the one thing you’ll allow.

LTEM: How recently did you stop being vegan?

Colin: A couple months ago? Three months?

LTEM: What made you quit?

Colin: After about seven or eight months of being vegan I started getting this powerful inclination to view the website “thisiswhyyourefat.com”. It is all pictures of like a hot dog wrapped with bacon and then cooked with ground beef in a casserole that is topped with cheese. I couldn’t understand why but I had this serious compulsion to view the site while I was at work.

LTEM: Subconscious meat desires?

Colin: Probably, I don’t know. At some point one day I just decided to eat some meat. The plan was just to eat it once. I wanted to see what would happen: would I throw up? Would I feel energetic? During my veganism I was always very, very sleepy at work. I would put my head down on my desk and go to sleep. My friends couldn’t believe that I would do this, but I would literally put my head on my desk and go to sleep for about 30 minutes every day. I’m not attributing this to veganism though, it could’ve been my diet or some other shit. I do not really get sleepy these days.

LTEM: That’s depressing for me to hear about your inexplicable sleepiness, because that reminds me how much of that I dealt with. When I first became vegetarian (not vegan) I took a Russian History class at a community college, and even though the class was completely fascinating to me, I could never stay awake through it. I felt like an asshole, since it was obvious to everyone, and I also was annoyed for myself that I was missing so much of the class.

Colin: Richland Community College?

LTEM: Yep. Oh, I also remember an internship I had while I was vegan. Instead of taking a lunch break, every day I would eat lunch at my desk while I worked, and then I would sneak to the basement of the building for an hour to nap. Otherwise, I couldn’t function. But even then, I was still tired. Jesus, it’s all coming back to me now. As a vegetarian, I was in a play and got a reputation for sleeping whenever I wasn’t needed on stage. Like you, I don’t have this problem anymore.

Colin: I don’t really think there’s much to say in response aside from “YES.” I don’t know if not eating meat made me sleepy, and at this point I don’t care. Just a few minutes ago I felt sleepy and got some coffee. Not like that other sleepy though, the vegan sleepy. That was some narcolepsy shit. Like being unable to control my body, I-have-to-rest-now type shit.

LTEM: I have a vegan friend who is still like that. We were working on a video project together, and he would have to interrupt the shoot in the middle of the day to go home and take a nap. Anyway, what was the process of quitting veganism like for you?

Colin: I went out for lunch and instead of getting a salad or falafel I went to a street meat cart and got chicken and rice with white sauce and hot sauce. It was pretty gross, very greasy and it hurt my stomach (but not because I hadn’t eaten meat in a while). I felt pretty confused initially. Veganism was a big part of my self-identity at the time. Then I just said “fuck it” to myself and went about my biz.

LTEM: How did you break the news to your vegan friends? Were they upset?

Colin: Well, I only ever had two close vegan friends. It’s funny, I was volunteering at the non-profit one works at, and she ordered sub sandwiches for the volunteers to eat. I didn’t want her to know I wasn’t vegan so I would wait for her to go to the bathroom or answer a call and I would stuff my face with a slice of the sandwich.

Eventually I told her. I don’t think she really cared. We had a good laugh because I had been very judgmental of her once in the past when we were drinking after she told me that she was freegan and would be fine with consuming animal products. I had plenty of vegan acquaintances. Most of these people I just stopped talking to, a couple I still keep in touch with. The Supervegan.com people are great.

LTEM: I recently heard a vegan speak who said that even though some meat eaters were against factory farming, vegans were the only ones doing something about it. You obviously still care about animals, particularly the porkers, even though you eat meat now. Do you make an effort to eat free range meat, to not support factory farming? Are there some things you won’t eat?

Colin: I will eat anything, I really do not care any more. I couldn’t care less about ideals. Abstaining from eating animals changes nothing. I think that the world is a very stupid place filled with mostly worthless, foolish, proud people, and it is just not worth the effort.

LTEM: Do you at least have pangs of conscience when you eat meat now?

Colin: Never considered it once. The only ‘radical’ aspect of me left is my pure and unwavering hatred for any motor vehicle, pedestrian, or wrong-way bicycle in my bike lane. I feel a sublime and pure pleasure when I spit in someone’s face or smash off a side-view mirror that could never be matched by a foie gras protest.

LTEM: Is there anything you miss about being vegan?

Colin: Camaraderie. I think a big part of what I appreciated was in sharing the unique experience of being vegan with other vegans. It was kind of like choosing to be part of a marginalized group, dealing with oppression and idiocy. I always enjoyed telling jokes like “BUT WHERE DO YOU GET YOUR PROTEIN?”

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.

Nick Stevens and I both grew up in Richardson, Texas. We went to elementary, junior high, and high school together, and were friends for most of that time. We hung out the most in high school, but less so after that, as Nick went to The University of North Texas in Denton, and I moved to Austin to go to UT.

After graduating, Nick moved with his girlfriend (now wife) Kristine to Sweden, where they have been since. I have visited them twice there. The first time, in 2005, I was vegan. The second time, in 2008, I was not. But during that more recent visit, I was surprised to learn that after my visit in 2005, Nick had experimented with veganism.

The experiment failed, which is why Nick is my next Interview With An Ex-Vegan.

Let Them Eat Meat: I remember visiting you and my brother in New York, some time before I moved here, I think in 2000. I was sick and having trouble keeping up with you as you walked briskly around the city, looking for a cheap watch. You told me I was falling behind because I wasn’t getting enough protein as a vegan. Besides that, I don’t remember you ever critiquing my diet. What did you think about my being vegan over the years?

Nick Stevens: I actually thought you were making a very healthy choice. Despite the fact that it made you seem physically less capable, I believed your “clean” diet would end up enabling you to live a longer and healthier life. By healthier life, I mean one that would be less plagued by disease or sicknesses.

LTEM: When I visited you in Stockholm in late Spring of ’05, you weren’t a vegan. But later you told me that at some point after I left, you tried it for a while. What inspired you?

Nick: Your devotion to you diet, and that you made an effort to cook interesting meals. You seemed to base your food choices on factual information. I was also inspired by the idea of living a life in harmony with animals. Or basically found the idea of not having to kill animals to survive and be healthy interesting philosophically.

LTEM: Your wife Kristine is a vegetarian. How did she react when you went vegan?

Nick: She seemed very happy. Actually, it was just the animal issue, she doesn’t eat meat because she doesn’t feel it is morally right to kill animals for food.

LTEM: How did you feel (physically and mentally) after you cut meat and dairy out of your diet?

Nick: I had a lot of cravings at first. I felt hungry a lot in the beginning. But at the same time, I felt good about myself conceptually. So mentally I was peaceful, because I was not taking part in the raising and slaughtering of animals, which I still feel is taken for granted by modern society. All in all, I have to say that I felt quite okay, but my physique didn’t seem to look any better than before.

LTEM: What milk replacement did you prefer?

Nick: I prefered oat milk, and I contiued to enjoy it, until you helped me to discover the prehistoric diet.

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

Nick: Yes, at first, but I found myself making exceptions after a period of time.

LTEM: How is it being vegan in Sweden?

Nick: It is quite difficult. Most people that eat fringe diets are vegetarian here. Most vegetarians (or so they call themselves) eat at least fish, some even eat chicken. They primarily abstain from pork and beef.

LTEM: Besides Kristine, did you have any vegan-type “support” in Sweden?

Nick: No one at all at the time.

LTEM: Did your friends or family members pressure you to eat animal products?

Nick: Yes, not hard pressure, but they definitely seemed to be confused and want to jest about it every time food came up.

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

Nick: No. After a period of time I decided that if I was offered something out of kindness, then I would still eat it as a respectful gesture.

LTEM: Did you do or think anything particularly absurd as a vegan?

Nick: “What can I do tonight with beans?”

LTEM: Did you eat mock meats?

Nick: At the time I ate a lot of Quorn (mushroom protein) meats. Although I tried to make all of my food from the raw ingredients, sometimes I had to take the easy way out to save time. Now, I very rarely eat anything prefabricated.

LTEM: Oh, shit, Nick, Quorn has egg whites in it! Does this mean you were technically never vegan?

Nick: I got my information a little crossed. I started eating A LOT of Quorn meats when I transitioned into regular vegetarianism. I was getting that time mixed up with my vegan period. So that means, after you left, I was pure vegan for about three to three and a half months, and then I was a pure vegetarian for about six months. After that, I lasted three more months as a “vegetarian” who also ate fish and seafood.

I was definitely vegan for a period, and I did not eat any meat substitutes during that time — only beans, veggies, root veggies, rice, nuts, fruit and so on. On a side note, I also fruit-fasted for a period of two days. This was something you told me about years ago. I got real hungry at first, but then after the first day the cravings subsided and I felt very alert. In the end, when I ate regular food again, it was like a head rush - I almost felt like I would keel over.

LTEM: To most vegans, three months isn’t long enough for your veganism to even count. In retrospect, would you say that you’ve never actually been vegan?

Nick: In retrospect I would say that I tried it and ultimately decided it wasn’t the right choice for me.

LTEM: Could you have tried harder?

Nick: Yes, I could have stuck with it. I more or less copped out for lack of inspiration.

LTEM: What did you use to ease out of veganism?

Nick: Well, I started with milk and cheese. Then I went to eggs. And finally introduced fish.

LTEM: How did you feel when you started eating meat again?

Nick: I felt more satisfied, and I would stay less hungry for a longer period of time.

LTEM: Did non-vegans suddenly see you as a fellow human being again?

Nick: Yes, but it was more like I was never a vegan at all. On the other hand, there were a few people who NEVER would remember that I was vegan or vegetarian when I was one, but then all of a sudden up to a half of a year later those people still believed that I was vegetarian.

LTEM: Sounds like they need time for information to sink in. Why do meat eaters often find veganism so obnoxious?

Nick: It is the pickiness of the vegan eaters. They can’t find something to their liking at most places. It makes it difficult to go eat at a restaurant, and the meat eaters always have to cater to the vegan’s needs.

LTEM: Did you find that to be the case the first time I visited you in Stockholm?

Nick: No. When you visited, I didn’t see you as picky, since you had reasoning behind what you ate, and you had quite a broad array of things you ate within your acceptable range of foods. You seemed to have no problems finding things to eat when we were out. I found it interesting to try to eat the way you did and see what the result would be.

LTEM: Did I seem to look noticeably healthier to you or Kristine when I visited Stockholm the second time, as a non-vegan, as opposed to the first, as a vegan?

Nick: You seemed to have gotten better looking. I think Kristine even mentioned that she thought you were handsome or cute or something to that effect. So, I guess that means you must have appeared healthier.

LTEM: Did you appreciate meat more after your vegan stint?

Nick: No. I appreciated vegans and vegetarians that are in good physical shape more.

LTEM: “For something to live, something else must die.” Is this an unfortunate flaw in the world?

Nick: Well, I don’t think that something HAS TO die so something else can live. That sounds awfully black and white, and probably how a lot of regular Americans feel about their meat eating. But death is something that happens for all living things eventually. I would sooner adhere to a philosophy of living without hurting any other living thing. I am sure you can find plenty of gray terrain in there.

LTEM: Is veganism an attempt to avoid the reality of death and create meaning?

Nick: Yes, in some sense probably it is. But I would say not so much as avoid, but actively attempt to change that reality. I do think that if society in general gave more respect to nature and life, we would live in a different and better world.

I mean, I don’t think that most vegans would be vegans if it weren’t for the type of excess that our system of life has given way to. The way that everything is mass-produced to fill the shelves at Walmart super stores, etcetera. Simply put, I don’t think that the quality of the animals’ lives that go into making ready-fried chicken fried steak patties is a very natural reality.

LTEM: Nor are chicken fried steaks themselves much of a natural reality. But that’s probably true. One of the big vegan gripes is how detached we are from food production, and that people don’t think about where their food comes from at all. Of course, vegans believe that anyone who does think about it must then logically become vegan. By the way, my brother is still vegan. How do you think he would feel about this blog?

Nick: He would probably feel a bit defensive. From what I saw on your blog, you are quite aggressive in your calling out of vegans. I actually think that they are doing a positive thing, despite the fact that I do believe it is not as healthy or as natural for human beings as the prehistoric diet.

LTEM: Speaking of the prehistoric diet, how did the “primal” way go for you?

Nick: The caveman diet went very well. I slipped up and fell back into eating from the agricultural age again, though, after four months. In the first two weeks as I cut out all the grains and starches, and even cut out dairy, I was often very light headed, but then it subsided and I started to feel very energetic and in control. I was no longer beholden to food. Essentially I felt like a very efficient machine. My body also started to instantly look more muscular and developed within only a month.

I plan on going back to the primal diet as soon as I can inspire myself to do it again. I went back on it for a month, but had trouble holding to the diet. It’s very difficult to be primal when you live with a vegetarian — Kristine always needs some type of carbohydrate to help fill her up, since she doesn’t get the protein that I get. She also eats a lot of Quorn meats and I never touch those anymore — especially when I was primal — due to the gluten and potato starches and whatever else they contain.

LTEM: What do you miss about being vegan?

Nick: Telling people that I was vegan, but that’s it.

The heart of this blog will always be photos of sickly vegans. But since vegans don’t publicly congregate in large groups every day, and I’d like to update this blog more than a few times a month, I have no choice but to introduce other segments. One of these will be interviews with ex-vegans.

The first one will be with my friend Cyrena.

Let Them Eat Meat: When I met you, you were a vegan. Now you’re not. What happened?

Cyrena: Well, I started being vegetarian when I was at gymnastics camp, at the young impressionable age of 11.  Veganism followed after, for health reasons, along with some eating issues.  Then the ideals followed.  But I started feeling less healthy as the years passed, and became more concerned for my health.  I then, from you, heard of the primal diet theory, and read up on it; I began to question veganism as the healthiest diet.

LTEM: I remember you were about to go to Japan as a vegan. Would that have been a mistake?

Cyrena: Yes.  Sushi was delicious.  And I also saw my grandma in Taiwan, who was in the hospital at the time; she heard I stopped being vegan, and then recovered - in that order.

LTEM: How does a person go from thinking that eating meat is pretty much the worst thing in the world to thinking that actually it’s great?

Cyrena: I’m not sure.  It doesn’t happen overnight, but I wouldn’t say I consciously think eating meat is great.  I think subconsciously, I think it’s great - but consciously, at times I do feel bad about the detrimental environmental impacts.

[Editor’s note: There’s a book called The Vegetarian Myth that might make you feel better about that. I’ll let you read it when I’m done.]

LTEM: After you decided to eat meat again, did you have a dark night of the soul where you had to unlearn your vegan teachings and accept that eating animals is okay? Or did you just leap right back in?

Cyrena: I think I leaped back into it like a former gymnast would have.  Although, at times it was a little weird - eating all of these foods again.  I guess the landing was shaky.  Ha.

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

Cyrena: Technically, a little bit of salmon tartar.  Then a lamb burger in Montreal.

LTEM: How long were you vegan?

Cyrena: I think around 5-6 years.

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

Cyrena: No.  Any illness would be a symptom of a psychological illness.

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

Cyrena: Yes, I had several “Welcome back to the real world” comments, or something to that effect.  I didn’t realize how much of a burden my non-vegan friends saw my dietary choices as.  Going to restaurants became much easier.  As a vegan, I’d always have to pick which restaurant my friends and I would go to because I was “the one who was picky.”

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

Cyrena: It was either that or “Welcome back to the good life.”  I think they probably meant that I could do things non-vegans did without having to separate and distinguish myself - go to normal restaurants, wear leather without being questioned, not have to explain my dietary choices, etc.

As for welcome back to the good life… that’s pretty self-explanatory.

LTEM: Vegans don’t fully appreciate the extent to which their diet annoys people. Though if they did, it might just make them more stalwart in their beliefs. How is it ordering at restaurants without having to pester waiters about animal products?

Cyrena: Hmm, I don’t know, since I usually frequented vegan restaurants.  I guess I still pester waiters about something.

LTEM: How did you tell your friends who were still vegan about your Judas-like betrayal of them and everything you used to stand for?

Cyrena: Um…I haven’t…yet.  Not all of them.

LTEM: Why are you reluctant to tell your vegan friends about your new, more reasonable diet?

Cyrena: I’m afraid that they wouldn’t want to be my friend anymore.  But also, I just don’t really want to get into another debate about why veganism is the best.  I’ve been on the brainwashed side before, and there is no arguing with vegans, just being preached to.

[Editor’s note: I went to a party hosted by Cyrena’s vegan friends once. It was on a roof, and the first thing I heard as I walked out was everyone chattering excitedly about seitan. What a nightmare.]

LTEM: What have your post-vegan run-ins with them been like?

Cyrena: Awkward. I recently accompanied two vegan friends of mine to grab dinner.  They didn’t want to eat anywhere too expensive, so they picked Chipotle.  I didn’t eat anything, because I wasn’t hungry and I think Chipotle is kind of disgusting.

Naturally, the topic of conversation turned toward dietary choices, since I just spent six months in France.  They asked me, “How was it being vegan in France?”  When I replied that I wasn’t… the face of one of them instantly dropped, and she exclaimed, “What did you eat!?!?”  Not ready to tell her how I was a full omnivore, I skirted the issue by saying, “Oh, you know vegetables, fruits, nuts, cheese, yogurt…”  Her reaction was, “Real yogurt!?”

Which is kind of insane when you think about it — vegans are just people subsisting on fake food.  The other vegan was nicer about it; she defended me and said that if she were abroad she’d definitely eat cheeses, yogurts etc. — she wanted to experience the food and culture.  As soon as she was done saying this, the other vegan was shaking her head in disappointment.  Thank goodness they scarfed down their burritos.

LTEM: To my shame, I spent an entirely vegan month in Paris. Ugh. Oh well. Why do you think vegans dislike former vegans so much?

Cyrena: It’s a form of betrayal, as you made the Judas parallel earlier.  I guess by doing so I ex-communicated myself from a community of vegans I used to hang out with.  Or maybe it’s like I lost purity.

LTEM: Why is purity so important to vegans?

Cyrena: I’m not sure… it seems irrational.  It reminds me of the argument that Barnard students are “diluting” the Columbia diploma since we also receive one upon graduation.  What does it matter what other people do, as long as you do what you think is right?

I had a vegan friend who once complained to me about how other vegan friends occasionally cheated with a ‘normal’ cookie…and how unfair that was.  I don’t really understand what was so unfair about it - I guess it’s a hypocrisy thing.  But nobody is really pure.  No one.  Everyone has unpure thoughts, even vegans.

LTEM: Vegans argue that anyone who becomes an ex-vegan was just not committed enough. They were vegan for the wrong reasons, and basically were never truly vegan at heart. Does that describe you?

Cyrena: No, I was definitely committed.  That’s like saying that a woman who cheats on her husband was never committed, married him for the wrong reasons, and never truly loved him.  I loved being a vegan when I was, I didn’t cheat, and I thought it would be forever.  But it wasn’t meant to be, and people change.  It happens.

LTEM: How were you different as a vegan than you are now?

Cyrena: I would say I’m healthier now.  My hair is a lot thicker, I don’t feel tired all the time, and I eat less junk food.  I bake less.

My mom used to say she could tell when people were vegetarians.  I asked her how, and she said that they had a pale, sickly color about them.  Can you tell by how pale I am in that photo?  And I was in California!

My mom also claims people go crazy around the time of a full moon, though.  But sometimes she’s right.

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

Cyrena: I was really healthy when I was a little girl, and almost never got sick.  But a year or so into my veganism, I used to get (fairly frequently) pretty heavy nosebleeds.  And I caught colds with more ease.  I haven’t been sick once since I stopped being vegan.

LTEM: My first couple of years in college, there wasn’t much vegan food in the dorm cafeterias, and I got serious nose bleeds quite a few times. My nose would just not stop bleeding, and I’d have to go to the clinic. But I didn’t think veganism was at fault, only the lack of decent vegan options. But back to you. Did you hate non-vegans?

Cyrena: No, not necessarily.  Maybe at times I tried convincing family members, close friends, that they should save themselves too, and become vegan.  I thought it was the best way to live. People who respected me, or at least sympathizers for the vegan cause, were definitely higher up in my book.

I think that I was more about love, and any vegan I encountered I immediately would be interested in them, and want to talk to them.  Especially about being vegan.

LTEM: When you’re vegan, veganism in someone else automatically pushes them up a notch on the attractiveness scale. Did you dream of raising vegan children?

Cyrena: Yes.  1/2 Asian, vegan children.

LTEM: Did you think there should be a national vegan fast food chain, and that if there were one, it would be really popular?

Cyrena: No, never.  I was, and am, still against any fast food chain.  Even as a vegan I never ate fries or anything from fast food joints.  The food is gross, and the policies are gross.  And look at the people who normally eat fast food — gross.

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

Cyrena: I liked soy milk; I drank it growing up, in addition to cow’s milk.  I also really like almond milk; but then again I like anything involving almonds.  Almost.

LTEM: As far as meat substitutes, were you more of a soy or a wheat gluten type of girl?

Cyrena: Soy.  Being raised on Asian food, I already ate a lot of tofu anyway.

LTEM: What is your favorite actual meat now?

Cyrena: Salmon.

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

Cyrena: Yep.  Though I guess just the high-quality ones, not any vegan joint that just serves imitation meat/junk food. I still really like Angelica Kitchen and Caravan of Dreams.

LTEM: What is the most absurd vegan trait?

Cyrena: Oh, I don’t know if there is one common trait I can think of.  There’s a lot of absurdity for sure.  But I guess I would say vegan tattoos are as absurd as getting your lovers’ name tattooed.  It’s sweet, but stupid.

LTEM: And especially embarrassing if you ever stop being vegan. Do you think all vegans inevitably cave eventually?

Cyrena: If they want to live in the real world, yes.  Otherwise, if vegans are surrounded by vegan friends in an entirely vegan community, I’m sure they’ll be able to remain status quo.

LTEM: Do you miss being vegan?

Cyrena: Sometimes, but not really.  I tell myself sometimes, and I’ve said recently, that I could easily be vegan again.  It really isn’t hard, but it really isn’t that great.  I just wouldn’t.  I guess it was an interesting time of my life.