Being a new Vegan

I never thought this day would come.

Seriously I was once vegan for a month and I became so sick I had to go to the hospital because I couldn't even stay awake or stand up straight. My best Friend is a vegan and she is a strong activist I couldn't let her down. I was asking her for help often, asking her for new recipes or tricks to make it easier. I decided to cut as much as i could my meat and dairy intake. I was getting educated, I was watching video on a daily basis to help me understand more about the vegan community and why it's good for me and important for the planet. So even after hours and hours or research, all I could find was still not enough. Mostly because I was scared, scared of the community, I was scared of becoming one of those vegan that everybody hates, one of those I despised whatsoever because they take everything for granted just because they read one article about meat and cancer on the internet. Or they think that the China Study is a real study and it is relevent when it was a complete scam. I was scared of being blinded by the youtubers I look up too and forget about the scientific facts. I was sure of never being one of them, well at least that was until 3 weeks ago. 

I was eating my chicken and noodle soup because I was feeling kind of sick and as soon as that little piece of chicken entered my mouth i couldn't get those tortured animals out of my head. I was having flash backs of all the videos I saw in the past year and I almost threw up everything, at this point I was done. I took all the chicken pieces out of my soup and gave them all to my cat. (Don't worry guys i'm not that kind of vegan that will push my belief on a carnivorous animal, i know cats need meat and I will continue feeding them meat i want my cat to be as healthy as possible and I don't want to denaturalize him.) I haven't touch meat since then and I'm still trying my hardest to havoid dairy and eggs. Well it's kind of easy being on a High Carb diet since I love potatoes, rice and pastas so I'm not having that much of a hard time. I think the hardest thing in my diet at the moment is that I'm always eating. I mean, ALWAYS, I never ate that much in my life but I feel great.

I promised myself I will not judge people who are not vegan because the main reason why most of them are not is only a lack of education. Most people love animals but they don't really know what is happening in slaughterhouses and like Sir Paul Mccartney once said: If slaughterhouse had glass walls everyone would be vegetarian. So the best we can do as vegan is educate. And stop making meat eaters feel bad about their choice because sometimes they just don't know any better.

Being vegan is easier than I thought and I couldn't live with myself giving all the love that I give to my pet while all the others animal are being tortured. I'm still on the fence about the research on meat and cancers/ hearth desease, I think it's too soon to know if there is a real link. Since veganism is mostly new, not enough research have been done and there is not a big enough pool of people to make a valuable research on this YET. But the main reason why I went vegan anyway is not for my health. Its mostly environmental and ethical reason that brought me where I am today.

For what it's worth even though I'm trying as much as I can to avoid any cosmetic tested on animals, I know most of the medical research done on animal are MENDATORY and if not this could have lots of repercutions on us. Most of animal testing are done on small critters and animal that have a short life spawn and that procreate really fast. Also some of the bigger animal live in a mostly natural environment. I don't think it's necessary in cosmetics or in fashion, but I think its important in biomedical studies and it's easy to get informed on why it's important for medical purpose. In the California Medical Biomedical Research Association Fact Sheet it is stated that animals necessary in biomedical research because :

''animals make good research subjects for a variety of reasons.  Animals are biologically similar to humans.  In fact, chimpanzees share more that 99% of DNA with humans and mice share more than 98% DNA with humans, therefore, animals are susceptible to many of the same health problems as humans. Animals have a shorter life cycle than humans and as a result, they can be studied throughout their whole life span or across several generations. In addition, scientists can easily control the environment around animals (diet, temperature, lighting), which would be difficult to do with humans.

Why can’t alternative methods replace animals in research?

Whenever possible, researchers do use non animal models for research. Computer models, tissue and cell cultures, and a number of other nonanimal related research methods are used today in biomedical research. Computer models are used to screen and determine the toxic level of a substance in the beginning of an experiment and tissue and cell cultures have become valuable additions to the array of research tools and techniques. However, animal testing remains a neccesity.  For example, blindness cannot be studied in bacteria and it is not possible to study the affects of high blood pressure in tissue cultures.The living system is extremely complex.  The nervous system, blood and brain chemistry, gland and organ secretions, and immunological responses are all interrelated, making it impossible to explore, explain, or predict the course of diseases or the effects of possible treatments without observing and testing the entire living system of an animal. In the meantime, scientists continue to look for ways to reduce the number of animals needed to obtain valid results, refine experimental techniques, and replace animals with other research methods whenever feasible''

But many things can change nowadays and I really hope one day technology is advanced enough so we don't have to use animal for testing today's medecine. But for now we have to deal with it and wait for them to find a better way.

What does any of this have to do on a blog about fashion and design you'll ask? 

Well, we all know how much animal cruelty can be part of fashion, fur and leather have been a sign of wealthiness and luxury for decades and I really wish I can be one of the designer that will change that. Some high ends designers are using fake furr and faux leather which is a nice step toward a cruelty free fashion world. We also can find vegan fashion brand like Stella McCartney, Vaute Couture, Miakoda and more. I wish I could be one of them one day and I could have my own vegan friendly fashion line.

I'm still on the fence about wool industry though, because we know that shearing sheep is necessary to their well being. Mostly because if a breed of sheep can't shed and the sheep goes too long without being shorn many problem can occur. Their body temperature will rise above normal, urine and feces will be trapped in the wool and cause infection and sheep with a too large amount of wool can be immobilized by physical obstacle therefore being an easier target for predator. Even though i'm not ok with the way wool farm works, I know that in the most part it is mendatory for a sheep to be shorn. Even though I don't want to use wool in my collection for now and I want to be 100% vegan but I will not be mad at someone for using wool in their clothes.

Are you guys vegan? are you debating about becoming vegan? Do you guys wish there were more vegan option in today's fashion? Let me know what are your thoughts on this post.

Thank you again for reading, and i will keep you posted on my journey as a new vegan, I love you guys so so much and i'll see you in the next post my beautiful unicorns Babyee 

xoxox

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