3 Year Vegaversary

Today marks exactly 3 years of my vegan journey!

It was on the 28th of July 2017 that I had made myself (vegan) pancakes with blueberries and (soy) ice cream,

And never looked back!

Not to flex, but in my 3 years of being vegan, I have saved

4 559 471 litres of water

19 820 kilos of grain

3 066 square metres of forest

9 965 kilos of carbon dioxide

1 095 animal lives

And that’s just one person for just 3 years.

It’s quite perplexing how my personal decision to not consume the carcasses of animals was quite offensive to so many. For, it was my duty as a descendent of cavemen, to maintain the traditional practices of killing an innocent and vulnerable animal in a cruel and painful slaughter so that I can put my "fully developed" canine teeth to use.

For those passionate about continuing to eat meat because their ancestors did, I recommend you ditch toilet paper so that you can match the cavemens’ buttcheeks, which were caked up from two-day-old defecation! Why not go all the way sweaties?

Going to an all-girls Catholic school is traumatic enough, but throw a rebellious vegan into the mix and you’ve got constant ostracism, isolation and 13-year-old satan incarnates regularly plotting on how to make you cry next. So my first year of this new adventure was a true joy.

But with the condescension, snarky under-the-breath comments, being harrassed by a chorus of said satan incarnates yelling bacon as you walk anywhere, crippling judgement and constant rejection,

Comes the beauty of interacting with others’ genuine curiosity, constant learning better skin and the ability to sleep easy at night.

I’m so blessed to live in a first-world country, with access to an abundance of foods, electricity and gas to prepare them, the money to experiment and the empowerment to choose. It’s a privilege denied for many. Poverty could end if wealthy western countries stopped stealing all the grain to fatten their livestock. So I’m doing it for the victims of the grotesuqe first-world country complex. They deserve to go to bed with a full stomach.

For our kids, who will get to live long and full lives because a climate catastrophe hasn’t obliterated their lives yet because we all (hopefully) have made the switch, I’ll do it for them. They deserve a chance to breathe clean air, drink clean water and to just, like, be alive. Our children deserve better.

For the mother cows mourning for their babies just so we can steal their breast milk, for the crowded chickens being smothered to death in their own defecation just so we can consume their menstruation, for all animals who are brutally and unjustly slaughtered, from pigs to dogs, just so we can have 5 minutes of mediocre sensory pleasure, I do it for them. These sentient and feeling beings deserve so much better.

I have so much love for this planet and all of its inhabitants, including all of my fellow Earthlings. For the rest of my life, I pledge, I will fight for what’s right. I will live out loud my unconditional love for Mother Earth and I will protect my vulnerable fellow beings with my last breath.

To 16-year-old Arunita, who on the 28th July 2020 8:53 pm is writing this very post, I see you.

To 15-year-old Arunita, who started her own vegan soap business on the 28th July 4:55 pm, I love you.

To 14-year-old Arunita, who on the 28th July 2018 1:23 pm, just clapped back at half her grade (and her religion teacher xoxo) for being ignorant knaves, I am so incredibly proud of you.

And to 13-year-old Arunita, who is flipping her first batch of vegan pancakes on the 28th July 2017 8:03 am, I am in awe of you.

Here’s to 3 years of veganism, and a whole lifetime to come!