Background and Body Type

So now that I am finally caught up with all of my school work I am going to post all of the stuff I should have posted at the beginning of this blog.

Here is a little bit of information on myself as of the day I became vegan:

Stats: As of Thursday, October 7, 2010

Name: Jeffrey Barnett

Age: 23

Weight: 119 lbs

Height: 5’4

Gender: Female to Male Transgender

As of today Saturday, October 16^th, 2010 I weigh116 lbs. I have lost roughly 3 pounds, I feel like I have more energy, and I feel like I am in a better mood. However, I crave meat, I am hungry more often, I am spending a lot more money on groceries, and I spend a lot more time thinking about food and checking labels.

Background:

I have always enjoyed eating foods of all kinds including all types of vegetables. I have had a few pets, but I wasn’t extremely close to them. I have played with the idea of being vegetarian for health reasons, but never for any sort of animal rights issues and I had an extreme bias against vegans.

I knew a few vegans who looked terrible, were extremely unhealthy, and pushed PETA at every meal. I have never had any intention of becoming vegan.

The reason behind my transition to veganism:

On Wednesday, October 6^th, 2010 I was assigned to read an excerpt from Jim Mason and Mary Finelli’s “Brave New Farm.” Just after devouring a delicious bowl of Chef Boyardee I sat down to read the passage unaware of the subject matter.

What I read was disgusting.

The images of millions of baby chickens crushed, suffocated, and ground alive simple because of gender, chickens without enough room to stand or stretch their wings whose legs break under the weight of their newly engineered bodies, animals with open sores, cows that can live to 20 years slaughtered at age 4, baby cows slaughtered at 4 months, the list goes on and on. This was finally it. I submerged myself so deep into the excerpt I couldn’t ignore it again as I had worked so hard to do before. I knew I had to change. I could not eat another living animal, only, now that I knew the conditions for dairy cows and egg laying chickens I could not choose to ignore that either.

That night before I could have time to forget how disgusted I was I emailed my professor to inform him that I would like to do my final project over a transition to a vegan diet. He accepted.

I am not quite sure yet what I am trying to accomplish. I just know that I could not eat another piece of meat.

Since that article I have seen “Food Inc.”, “Animals: To Love or to Kill”, and “Earthlings” which have reinforced my distaste.

There we are for stats and background. If you have any questions please feel free to post them if you fell like I left anything out.

Coming next:

Grocery/food costs, vegan substitutions, recipes I have tried, and other food issues.

-Jeffrey