Why I Stopped Being Vegan

[Listen to an audio version of this blog HERE.]

I had a dream about eating salmon. Thick, grilled, juicy salmon. I ignored it, but a few weeks later, I had the same dream. I told a friend, and she laughed. I told another friend, and she said, “How strange.” I told yet another friend and she said, “Maybe you should just eat some salmon.”

My dietitian agreed, “If your body wants salmon, it wants salmon,” she said.

But I haven’t eaten salmon, or cheese, or eggs, or chicken, or beef, or pork, or yogurt in years. I thought I had the whole vegan thing down: rice and beans, legumes, tofu, veggies on veggies on veggies, fruit, nuts, smoothies, wheat grass, kombucha, rinse, repeat.

I decided to go vegan *ostensibly* for health reasons, and to flex my nonexistent knowledge-of-all-things-diet muscle. The arguments are easy to make: being vegan is better for the planet, it’s better for health, it’s better for animals (obviously). Veganism is idealistic and extreme, which appealed to me because I’m an idealist, and extreme. It also appealed to me, whether or not I cared to admit it, because I had an eating disorder and veganism conveniently cut out entire food groups. It was, quite simply, an easy excuse to eat less. Sadly, this is somewhat common among vegans, who by the way, make up about 0.5% of all Americans. Veganism is niche, and…