Pratique du Shadowing: How I ended up Vegetarian. - Apprendre l'anglais à l'oral avec YouTube

As someone who's been telling stories and experiences from my life for way too long,

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As someone who's been telling stories and experiences from my life for way too long,

I feel like you've gotten the general gist of the type of person I am.

There's very few things I haven't talked about that express new information about myself,

but there's a chance you didn't know about this one.

It's not that I'm embarrassed or ashamed or even keeping it secret,

I've just felt like it can rub some people the wrong way,

and I simply haven't really felt like opening that can of worms yet.

But it is something I'm relatively passionate about

and hope I can navigate the topic in a casual way that's more talking about my thoughts on it, non-preachy style.

I'm vegetarian.

Based on that buildup, I'm sure some of you thought that was going to be much more abhorrent.

But look, I'm just trying to establish the tone here.

You can never be too careful.

It's been almost 10 years since I've eaten meat,

and I think the craziest part is that it wasn't really even on purpose.

Back when I went to college for a single year,

I was living on my own for the first time.

To make a long and complicated story short,

I didn't know how to feed myself,

developed a really unhealthy relationship with food,

and it ultimately became this whole thing.

It happens to the best of us.

But the best of us also know that it's not good for your well-being,

and despite how scary and difficult it is,

you need to make a change.

After a lot of trying and failing to get back into a healthy mindset with eating,

I decided to sit down at a computer

and study nutrition to feel more confident in my choices with food

and use knowledge to make it all a bit less intimidating.

I spent a long time doing my own research,

looking into all types of articles and studies on food when I stumbled onto veganism.

Despite it being a bit more limited with what a lot of people are used to eating,

for me, it sure was a hell of a lot better than what I was feeding myself at the time,

which was almost nothing at all.

So we take those little steps.

I was interested and decided in that moment that I would attempt going vegan to simply see what happens.

Yeah, I ended up changing the entire trajectory of my lifestyle with a single,

ah, hell, why not?

I would say I did it kind of wrong at the beginning.

Like, I would buy a prepackaged salad from the campus food court that had meat in it and pick it off,

which I know just did heavy damage to vegans,

vegetarians, and non-food wasters out there.

I'm sorry, I didn't know at the time.

It's common for people transitioning from eating meat to not eating it to struggle

because it feels like you're removing a huge part of how you normally structure your meals.

But since I was eating next to nothing every single day,

I really never had that problem.

I was adding food into my repertoire instead of taking it away.

So basically, the complete opposite situation,

which worked out really well.

Over time, I started trusting what I was eating again,

being a lot more healthy with my relationship with food,

and along the way, learned about the other positive reasons to go meatless.

I don't really want to be the one to get into the nitty gritty of it all,

but if you're curious, there's a lot of environmental benefit,

and as everyone knows, it's kinder to the cute little animals.

They do some messed up things to those poor baby chicks.

But again, if you're curious,

you can go down that rabbit hole yourself.

Sorry, I'm not touching that one here.

Even though I was doing well and not having a hard time eating within the lifestyle,

it wasn't all sunshine and rainbows.

There were still bad habits in my head,

and unfortunately there's a lot of people that use the community to spread their own unhealthy obsessive brain worms around food,

which in my opinion can set a lot of people back in their progress and close people's minds to the concept entirely.

Everyone knows eating clean and healthy is a good thing to do,

no one's arguing that, But it's definitely not achievable for the majority of people,

100% of the time with zero exceptions.

I would encounter people in the community bashing others for the way they ate their meatless diet,

which I believe is overall bad for the greater good of the cause.

The way you eat your vegan or vegetarian diet is fine.

There's no specific requirement for the healthiness.

Eat your junk foods, processed meals.

You're not gonna wither and die on the spot because you ate a little bit of something fun.

As someone who's tried a lot of vegan foods,

I can confidently say there's a lot out there that do not taste good.

I'm sorry, people might not like hearing that one, but it's my truth.

Might as well do what you want to enjoy it.

You're not supposed to suffer.

Put it this way, it's way more realistic to eat non-animal product foods

that you actually like than force yourself to eat the gross bland ones

that are gonna make you hate everything and give it up entirely.

In a similar vein, the vegan community used to be extremely confrontational and judgmental,

which has tarnished the perception of the lifestyle for a lot of people.

And I've always felt like that stuff has set back the movement way more than

if they were more welcoming and understandable and not mean.

There's a bit of irony in the idea of veganism is supposed to be positive

and kind to all animals when they've been very cannibalistic to people around them.

That's my hot take!

I'm sorry!

the past the loud minority of the community has used really rude

and obnoxious ways to try and guilt people into converting into this very beneficial and productive lifestyle.

It's always rubbed me the wrong way and

because of all the stigma I used to be very embarrassed

to tell people I was vegan from fear of the assumption I was

that kind of vegan and justifiably so because people have been rude to me for it.

Early in my vegan journey a group of my friends wanted to go go to Hooters.

Personally, not my first choice, but hey.

Now, I was able to accommodate myself when it was just me eating,

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but going out to restaurants was a bit tricky.

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I checked the Hooters website to see if they had anything I could eat,

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and at the time, it said they had a veggie burger at certain locations.

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Awesome.

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Now I have to make a single phone call, which I hate.

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Hi, thank you for calling Hooters.

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How can I help you?

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Hi, um, I was wondering if you guys, had the veggie burger?

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Uh, no. Oh, thank you.

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Sorry.

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That was the first time I ever called to ask about a dietary restriction.

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And not gonna lie, I wanted to kill myself after it.

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I felt so bad asking at the time.

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But looking back, I don't know what that lady's problem was.

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I know you've had to deal with worse phone calls.

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It's not like I was calling about your hooters.

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Yet here you are getting mad at the veggie burger girl.

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Luckily though, 99% of people have been fine with it.

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And I do think the overall view on vegan and vegetarian diets have steadily been going up.

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When people learn I don't eat meat,

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I can tell they start mentally scoping out to see where I fall on the meatless personality spectrum.

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But then I say my favorite food is french fries and the guard is dropped immediately.

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Another normal part of the vegan experience is the occasional accidents that slip through.

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One late night, I was too locked in,

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and by the time my body registered,

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I was starving and needed to eat that instant.

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I realized I didn't have any food in my house,

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and most of the restaurants nearby were closed.

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In a moment of desperation,

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I ordered the fastest option available, vegan burger from Denny's.

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But of course, DoorDash complications always strike when survival is at stake,

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So I watched helplessly as the delivery time got delayed by 15 minutes,

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30 minutes, 45 minutes.

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It got there an hour and a half late.

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The moment the bag touched my withering hands,

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I was ripping it open and scarfing that burger down like a dying vegan hyena.

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As the food was hitting my stomach and vision was coming back,

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I noticed they got my order wrong.

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I had just scarfed down three-fourths of a normal hamburger.

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The only way I can describe that feeling is a simple...

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Welp.

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And yes, my stomach was cramping all night.

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I learned a valuable lesson that day.

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Never lock in that hard.

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Once Jacob and I were in Texas sitting down at a Mexican restaurant,

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I was prepared to struggle with options because,

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you know, Texas, but saw they actually had veggie tacos on the menu.

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Wow.

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Maybe the world has progressed with providing meatless options more than I thought.

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Even Texas is...

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Alright, so turns out veggie tacos in Texas can translate to the only thing on the menu that has vegetables.

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I partially blame myself for that one.

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Texas was the one that tricked me,

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but I did have the context clues.

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Another time I was at a karaoke party with a big group of friends

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and there was a various assortment of food platters.

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The lights were low and flashing different colors,

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so it was hard to see which foods were what.

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A friend and I hovered over one of the platters and I pointed to one section asking if it was fried pickles.

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They grabbed one, went, yeah I think so,

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and popped it in their mouth.

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As a pickle lover, I was like,

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hell yeah, and also popped one into my mouth.

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And as soon as it hit my taste buds,

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I instantly registered it was a chicken nugget.

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The friend, knowing I don't eat meat,

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stood there like a deer in headlights,

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digesting the fact they failed to warn me their initial assumption was incorrect,

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led me astray, and kind of indirectly fed me chicken.

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Everyone in my life has been very understanding and chill with knowing I don't eat meat,

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but there's still strangers that look from the outside and assume the worst because of it.

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In James's seven-day vegan challenge solves all your problems video,

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he nominated me to do the challenge too,

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but at the very end revealed the joke was I'm already vegan.

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So to anyone who didn't catch that,

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uh, welcome in on the joke almost a decade later.

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Anyway, that was the first time the internet learned I was vegan,

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so obviously there were gonna be some obnoxious reactions to it,

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even though I was the same person I was before they knew that fact.

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I still remember this one comment from what I assume was a child that said,

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I just learned Jaden is vegan and I've lost all respect for her.

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Literally, how does that fact even affect you, child?

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I wasn't even the one who said it.

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I cannot believe he got under my skin with that one.

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Not because it's mean?

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It just doesn't make any sense.

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Just so confidently stupid.

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This was like nine years ago,

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so I assume he's an adult with more sensible worldviews now,

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but I still hope he's doing bad.

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Grudges aside, I kept being vegan for many, many years.

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The lifestyle was really easy when I was eating on my own.

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The hardest part was honestly how it affected my social life.

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Whenever I wanted to go to a restaurant,

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I'd have to check the website ahead of time to see if I could eat anything.

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My friends were always having to accommodate me.

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No one ever said they minded,

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but it still didn't feel great on my end,

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even being a little bit of a burden.

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You don't really realize how big food is in culture

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and socializing until your diet doesn't line up with the world around you.

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On the flip side, I never thought meeting someone

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that has the same food lifestyle as you could be such a huge bonding experience.

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Whenever I meet a fellow non-meat eater,

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I instantly feel more connected to them just based on that.

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Such a warm feeling.

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Just two veggie eaters in this big meaty world.

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Anyway, yeah, after so many years,

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I'd be lying if I didn't say being vegan started weighing a bit too heavy for me.

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I started feeling the friction and restraints more than I preferred.

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So after a lot of difficult mental back and forths,

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I begrudgingly decided to get a little bit flexible.

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I say begrudgingly

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because it felt like I was turning my back on the morals I was living by for eight whole years,

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but I figured if I was slowly struggling more and more under the vegan lifestyle,

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it would ultimately be better to just modify it than grow to hate it and give up on the whole thing entirely.

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I decided to let some dairy

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and eggs back into my diet for the versatility of being able to have more options in restaurants

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and the few times I might want the flexibility at home.

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It took some adjusting because believe it or not,

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your body will not be used to the taste

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and texture of food you haven't eaten in a very extended amount of time,

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but it got easier and I instantly was so much happier with the heightened ceiling.

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Also, I very much expected to have turned lactose intolerant after not consuming dairy for so long.

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Super lucky to have gotten away with that one, no problem.

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Really counting my blessings there.

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A lot of people tell me that they wish they could be vegetarian or vegan,

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but they can't because they just like chicken too much

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or burgers or whatever specific single food they don't want to give up.

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And to that, I always say,

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you can just keep eating those things while avoiding the easier stuff.

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You really don't need to box yourself into the lifestyle all for the pure label.

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Any little changes make a bigger difference than you give it credit for.

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And if you can cut out even a single animal product in your life, that's huge.

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Or even just have it as a treat every once in a while.

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Again, I feel like the all

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or nothing mentality with going meatless is the main thing

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that makes people too intimidated to try

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because being able to make little tweaks to your diet is

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so much more sustainable for long-time commitment than assuming you're suddenly gonna morph into a completely different person overnight.

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It's not like you have to decide what you're not gonna eat from a single point

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and never change it until you die.

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You can add things back in or even go the other way

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and try cutting more things out if you feel good about the first adjustment.

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Some people even just go meatless for one day a week or month or year.

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I think if I were to humbly request you take anything from this video,

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it would be to try and be a bit more conscious about food.

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I don't want you to try and stop eating meat anymore if you don't want to.

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Maybe just try and be a bit more cognizant and appreciative of what it is and where it came from.

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I'll give you an example.

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Say you buy some chicken nuggets,

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change your mind, and decide you want to throw it away.

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It's kind of like you just paid to kill a chicken for no reason.

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It would go a long way to save it for later or give them to a friend.

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I don't want to say that in like an accusatory way,

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but that mentality has changed the way I look at food and my impact.

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Coming from me, it's okay to buy and eat meat.

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I just want people to value it more.

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I felt a lot of moral guilt when I started buying eggs again,

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but I've gone out of my way to make sure I always buy pasture-raised eggs

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that came from a farm that makes sure the chickens get to live normal and happy chicken lives.

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Cage-free or free-range don't really mean anything.

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It's the food industry lying about not being mean to chickens.

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So if you have a little bit more resources to transition to other kinder options like that,

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it's always very beneficial.

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They unfortunately tend to be more expensive though,

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so I know it's not a viable choice for everyone, which is understandable.

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I hope that doesn't come off as preachy.

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Oh god, who put this soapbox under my feet?

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I'm trying to find a middle ground of talking about this stuff in an open

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and non-pushy way while also making sure I can get my thoughts out there.

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There's just a lot of shady evil practices in the food and meat industry,

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so I want to do my best to inform people who do care,

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because at the end of the day,

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you do vote with your money.

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I'm happy and comfortable being vegetarian.

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But writing this video made me realize maybe I'm finding it a bit hard to be outwardly proud of it.

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I'm proud of the choices I'm making and the small yet important impacts that come from the lifestyle.

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But on the other hand,

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I've seen and experienced enough harsh opinions from both meat

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and non-meat eaters to understand the whole idea of consuming less animal products still has a ways to go.

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I stand by the idea that I do think the stigma has been becoming more positive

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and people have chilled out on both sides over the past few years,

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but I hope the mentality of it all can continue to be pushed in a more healthy

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and overall productive direction because at the end of the day,

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it really does benefit us,

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the planet, and animals very much.

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It might not seem like it when you reach for the dairy-less milk

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or the impossible meat in the grocery store or even choose the vegetarian option in a restaurant every once in a while.

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But it really does.

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Thank you for watching.

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I haven't been able to announce it in a video yet,

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but we released a new Pet Frenzy merch bundle.

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We've got a Tostada beanie,

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tofu plush jacket, similar to the Ari one,

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cute long-sleeve shirt of all the creatures.

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I know it's summer, I'm sorry.

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A fun sticker set and new bandanas to put on the Ari,

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tofu, and Tostada plushes or I guess whatever plush you would want it on.

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I hope you give it a look.

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I think it all came out super cute.

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And yeah, thank you again for watching.

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And this is bye bye for now.

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Pratique du Shadowing: How I ended up Vegetarian. - Apprendre l'anglais à l'oral avec YouTube

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Pratique du Shadowing: How I ended up Vegetarian. - Apprendre l'anglais à l'oral avec YouTube

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