Our Vegan Journey (so far)

Hey, we are back with a new blog post. It has been a while and since our podcast is our main hobby now, we kind left out the blog a little bit. But we will try to deliver you more content in the coming months. We are vegan now a little over two years (starting in May of 2018) and it has been an interesting journey. In the blog post “Why we are Vegan” we explained how we ended up with this lifestyle.

Why we are vegan – a quick Reminder

But just to remind you again, we started to adopt a plant-based diet because of my – Wolfgang’s – PTSD and how his stressful life became a problem in terms of his gut-health and digestion. Furthermore, because of his accident and studying, he developed IBS – irritable bowel syndrome – and had to change his diet. And of course, also his lifestyle. Since we both already ate 90% vegetarian and milk products were almost completely cut out of our diets, it was the logical choice to try a plant-based diet. Talking to other people about it, reading and learning about a plant-based diet helped us, to see the many positive aspects of it. We also have a blog post on that matter.

And now we are here. Over two years of being vegan. Based on the Vegan Calculator Website we each saved over 3 million liters (over 800.000 gallons) of water, over 6,643 kg of CO2 ( over 14,600 lbs) and over 730 animal lives. Those numbers are not only a massive reason why we are vegan, but also motivate us to not only keep going with our choice but also openly talk about it with people who are interested. We never want to force anything upon anyone, and we are aware that everyone has a choice and is entitled to live the way he/she/they wants to. But by simply talking to people, trying to let them see a different side of things, questions certain behaviors or choices, already made a huge difference.

Some facts

Austria ranks third in the EU for meat consumption and 15th in the world. 5.9 tons of meat are eaten by an average Austrian in his /her/their life. A number that you cannot even imagine. 65 kg (143 lbs) of meat is eaten by an Austrian every year. That is five servings a week, though three servings per week are recommended as a maximum. American men on average eat 2kg (4.8 ounces) of meat per day and women eat 1,4 kg (3.13 ounces) of meat per day. But simply refraining from meat is not possible… or is it? It is part of our society, part of our tradition, right? You cannot throw it overboard. It was once acceptable to keep slaves, to torture or to stone people. Eating meat has nothing to do with tradition or our origins. We are programmed to eat meat. We do not question it. Everyone knows the cruel truth, and everyone knows that meat consumption is a serious problem for the climate. But to deal with the truth, to face facts and to seriously ask ourselves, if we make a big mistake here as humanity, can be hard.

It’s not easy to be vegan

A big part of being vegan is explaining again and again to other people that we get all the important nutrients, that we are not malnourished, that we feel great and that there is more to eat than just vegetables or fruits. We have been eating meat for most of our lives. We did not just make the switch from today to tomorrow. But the more we questioned certain decisions and the more we read about the topic, the more we knew that going vegan is the only choice for us to not support a system that literally makes money from exploiting and killing innocent beings. We think that is also the hardest truth to learn. We talked about milk and other topics and you also know how most animals get killed. That those animals are smart, they have feelings and they totally know what’s going to happen to them once they get to the slaughterhouse is proven. But nobody wants to think about that. Especially not when we are buying meat or ordering a steak at the restaurant.

Being vegan and eating plant-based, opens your eyes to those cruel and “normal” ways of producing unnecessary food and that is hard. It is hard sitting at a table with meat eaters and seeing them consuming food, that was once part of a living, feeling and breathing animal. No, we are not shaming people for their choices. We are not there to convince them to stop eating meat. But it’s hard being more aware of those things and seeing people ignoring it in every way possible.

We are still learning

We are now vegan for over two years and a lot has changed. We are going towards an eco-friendly lifestyle, not buying fast-fashion clothes anymore, being more aware of what brands to give our money to and just overall spreading more awareness, for example with this blog. Ultimately life is a journey and we want to leave this earth in a better place and we can see and feel our efforts every day. We are feeling better, we never feel super full and tired after eating, we eat way healthier than we ever did. Snacking became mostly healthy as well. Being more aware of what we buy (plastic, reusable, bio-degradable, overall necessary?), how often we use the car, fly and everything else in terms of our lifestyle, made us feel better and more conscious and also responsible.

As always, we hope you liked this post and please feel free to ask questions or comment down below.

Please share with your friends and family and make sure to tag us on Instagram @sproutedconsciousness.

Leave a Reply