Born into the Garden of Eating
It’s Meatless Monday again! Today we have blog posse member, Jolia Sidona Allen, sharing her life-long journey as a vegetarian with us. PETA states in their Vegetarianism and the Environment Factsheet that “According to scientists at the Smithsonian Institution, seven football fields’ worth of land is bulldozed every minute to create more room for farmed animals and the crops that feed them.” By going meatless on Mondays you are helping to lessen jaw-dropping statistics like this!
Hello! I’m Jolia, life-long vegetarian, long-time vegan, and Associate Editor and Web Editor of Vegetarian Times magazine, a.k.a. “Vegetarian Times Foodie Fatale.”
When I tell people about my job—a dream job come true for someone who loves legumes as much as she loves language—I usually get the same question: “Are you a vegetarian?” I often respond with a simple “Yes,” but the next question is usually “How long have you been a vegetarian?” And so, time and time again, I find myself divulging the longer, more engaging explanation, a story that goes all the way back to the womb.
Here it goes: I was born and raised as a vegetarian. In other words, I have never eaten a single morsel of any sentient being. From my tiny, pinky toenail to the tip of my nose, from my wisdom teeth to my belly button, every cell in my body has been replicated a billion, billion times over from solely vegetarian sources. My parents become vegetarians before I was born and are healthy, happy vegans today. While I could have strayed from my vegetarian path at any point, I have never been so inclined. My life-long vegetarianism is a gift for which I have always been grateful, a gift that has, in recent years, grown to define not only my diet, but also my career path.
Are you surprised to meet a first-generation vegetarian? People usually are. I can’t see your faces, but when people learn this about me their eyes light up and become kaleidoscopes of curiosity. I’m not sure why it’s so shocking—in India, vegetarianism dates back thousands of years. But in America, even in the veg-friendly city of Los Angeles where I live, meeting a first-generation vegetarian is as about as rare as witnessing a lunar eclipse or the arrival of locusts.
“You’ve never even had a hamburger?” I often hear. Nope. I’ve never had a hamburger, or a hot dog, or a Philly cheese steak, and nor have I ever really wanted to. In my mind, animals are not food. It’s as plain and simple as not wanting to eat your stapler or your cat.
Once, when I was an English professor, I casually divulged my veganism as a side note during a class discussion about literature. To my surprise, my students’ hands went up like a wave at a homecoming game, and they bombarded me with questions. Their thirst for this topic far surpassed their interest in the correct way to use a semi-colon or for the details of Thoreau’s life at Walden Pond. One student even stayed after class to confess his addiction to Coco-Cola; he was hungry, starving even, for knowledge that would help him transform his relationship with food.
Why do I harp on this element of curiosity? Because no matter how successful I am vegifying my own world and spreading the word on vegetarianism, I am constantly reminded that vegetarianism is not yet the norm in America. Raising veg children in a non-veg world, like anything else worth doing, isn’t easy. It’s a brave journey like that of the salmons’ struggle to swim upstream against the current. Most school cafeterias still don’t serve veggie burgers, most overnight camps don’t provide vegan marshmallows around the campfire, and most parents still serve hot dogs at birthday parties.
But the world is changing. It is getting easier and easier to maintain a plant-based diet. In fact, it’s hipper than ever to go veg! As for first-generation vegetarians, there are more and more of us born everyday. Vegetarian resources are plentiful. I highly recommend Disease-Proof Your Child: Feeding Kids Right by Joel Fuhrman, M.D. And, right now on Vegetarian Times Editors’ Blog, VT’s Market Editor, Gabrielle Harradine, a.k.a. “The Preg Veg” is blogging about her healthy, green, and vegetarian pregnancy.
So no matter where you are on your personal food journey, whether you are an omnivore, a flexitarian, a pescatarian, a vegetarian, a vegan, a raw or even a nude foodist, whether you are a parent or not—I hope you will be inspired to give yourself and a child in your life a taste of vegetarianism, whether it’s for every meal or even just one meal. I am living proof that’s it’s okay to live an entire life without eating a single hamburger. In fact, it’s downright delicious. To repeat Mahatma Gandhi’s mantra, an adage you must have heard as many times as I have, but one that never loses its profound meaning: You must be the change you wish to see in the world.
If you could give a child a gift—the best gift in the universe—what would it be? A bicycle? An i-pod? A violin? There is only one gift that I can think of that is priceless: health. While there are no certainties in this world, I believe that our forks are the best weapon we have to protect our own health and the health of our planet.
- Posted by Jolia on July 27, 2009 at 7:00 am
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Tagged as: children, diet, vegan, vegetarian
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Beautiful, beautiful post! My husband and I are changing our lives now so that our children can be born into a household with good, plant-based, whole food eating habits.
Thank you for sharing this!
Thanks for broadening my internet horizons and bringing me to this blog. You’re a joy to read and I learned SO MUCH it’s embarrassing to admit we’ve been working together over a year!
Keep up the good work!
MM
I am loving this article and how appropriate for meatless monday. I think this article needs to go into every baby show gift I give along with the book. Brava… It would be a great joy to be able to say that I had never touched meat. What a healthy body and mind we would all have. To never have had to detox off the food that sustains you. You parents should get a medal. I cannot wait until it is the norm here in the U.S. but people are getting the message. As medical miracles slowly run out for what ails us we turn back to what fuels us and in doing so find the key to health and a clear mind. Thank you for the beautiful article. Long Live meatless monday. Callie
Meatless Monday could not be a more magnificent way to start the week!
Meatless Monday could not be a more magnificent way to start the week.
Awesome, beautiful post! I love this! I am a vegan, I wish I could say I have been one from the womb, but I can not. I hope to raise my children vegan or vegetarian. This post was wonderful, thanks for sharing!
Such beautiful thoughts. Lovely post. Never thought being Vagan could actually be so dear to so many. Good going
A fabulous post! I have a 14 month old son that I plan to raise as a vegetarian and often get much (not wanted) commentary from people… it sometimes makes me even question myself! but i’m happy to read your story and be reassured i’m doing the right thing, for myself, my son, my family! Many Thanks!
Thanks for all your comments…if you have any questions, ask away!
I am one of those vegetarians that never thought about people being born vegetarian. How interesting! I love all the questions that I get with young people about vegetarianism. I had my niece and nephew over recently and made them dinner. They’d never had chickpeas, chard or kale. I felt so lucky to be able to introduce them to such amazing foods. I love this post!
Thanks Jolia for your interesting article. I have been a raw vegan for quite some time now and currently pregnant with my first child. For most, my lifestyle is very strange and hard to understand but Ive never felt healthier in all my life. Now I can’t help but wonder how I’m going to deal with the family when they try to feed my child ice cream or hot dogs. Birthday parties is something we’ve already had to deal with a few months ago with my husband’s daughter. I was appaled to see the food they served the children. It makes one wonder how they actually grow these days with that kind of junk food.
Hi, here are some great quotes on vegetarianism by some great personalities like George Bernard Shaw, Leo Tolstoy, Albert Einstein, etc.
thank you for such a wonderful post! I hope if I have kids one day that I’ll have a partner who doesn’t pressure me to feel the kids meat. It’s hard enough having parents and extended family who are convinced I’m “suffering” from “poor nutrition”. I admire your strength to stand up for the right thing in a world that would rather blindly follow tradition than consider what they’re doing. THANK YOU.