How to be a Vegan Without Being a Dickhead
What I've Learnt in Three Years as a Vegan
By the time you finish reading this blog, you will be a vegan…
I’m kidding.
I am not writing this blog in an attempt to get people to consider going vegan. You’ll understand why later.
I don’t know exactly when I went vegan. I know it was in October 2019. So every year, in October, I pick a day and decide that’s when my vegan anniversary is, or veganiversary as the cool guys say is. So this year, fuck it, it’s today.
So what better time than now to share what I’ve learned, how I came to certain decisions and some of my other experiences over the past… five years or more, maybe, as a vegetarian and three years as a vegan, and how I believe I’ve managed to do so without fitting the stereotypical mold of a whiny, little, protein deficient bitch.
The Beginning
I grew up in the, most, typical middle-class Australian household you could think of. Footy in fuckin’ winter, cricket in fuckin’ summer… mate! I loved it and still do. I’m a self-confessed bogan and I am all a-fuckin’-bout it.
I grew up on a staple diet of meat and two… three, veg… Most nights, we kids would have thins sausages from Woolworths. Mum and Dad would have chops. They told us at the time that we didn’t like chops! I think it was actually because they were more expensive and they didn’t want to waste money on buying “fancy” shit for us runts. I remember Dad telling me all sorts of bullshit. You can’t have chops because they have bones in them, you can have them when you’re older. Yada yada. I remember when I was first allowed to start having some of the “fancy” shit. Chops, mid-range steaks, and sometimes even lambs fry. When I was finally allowed to eat this stuff I felt like a fuckin’ man. It’s like That level of meat was put on a pedestal. Like dad had finally let me into the club. Back then, it was probably the equivalent of getting your pen license in school. You know when you can finally be trusted to not fuck up too much on your school work so you now get to use an instrument that can’t be so easily erased? Wild how something so fucking basic as an adult made me feel like I had chest hair when I was 9. Eat shit you hopeless fucks, I get to use a Bic Ball Point and you losers are stuck on the graphite HB pencil. I felt the same when dad finally let me eat some of the “fancy shit”. I joined an exclusive club. A club of learned scholars who could be trusted to… eat a fuckin’ lamb chop.
I remember every night the meat made up the majority of the meal. I think a lot of us would’ve grown up the same way. I reckon 2/3’s of the plate would have been meat, then a little pile of carrots, zucchini, and some mash. Dad always chucked in some form of carb, because you know, a balance was important. So typically we might have 300g of meat, 50g of carrot, the same of zucchini, and maybe 100g of satay rice out of a packet, potato bake, or microwave packet pasta. Whatever. I wasn’t complaining, I loved it. Except for fucking zucchini. We ALL hated zucchini, except dad, so we all ate zucchini. Ironically, I fuckin’ love zucchini now and I grow a heap of it.
I’m not being ungrateful. We had a warm dinner every night. Some weekends we would get takeaway. Some nights dad would cook a roast. He cooks them in oven bags. Then uses meat juice from the bag to make gravy with vegemite and flour. If you’ve never had meat bag juice vegemite gravy, fuckin’ try. Unless you’re vegan, in which case… my brother. But it’s fuckin’ phenomenal gravy. Mum just doesn’t like gravy. I can’t understand why, but she doesn’t. I’d fuckin’ drink the shit. It’s the best, ever. I used to laugh and still do. Dad would make a roast and his famous meat bag juice vegemite gravy, serve it all up with roast carrot, pumpkin, and potatoes, and sit at the table really fuckin’ proud of himself. Mum would reach into the middle of the table, grab the tomato sauce, and squirt it all over the roast dad had been preparing for the last four hours. He’s been married to her for 800 fuckin’ years and he still gets the shits to this day whenever she does it. I don’t think he ever understood Einstein’s definition of insanity.
My parents grew up eating like this. I grew up eating like this. I was staking this into my adult life too. I fuckin’ loved meat. It’s how I thought we were supposed to eat. Heaps of fuckin’ meat. Good for ya, make ya strong and shit. We have to eat a fuck tonne of meat, a little bit of shit that grows outta the ground or on trees, you’ll live forever. I especially loved the tail of Woolworth’s cooked chook. I think some people call it the Parson’s Nose. It’s the chook’s ass, and it’s fuckin’ delicious. Try it, unless you’re vegan, in which case… my brother.
Vegetarian
five or six years ago I decided, for the third time, I was sick of being a fat piece of shit. I decided it was time to lose weight again. My then-partner had been hounding me to try F45 with her. I had all the excuses not to join. I was too busy, I worked too many hours, my job was too physically demanding, it was too expensive, I had ‘em all.
I think ultimately, I didn’t want to accept how out of shape I had become. I was in denial. I always thought that even though I was bigger than I used to be, I always maintained a reasonable level of fitness because I had a physically demanding job and used to be fit… once.
When my partner said she got a discounted membership for signing up in their first month and signing up together at F45 Corrimal, I had completely run out of excuses. I remember the first time I reluctantly turned up. I had no idea what the fuck was going on. I would tuck my shirt in because some exercises would cause my shirt to slide up and expose my guts.
Like a lot of F45s, this one was also owned by a former professional footballer. Dale Fritz played 278 first-grade games of Rugby League across the ARL and English Super League and is one of The Castleford Tigers’ favorite sons. Dale’s brother Darren played 152 first-grade games and three State of Origin matches for Queensland. More impressively though, arguably, was his mullet.
Dale Fritz was the fittest, strongest 46-year-old I had ever seen. He was, and I assume still is, a fuckin’ animal. More importantly, Dale, and his wife Rhennelle, are fucking legends. As were the trainers there, Kate, Jimmy, Kane, Kenny, and Britt.
I remember being scared to admit that I liked it. Like it was uncool to like something because it was popular. I was being a dickhead. It’s popular because it’s good and it worked. Dale and the rest of the guys there created such a friendly, communal environment. For someone so self-conscious and anxious, it didn’t take long for me to feel comfortable there. I loved it. I trained there until I left and relocated away from Wollongong.
Anyway, this is about what I eat, not me kissing the ass of some old mates who I think are legends.
Weirdly, I became addicted to F45. When I could, I would do two classes a day and the Saturday morning class which goes for an hour. I lost a stack of weight. I was on a roll. As with all weight loss campaigns though, we hit plateaus. I hot one and thought nothing of it initially. I had changed nothing. Training lots, and eating ok, but I had just sort of stopped losing weight and I had more I could lose.
I can honestly say that if I knew what I know now, I don’t think I would have taken this next step. My partner was a vegetarian. My best mate was a vegan I was out of ideas. Instead of trying to count calories, drink less, or eat a little bit less shit, I decided I would try a month with no meat. I figured I had to try something different if I wanted something to change.
Giving up meat did not help me lose any more weight. I want to make that very clear. If you want to lose weight, you need to burn more calories than you eat, consistently. Day after day. It’s that simple. Giving up meat did provide some benefits though. I felt better. I felt lighter. I had more energy. I slept better. Most importantly, I recovered quickly. After a month I wasn’t missing meat at all, I felt too good to miss it and I fuckin’ loved meat. I was eating cooked meat for lunch and dinner beforehand. But I felt too good, so I thought fuck it, I’ll just not eat meat for as long as I can. That was five or six years ago.
Going Full Hectic Level 5 vegan
I’d watched all the documentaries about animal cruelty and factory farming. Forks Over Knives, Earthlings, Blackfish, and whatever else. I recommend everyone watches them. Not because I think everyone will go vegan from watching them, but I think we should all have a better idea of where our food comes from. The cows you see frolicking in lush green paddocks on the side of the motorway are not sold in big-chain supermarkets. Sorry, but that’s just… the truth. Most of Australia’s best, free-range meat is sent straight over to Asia. They don’t have the farmland we have, so they’ll pay a premium for free-range, high-quality meat. Look, these documentaries are biased, one-sided, and usually funded by someone from a vegan background or by someone who stands to profit from them. I am not naive to that. A lot of them compile the worst footage they can find over several decades and jam it into 90 minutes of the film. It doesn’t make them any less fucked up, but it’s important to look at these things objectively. I don’t think watching them will turn anyone vegan who doesn’t want to be vegan. They’re not magic like that. I remember watching Cowspiracy a few days after Christmas one year. I was eating Christmas ham at the time. I didn’t stop. I’m trying to sound cool, or tough. Just being honest. I do think though, if you can sit through one of them and not think “ah fuck that shit is kinda fucked up”, you simply do not have a soul.
I remember I had been thinking for some time that I really should try to go vegan but I was terrified. I fucking loved chocolate, ice cream, dutch smoked cheese, and flavored milk. But I did feel a desire building inside me to give veganism a try
A little over three years ago, my partner and I were house-sitting and had not had much to do. We were talking about these documentaries. I asked her if she had seen them. So we chucked on one. I’d also developed a habit of eating an entire block of chocolate every single night. It might’ve been a week later, I was on the treadmill at the gym of the building I was house-sitting an apartment in. I was thinking about the documentary we watched. I started to think maybe I’m taking the piss with this vegetarian shit. I was raised to do things properly and to their fullness. I was also thinking that eating an entire family block of chocolate each night was probably a bad habit too. I wasn’t happy with this habit but I felt powerless to do anything about it. So, in true Sam fashion, I just decided to go vegan then and there, on the treadmill. I got back to the apartment, and told my partner, “sorry, but I’m not eating dairy anymore”. She was sweet with it and probably saw it coming more than I did.
Probably a year earlier, I was medicated for ADHD with dextroamphetamine. Dex is a Central Nervous System Stimulant. I was told when I was medicated with them that I would have to keep an eye on my blood pressure. If I ever got high blood pressure I wouldn’t be able to take the dex anymore. It would be too dangerous. Every adult male on my dad’s side of the family has high blood pressure. If I had to stop taking my medication cold turkey, I would risk falling into a deep depression. This is because dex regulates serotonin, norepinephrine, and dopamine, the chemicals that make us feel good. When you use medication to force your body to do something, it loses its ability to do it it’s self. Kind of like when a bodybuilder uses steroids. their buts shrink because they don’t have to do anything anymore. When you stop using the medication, your body has to relearn how to perform this function again. It can take up to two years for my brain to start regulating these chemicals again on its own. So, yeah, I need to keep my blood pressure down. I have enough issues already.
Excess consumption of meat, particularly red meat, can cause high blood pressure. But I was already not eating red meat. Dairy is full of saturated fats. Saturated fats can increase your likelihood of high cholesterol. High cholesterol can make high blood pressure worse.
So after watching another documentary, having a chocolate-eating habit I wanted to break, and wanting to avoid high blood pressure I had more reason and motivation to go vegan than ever. So that’s how and why that happened.
I felt similar improvements physically to when I first gave up meat. More energy, am lighter on my feet, sleep better, and am less tired after a meal. For me, it’s just all around better.
That was exactly, roughly three years ago, and I’ve been vegan since. I don’t regret a thing.
Ethics
Here’s the section that might piss people off, but whatever. This is my blog, this is what I think, so I’m going to put it here.
I have to admit that a lot of my decision-making around being vegetarian and then vegan was not ethically based. There’s a community of vegans, particularly online, who hate people who are “vegan for the health”. This is the Vegan is a lifestyle, not a diet crowd. I get it. I agree with them, somewhat. However, I kind of look at it like this. Say you’re a massive soccer fan. You love to play soccer with your soccer team. If there was another group of people nearby who also loved to play soccer, but were slightly different from you in terms of their views on why they play soccer is it better to yell and scream at them because they like soccer for different reasons than you, or is it better to be grateful that they also enjoy soccer and now you get the joy of having a team to play soccer against? If you yell and scream at them to the unlikely point where they all come and join your soccer team, who the fuck are you going to play against? if that doesn’t make sense, if you are a vegan and want other people to be vegan too, don’t question their why. It’s not your business. Just be grateful and supportive that they too are vegan. How they came to be vegan is irrelevant, just be grateful that they are. Don’t be a dick. Anyway, the longer I go without animal products, the more and more I agree with the ethical arguments. I don’t use animal products. I don’t have to. I can find everything I need in a cruelty-free form. Clothes, body wash, linen, whatever.
This will make people rage, but no one is completely vegan. When harvesters harvest crops, they kill mice and other rodents. When trucks deliver fruit and veg, they drive through environments that were taken over by the government to build the road, displacing the animals of the area. It’s a deep, dark, wormhole that I can not be fucked to go into here, but you get the point. Every single vegan in the world has benefited in some way from the sacrifice of an animal. Hoooooooowever! Vegans are doing more to minimise the impact they have on animals.
I don’t really care about what other people think about my veganism. It’s not my business. No one follows me around everywhere I go to know exactly what I do and don’t do, so they’re not truly qualified to comment. I just try to do everything I can to minimise the impact I have on the animals of the world. I don’t need animal products. So I just don’t use them.
I don’t think any vegan on the planet is perfect. In the same way, no human on the planet is perfect in anything they do. Except for Andrew Johns. The facts are, mass farming of animals is bad for the environment. The environment is fucked. You don’t go from the fastest burning bushfire ever recorded after 10 years of drought into three straight summers of La Nina. Parts of Australia have had three one-in-a-hundred years floods in 12 months. Climate change deniers can say what they want, but this shit is not normal. It’s getting worse and it’s genuinely starting to affect every bodies life. This takes me to my next topic…
How to be a Vegan Without Being a Dickhead
Jobs
Do I wish the entire world was vegan? Yes. Do I think everyone can go vegan tomorrow? no. I struggle to see the entire world being vegan while ever animals exist. The meat industry alone employs over five million people worldwide. around 240 million people globally are employed directly or indirectly in the dairy industry. Dig around and find your own figures if you want to. But that won’t change the point I am making here. As much as I would love for no animal to ever suffer ever again for the sake of a human, I know it’s just not possible. A lot of these people who work these jobs don’t do it because they’re passionate about it. I imagine a lot of them hate their work. They work in these industries because they have to. They have kids, partners, and grandkids. If you banned the meat and dairy industries tomorrow, you harm the 240 million people who work in the industry and potentially their family members. I think it’s fair to say 500 million people would be instantly hampered but it. about 1 in every 16 people. Think of the 16 people closest to you, could you choose one of them to not only lose their job but have their entire industry shut down making it difficult for them to find alternate employment? I couldn’t.
This doesn’t mean I support these industries. It doesn’t mean I don’t wish they didn’t exist. What it means is I have a realistic grasp of how such drastic, knee-jerk reactions can have an equally negative impact as much as a positive one. In a perfect world, I dream of a time when all these hard-working people could be transitioned into roles in the plant-based food industry. A pipe dream, I know. I’m not stupid. But this is my blog so fuck off. Kidding.
Stop Fucking Demonising People
If a stranger comes running up the street, screaming at you for walking differently to the way they do, do you stop and consider their point, or do you think, what the fuck is wrong with this prick? And keep going about your day? You ignore the fuckin’ weirdo, think they should get off the meth, and keep going about your day.
Vegans who demonise non-vegans for their choices drive me fucking nuts. It doesn’t work. As a vegan, and even a human being, I enjoy having the freedom to make my own decisions free from criticism of others. Look at the middle-class Australian background I come from. I know exactly what it is like to have my choices and decisions ridiculed and questioned. I fucking hate it. I don’t need to justify my decisions to anybody. If I want that freedom, I have to afford it to everyone else.
That’s not to say that I agree with other people’s choices. But I took 30 years to become a vegan. At this point, I have still been a non-vegan eater for 1000% more of my life than I have been vegan. Who the fuck am I to tell someone not to eat animal products when I too have spent roughly 90% of my life eating animal products. Of course, I wish more people would try a vegan lifestyle. I would fucking love that. But we need to be objective here. Look at the facts. I have eaten animal products for a much larger percentage of my life than I haven’t. I won’t even get to 50/50 until I turn 60 in 27 years. It would be hypocritical of me to demonise someone for not making the same choices as me. People need to make these discoveries for themselves. I have always been open to talking about my choices openly when approached respectfully. But I won’t talk about them with someone trying to demonise me for MY OWN choices. It’s give and take. You get treated the way you treat others. Don’t be a cunt.
The thing about demonising is that when you demonise someone, you imply that you and/or your choices/decisions are superior to someone else’s. That is elitism. There is no place for elitism in society. If you want to preach that all beings are created equally, you have to treat all beings equally. Simon Hill has a brilliant, measured podcast about all things plant-based. He has an episode featuring a psychologist called Melanie Joy which is all about how hardcore vegans go the wrong way about trying to convert others to veganism. Click here to check it out.
I think you can’t convert anyone into anything. People need to make these discoveries for themselves. How often do you discover something for yourself that someone suggested you get into ages beforehand? I do it all the time. These blogs are essentially just me journalling. Something every psychologist I have seen for over a decade has recommended I do. Yet it wasn’t until my mate Benny suggested I start one that I truly realised the value of blogging for my mental health. It’s just life. It’s the way humans are. We discover shit when we are ready to. The timing has to be right. It’s the same as an addict who wants to get clean, but just can’t right now, they’re not ready. We have no control over when the time will come.
If you want other people to go vegan, let them discover it for themselves. Tell them you are vegan and stop there. Plant the seed in their head. Let them think about it. When they come back to you with questions, be open, honest, and kind. If you are aggressive, they will have a negative experience. you are essentially shutting the door on ever continuing that conversation with that person ever again. People don’t always make these decisions on a whim. I was thinking about going from vegetarian to vegan for months before I took the plunge. If during that time someone called me an asshole or a cunt for not doing the same thing as them, I would’ve actively avoided that person and/or that topic of conversation with them probably forever.
Just stop for a second and think about how you would feel if you were in their position. Don’t be a cunt. Progress and growth come from a place of positivity. Not negativity and criticism.
Protein, Calcium, and Nutrition
Firstly, #NotADoctor. Nor am I a nutritionist. But I’ll happily talk about my own experience and what I have learned.
I worked with a nutritionist last year for probably six months. He worked with me while I was doing a lot of running. He helped me get my daily staple diet to have enough of each macro and micronutrient for me to be perfectly healthy. Do I use protein powder? yes. Do I use more than you’re average gym bro? Fuck no.
Dairy being a good source of calcium is a bit of a myth. Dairy is full of calcium, but the calcium in dairy has poor bio-availability. What that means is, in the time your body processes dairy foods, it only breaks down enough for you to get about half the calcium out of the food. So you can have 100 grams of calcium in some cheese, but you will only absorb about 50 grams of it. The rest comes out of your asshole. Broccoli has heaps of calcium in it and breaks down a lot quicker in your gut, so you get a much higher percentage of calcium out of broccoli than you do a brick of cheese. Plus you get all the fiber of the broccoli. Did you know that 83% of Australians are not eating enough fiber? Fiber makes you poo. Pooing regularly helps prevent cancers of the digestive tract. Eat ya fuckin’ fruit and veg guys, for the sake of your families. Click here to read for yourself about fiber. I think we should be talking about fiber as much as we do about protein, fats, and carbs. It’s so much more important than most of us realise.
I have a smoothie every morning with 500 million different powders in it. Sadly, none of them are cocaine. I start my day with a smoothie because I struggle to eat in the morning, even though I am hungry. It’s a great way to get a whole bunch of shit into my diet that we all need. I have been seeing the same GP since I was born. I get blood tests done every 12 months just to see where I am at. Not because I am a vegan. Because I am a human being who cares about his health. You should do the same, no matter what you eat.
My blood tests have been perfect since I have been vegan. I haven’t once been deficient in anything. My most recent tests, since getting sober, are the best set of bloods I have ever done, at almost 34 years of age. I haven’t peaked yet, baby!
All of my running PBs have come as a vegan. I have run all these times in the last 12 months. So not even as a vegan who only just stopped eating meat and dairy. I ran these times whilst according to the bullshit BMI scale I was overweight or obese. (never use BMI)
I’ve also never been stronger in my life. for the first time in my life, I’m consistently bench pressing more than I weigh. I know, I’m a fuckin’ hero. If you have any doubts about vegan or plant-based performance go watch The Game Changers.
I’m not saying that I wouldn’t have achieved these things as a non-vegan, but going vegan certainly hasn’t stopped me from improving and I honestly don’t think I would have been as healthy as I am now without being vegan.
I am also the only adult male in my father’s extended family who doesn’t have either High cholesterol, high blood pressure, or both. My brother runs 100-mile trail runs and has high blood pressure. I am the only vegan out of this group. Maybe this means nothing. Maybe I’m just an outlier. But I think it has something to do with it.
You Have to do it For you
I know I have already said it, but I’m not naive enough to think anyone reading this will go vegan because of me. If you read anything I’ve written you should have picked that up by now.
All I hope is that people might consider eating more plants. Do it for yourself. For your health. For your loved ones. Not only do we want to live longer, but we want to live longer in good health. Take notice of your fiber intake. Poo regularly. Don’t give food a chance to sit in your body for too long and rot.
If you’re fuckin’ keen, just try to be a little compassionate about where your stuff comes from too. Buy bathroom products that aren’t tested on animals. Avoid leather where you can. There are thousands of perfectly acceptable alternatives out there. Maybe try a few, or don’t whatever. I just hope I've made people think about it a bit more.
I’ll leave you with this quote from The GOAT.
Cheers wankers.
I was going to put this under the paid subscription section. But I don’t want to, because I wanted more people to read it. My weekly blog on sobriety is and always will be free. But if you want to sign up for everything else I’m going to be doing for fuck all money, feel free. If you wanna subscribe to Sobering Thoughts for free, please do so. Please share this blog if you enjoyed it or feel someone may benefit from it.
Just. Keep. Writing.