What Madelyn’s Saying…

Dear Colleen,

Admittedly, it might be a bit premature to be writing to you, as I’m still transitioning into veganism, but I just felt too grateful to you to wait. You really are the wake up call I so desperately needed to wake me up from my lack of awareness.

Now seventeen, I can still remember when I began removing animals from my diet, one species at a time. I started with pigs when I was about eight because they seemed too intelligent to be reduced to food. I gradually stopped eating cows and other animals, to the point where I would only eat meat when I felt forced to. I felt too guilty to refuse my mom’s home-cooked meals, continuously justifying my consumption of chicken and fish by saying that my family’s feelings were more important than those of the animals on my plate, still ignorant of the true suffering it took for those animals to reach the table.

I remember being asked if I was a vegetarian at school, and vehemently replying no, not only because it wasn’t true, but because I felt afraid of sounding obnoxious or contentious or holier-than thou. I was blinded by the fallacy that eating animals is a neutral position. I was so eager to avoid confrontation that I ignored the nagging guilt which naturally drove my fork away from flesh.

This summer I read Jonathan Safran Foer’s Eating Animals, which opened my eyes to the real cruelty of factory farms and slaughterhouses, and the lies that animals-based food industries feed us every day. I remember my mostly salad-filled vacation in Florida and the last couple of shrimp I ate before finishing the book. I am happy to say those will be the last animals I will ever consciously consume.

But, as you say, I must have still been taking a light nap, because I kept snacking on yogurt and baking with eggs until I found your podcast. I was actually looking for an only-slightly interesting podcast to put on my iPod as I fell asleep, having exhausted some other soft-speaking members of the podcast community. But, snuggled in bed with your voice in my ears, I literally became awakened and could not fall asleep for hours, becoming inexplicably entranced and listening to three long podcasts in succession. It was honestly quite frustrating! I became hooked on your practical approach, your uncompromising morals, and your calm sensibility and logic. Living in the foothills of North Carolina, I have never known a completely vegan person, so your podcast really does give me comfort (as does Foer’s nine-year-old vegan narrator in Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close).

Still at home in a family of omnivores, I’m struggling to avoid animals products (and alarmed at how pervasive they are in so many common items), but the depth of suffering to which you have opened my eyes constantly strengthens my resolve to steer away from these foods. No matter how persuasively I try to encourage my parents and sisters away from animals and their secretions, vegetarian views continue to seem “so extreme” to them. Even though my mom comments on how she can’t wait until I give this “fad” up, I know I won’t stop trying to show them the truth.

Thanks for making veganism something I can finally understand with clarity, for showing me that this lifestyle is way more practical and beneficial than I ever imagined, and for making me feel as though I can make a difference every day. Thanks for waking me up (through keeping me awake!) and revealing just how superfluous and damaging animal cruelty really is. And thanks for making me so very excited to live and speak a vegan truth as I go off to college, where an urban, more open environment will hopefully allow me to more fully embrace a cruelty-free, plant-based diet and lifestyle. You’re an amazing inspiration, and I can only guess how many lives, human and non-human, you’ve saved and bettered through your constantly enlightening words. I most definitely plan to support your podcast once I’m able to do so!

Thanks for everything – you honestly, sincerely, genuinely have changed my life.

Madelyn