The Samburu men then proceeded to skin and chop the goat to make stew. I don’t remember actually watching them do that part, but I do remember looking over at the other goat that was tethered to a tree nearby and feeling sorry for it. I decided I wasn’t going to eat the stew. But as we were passing the bowls to each other, it looked and smelled delicious, and I decided to eat it. But for the first time, I felt guilty about eating another animal. I wondered if the other goat knew what had happened to its companion.

A few days later, we went on safari at nearby Masai Mara. While there, we ate at a restaurant called The Carnivore, and the waiters brought out a large gazelle-looking animal that had been roasted over a pit. As they began to carve it in front of us from head to hoof, I became repulsed by it. And I knew in that moment that I never wanted to eat another animal again.

The next semester I went to Howard University in my hometown of Washington, DC. My mother and I spent much of that semester experimenting with vegetarian recipes we collected from newspapers, magazines, and vegetarian cookbooks. While I was at Howard, I was thrilled to discover that there was a large black vegan and vegetarian community just a few blocks from campus that had opened the first all-vegan cafes and health food stores in the nation’s capital in the early 1980s.

This diverse community included longtime activists from the civil rights and black liberation movements, natural health entrepreneurs, raw foodists, Black Hebrew Israelites, the Ausar Auset Society, Muslims, college students, artists, and many more. And their influence was felt throughout the city at cultural festivals, Kwanzaa celebrations, and social justice rallies, where vegan food was the main fare.

I immersed myself in this community for nearly a year, soaking up their knowledge. I went to lectures, took cooking classes and learned where to shop, how to make it affordable, the politics of food, and much more. By the time I returned to Amherst for my senior year in the fall of 1987, I was a confident vegetarian. I wasn’t ready to let go of cheese, so I wasn’t vegan yet. Unfortunately, the dining hall at Amherst that served vegetarian options included eggs and cow’s milk as ingredients, which I no longer ate, so that was not an option for me.

I had already sent a letter to the dean of students during the summer asking to be taken off of the meal plan so I could use that money to buy my own vegetarian food. But the dean had rejected my request, saying that students were required to be on the meal plan to ensure they were eating adequately and to foster socialization with other students. I decided to visit the dean when I got to campus to press my case further.

As I sat across from his desk, we went back and forth about the meal plan, with neither of us budging on our positions. Finally, I said that if I had to stay on the meal plan, I wanted the cafeteria to make separate vegetarian meals just for me, based on a menu that I provide, using organic ingredients, and separate pots and utensils. And that I wanted to watch them do it so I’d know they were doing it right. I figured he’d reject that idea completely and just take me off the meal plan. But instead, he called my bluff and agreed. He told me to bring him a menu and we’d start the following week.

So the next week, I showed up in the sweltering basement kitchen of the main cafeteria. I sat and watched as an unhappy cook made a tofu and vegetable stir-fry over brown rice on a cooktop in front of me. I tried to make small talk, but he barely spoke to me. When the rice finished cooking, about 45 minutes later, he handed me my plate of food, and I carried it upstairs to eat with my friends. By that time, they had almost finished eating.

Ultimately, being vegan makes me feel free. I know many people think being vegan means feeling restricted and deprived. But in reality, the opposite is true.

For dinner that day, I went back down to the hot kitchen and waited again while the cook made my food. I realized the whole thing was ridiculous and there was no way I could do that for the rest of the year. So I quietly took myself off the meal plan. I used some of the money I had saved from my summer job and money I was making from work-study to buy my own food.

Once a week, I caught the bus to the natural food store in town to buy groceries. Then I cooked my meals in the kitchen of the Charles Drew House where I lived, and carried my plate of food over to the cafeteria to eat with my friends. I did this twice a day for lunch and dinner.

But it gets cold up in Massachusetts, and many days I knew my hot plate of food would get cold by the time I walked to the cafeteria. So I stayed in Drew House and sat and ate in front of the TV. I felt alone without my community of support back home and I didn’t know any other vegetarians or vegans on campus. But I remained committed to my vegetarianism because I knew I was doing it for my health and it was now a part of my lifestyle.

During my senior year, I decided to finally let go of cheese. That decision was purely mind over matter. I had to decide that the momentary pleasure of a piece of cheese in my mouth was not worth the health risks. I knew that cheese was the biggest source of artery-clogging saturated fat in the American diet. And I knew about the cruelty involved in using cows to make cheese. And yet cheese still looked and smelled good to me. So I had to come to terms with the fact that I might always love cheese, and that I might never be repulsed by it, like I was with meat. Once I accepted that fact, I gradually stopped obsessing about it, and the desire to eat it finally left me. There was no big, flashy moment when that happened. I just realized one day that I didn’t want to eat cheese anymore. And so I became a full-fledged vegan. That was in 1988, soon after I graduated from college.

My mother and sister were also transitioning from vegetarian to vegan and we were all supporting each other. Being in this together as a family, and in a supportive larger community in DC, was the foundation that helped keep us going strong.

CHANGES I EXPERIENCED AFTER GOING VEGAN

After I became a vegan, the twenty-five pounds I gained during my first year at Amherst (the year before Dick Gregory’s lecture) came off naturally. My menses also became lighter and shorter, and I seldom had cramps.

Growing up, I always had issues with oily skin and pimples, but even after becoming a vegan, my skin didn’t clear up until I went on my first supervised cleanse, which included eating and drinking only raw vegan foods, particularly dark-green leafy vegetables. Within about two weeks, my skin cleared up and developed a healthy glow from the inside out. I’ve been able to maintain that glow, and good health in general, all these years because I still eat whole foods (including dark-green leafy vegetables three times a day) and cook from scratch.

I’ve now been a healthy vegan for all of my adult life. And now, at age fifty, I’m grateful that I haven’t experienced any major health challenges. No high blood pressure, high cholesterol, diabetes, cancer, or any other chronic disease issues. Although being a vegan is not a get-out-of-disease-free card, since genetic and environmental factors are also involved, eating healthy plant-based foods gives me the best chance of living a long, healthy, and disease-free life.

In addition to the physical health benefits I experienced after going vegan, I also extended my veganism to express more compassion for and nonviolence toward animals. I served as a public policy liaison for the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine in 1999. As part of my role there, I watched undercover footage of factory farming; the wool and leather industries; circuses and zoos; and the testing of cosmetics, skincare, and household products on animals. I saw that the cruelty involved in using animals for fashion, furnishings, entertainment, and product testing was just as wrong as the cruelty involved in eating them. As a result, for the past twenty years, in addition to not eating animals, I also have not worn or used animal products in clothing or furnishings, and I have not used products tested on animals, to the best of my ability.

Being vegan has also strengthened my activism. Thanks to my mother’s example, our family has long been involved in volunteer work in small and large ways to help improve the lives of people in our communities, and of people of color and poor people, in general. And in our early vegan years in the early 1990s, when we participated in antiwar marches and local social justice activities with our omnivore friends, many of them would go to fast-food restaurants to eat afterwards. Marya and I would have conversations with them about the intertwined oppressions of social injustice, poor health, and the food industry (you can read more about that in my book By Any Greens Necessary), but many of our friends did not make the connection. That was tough. I believed then and still do now that how we nourish ourselves is inextricably linked to every aspect of how we live our lives, including being activists for justice and equality.

And on the subject of activism, growing up I thought that I would be a writer, an investigative journalist, or a lawyer for the NAACP Legal Defense Fund or the ACLU. As it turned out, becoming a vegan led me to pursue activism as a public health nutritionist helping people take back control of their health and live longer, healthier, happier lives. Marya and I also started one of the earliest vegan websites, back in 1997, and I went on to direct the country’s first federally funded and community-based vegan nutrition program in 2004, among some other milestones.

And finally, and most importantly, being vegan has also led me to explore other healing and self-care practices. As a result, I’ve developed a daily practice I call my Sacred Seven: meditating, exercising, journaling, expressing gratitude, eating well, having fun, and helping others. I’ve also gained greater clarity of purpose in my life. In fact, the longer I’ve been vegan, the more I understand that being vegan is a path, a practice—not a destination. It has served as an affirming foundation and template for me to live my life to the fullest.

WHY I LOVE BEING A VEGAN

Ultimately, being vegan makes me feel free. I know many people think being vegan means feeling restricted and deprived. But in reality, the opposite is true. Because of what I eat, I’m living a life that’s healthiest for me and kindest to people, animals, and the planet. There’s incredible freedom and fulfillment in that.

I also love the fact that being vegan and choosing the field of veganism as a profession have allowed me to combine my passions for writing, social justice, good food, travel, style, speaking, culture, and community building. Being a vegan is one of the beautiful and powerful lenses through which I see and live in the world and I feel incredibly grateful for that.

And, along with all of this, one of the biggest highlights of being a vegan has been the fact that my mother and sister went vegan with me. With my mother, in particular, we’ve come full circle. She planted the earliest seeds by starting us off on a healthier diet as children (although I didn’t appreciate it at the time!). And for her to go vegan with me years later—and become a healthy, vibrant, vegan role model at eighty—has been amazing!