Why Go Vegan? Our Family Tells All—Yes, Even the Kids

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You gave up steak? 

And chicken? 

Oh. But you still eat eggs and cheese though, right? 

No!? 

Dude. At least you still have bacon!

Wait, what?!

How do you cope in a world without bacon??

That’s pretty much how my conversations go after I tell people I went vegan. 

And now raise my kids vegan.

And that it was all my husband’s idea.

So to clear some things up, here’s why we ditched meat and dairy.

Why Go Vegan—5 Reasons We Took the Plunge

It’s January. Usually around now we enlist in a new diet program to lose all the weight we gained during the holidays.

But for the second year in a row, we’re not paying for a new program. 

Because this program (eating a vegan diet) doesn’t cost me anything.

Sure, we plan to incorporate more whole-food, plant-based meals (and less processed plant-based foods) this year. But learning to do that won’t cost us anything either.

And beyond my still-full wallet, there’s more reasons to go vegan. 

It’ll benefit our health. (Yeah, I checked with our doctor.)

It’ll benefit the planet.

And. Obviously. It’ll benefit animals. 

Here’s why my husband encouraged me to go vegan, why our kids jumped on board, and why we plan to keep riding this train.

And FYI, this post is not intended to be used as medical advice. This is based on our family's experience. Please see my terms of use and disclaimer for more info.

1. We Couldn’t Lose Weight.

It wasn’t New Year’s Day when my husband asked if I’d go plant-based with him. It was Lent in 2019.

He was fed up with his weight loss journey. Between a busy career and three young kids, exercising consistently was challenging. And even then, he saw little results without dietary adjustments alongside exercise. He tried other diets. Nothing stuck.

I wasn’t any better. As an off-and-on lifetime member of one weight loss company since 2006, I’ve seen success from diets and tracking food. However, I never kept the weight off.

We were stressed, tired, emotionally eating parents. 

We didn’t want a diet. We wanted a lifestyle. 

We wanted something black and white. 

We wanted to eat without feeling deprived, tracking calories or paying for a program.

We learned about eating plant-based.

“A whole food, plant-based diet achieved the greatest weight loss ever recorded at 6 and 12 months compared to any other such intervention published in the medical literature.”

Dr. Michael Greger, M.D. FACLM of Nutrionfacts.org

I lost 15 pounds and my husband lost 30 pounds after a few months of eating mostly whole-food, plant-based and entirely vegan meals.

2. We Got Scared.

When does your mortality slap you in the face? 

Is it an unexpected death? 

Is it as you near 40? 

When you have young kids who depend on you? 

Or when you find a partner you love so much you can’t live without? 

Maybe it’s when you see your parents and grandparents age?

Check, check, aaand check. To all of the above. At least for us. 

We were in our late 30s, with young kids. And ailments that seemed far away for the past three decades—like heart disease, cancer, kidney disease, diabetes—started waging war on our friends and family.

Our kids needed us. We needed each other. And we had dreams to follow. 

After talking to our doctors and following up with research, we couldn’t ignore the health benefits of a plant-based diet.

Can we outrun all these scary statistics? Who knows. But armed with the knowledge that a plant-based diet gives us a head start, we’re going to try.

3. We Love the Earth.

Hands up if you’re a tree hugger. 🙋

And you feel energized by nature.

And you love this planet but don’t know what to do to preserve her.

That was our family. 

So you can imagine our surprise when we learned this: A plant-based diet benefits the planet:

• Vegan and vegetarian diets offer the largest environmental benefits among common, sustainable dietary patterns. This is largely due to the fact that about a quarter of total greenhouse gas emissions are produced by agriculture, livestock and the land used to raise them.
• If we replaced meat and dairy with plant-based foods, we’d save at least 50% of our water use. This means less pollution from animal farming in our rivers, lakes and oceans and conserving untouched areas that are destroyed to produce food for livestock.

Going plant-based turned out to be good for our health and our environment. It was a win-win for us.

4. We Encourage Empathy.

This is the part that makes us all uncomfortable. 

If you still eat meat, I get it. I ate it too for over 30 years. 

But then I had babies. 

And those cute farm animals from their baby books made a debut in cut-up pieces on their plates. All those moments of teaching my kids about empathy were supposed to be ignored as I explained why it was OK to eat those same cute animals. 

It didn’t feel right.

When we taught our kids not to hurt animals, yet we paid for others to do it so we could eat a burger…

It didn’t feel right.

When we asked ourselves what made a cow any different from our dog, it started to sink in. 

We didn’t want to hurt animals anymore. 

And yes, even eating eggs and dairy hurts animals. 

So, a plant-based diet is a win for animals too. Win-win-win.

I don’t need to include fancy quotes or studies to illustrate how animals are hurt for our food. We all know it. But we choose to ignore it. Including me. I ignored it for over 30 years.

5. We Grew Inspired.

When we went plant-based, we found support in documentaries, organizations like PETA and Veganuary, Facebook groups, and fellow Instagramers, YouTubers and bloggers.

They were plant-based. But they were also vegan. 

We grew inspired and tried local vegan finds and meat substitutes, like Beyond Meat. Since eating more vegan and less whole-food, plant-based meals, some of the weight snuck back. So we’re steering towards more whole foods.

So, why wasn’t a plant-based diet enough for us? Why go vegan?

We asked ourselves: What makes a whole-food, plant-based diet any different from Whole 30, Weight Watchers, and other diets we’d tried? 

What made this new goal any more achievable than others we failed at before? 

We suck at self-care. We know what’s best for us. But we succumb to our old habits when asked to hold ourselves accountable.

But being vegan. It’s about more than our health.

It’s about the planet.

It’s about the animals.

It’s about our children and grandchildren. 

And we can’t fail them. 

Reasons to Go Vegan According to Our Kids

Since our kids live under our roof, they kinda had to go vegan too. But they weren’t forced to enjoy it. We talked lovingly to our children about switching to a plant-based, vegan diet and included them in our journey.

Now, two years later, we asked the kids, “Why go vegan? What do you like about it?” Here are their reasons to go vegan.

Our 10-Year-Old: I get to try lots of new types of food and restaurants. 

Our 7-Year-Old: I like animals and don’t want to hurt them. I like to be healthy and safe from being sick and COVID-19. (I think, since most pandemics originate in animals—think swine flu, bird flu and SARS—she means that by eating less animal products, she reduces the chances of diseases like COVID-19 from happening.)

Our 3-Year-Old: I like animals like bunnies. 😅🐰 (He’s 3. We’re approaching our second Veganniversary, so I’m not sure if he even remembers anything before going vegan.)

Why Go Vegan Now?

Imagine going to a doctor and she suggests preventative measures and dietary changes before ailments arise. 

Imagine a planet with less pollution and reduced global warming.

Imagine a population with more kindness and empathy.

What better time than now to start on that path?

I know it’s idealistic. 

But that’s what I cling to when I tell people I’m raising a vegan family and they cringe.

They think I’m judging them for eating meat. 

I’m not. 

I ate animals less than two years ago, remember? 

I cling to that ideal when I think others judge me, too.

(And believe me, they do.)

I surround our vegan family with strong support groups who also cling to that ideal. 

Veganuary is one of those. If you want to incorporate more plant-based meals into your day, or try a vegan diet, Veganuary is a nonprofit organization that encourages and educates others in how to go vegan for the month of January. 

I’m not paid to say that. It’s a thorough, approachable (AND FREE!!) resource that we find useful. 💗

I’m celebrating Veganuary all month long with info and resources that help us on our vegan journey. So follow along on social media and join my email list if you haven’t already. 

And if you want more support, I’m always here. Reach out to me on social media or on the blog any time. 

Happy New Year and Happy Veganuary,
~Chelsea