Sometime during college, I learned that there isn’t enough arable land on earth for everyone to eat as much meat as the average American, and that… just didn’t seem very fair. Turns out, when you include feed crops, something like 77% of global farmland is devoted to animal products. Engineer-brained as I was, I couldn’t get over the inefficiency. Humans can eat plants! Why waste all those perfectly good calories building a bunch of animal bodies and fueling ‘em up to run around doing animal things? Don’t get me wrong, I love animals, but maybe we could have a different variety frolicking around all that land that doesn’t actually need to be farm.

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I later learned what an enormous difference avoiding animal products can make - according to the UN, going vegan is the single most impactful lifestyle change an individual can make to reduce ecological harm. Unfortunately I never really learned how to properly feed myself, so I kinda just kept on truckin’ with my garbage meats (that’s not entirely true, I did get into Huel for a while there). Then I became the luckiest person to ever live, when Linnea texted me five magical words: “Let me feed your face!” The rest is delicious history.

It’s probably worth noting that individual choices aren’t going to save us, and that huge systemic changes are needed if our society and ecosystems are going to survive the 21st century. Giant companies have spent decades pushing propaganda to shift blame onto consumers, and it’s a bunch of hokum. Hokum, I say! Even so, I feel a moral imperative to do the best I can to minimize harm, to maintain awareness of the consequences of my actions, and to fight off feelings of powerlessness in the face of a global system bent on devouring itself. Making the switch seemed like it would be more difficult than it was, and benefits have flowed to every aspect of my life in ways I could not have predicted; in hindsight, the decision to go vegan was a prerequisite to truly living life on my own terms. I highly recommend it.