Confessions of an ex-vegan

About 15 years ago, I used to spend my mornings at Confiserie Sprüngli in Zurich. The café atmosphere encouraged me to write. These days, I prefer to sit at my kitchen table in early morning seclusion. Sipping on a green tea, sporting just my underpants. It’s just far more comfortable.

Back then, my breakfast consisted of a cold Ovaltine and a butter croissant – I’d often order this combo several times in a row. After leaving the café, I’d increasingly have belly cramps and feel bloated. More than once, I’d have to rush back up the stairs for an emergency visit to the toilet right after leaving.

I put the discomfort down to pretty much everything but my morning ritual. My family doctor at the time finally drew my attention to lactose intolerance. And the fact that cow’s milk is for calves, not for humans.

That’s when I gave up dairy, which brought immediate relief. What kept on weighing heavily on my mind, however, was the fact calves’ food was being taken away from them. I started to read up about the production methods behind animal products. I came across video footage from slaughterhouses. As well as the issue with milk, which is only available for us humans because we kill the actual recipients. And then the producers.

I was horrified. Not least about the fact I had managed to ignore this ugly truth for so long. I decided to give up meat. And after watching some videos of chicks being shredded, I gave up eggs.

The great contradiction

There are many very good reasons for giving up animal products. Our consumption of milk, meat and eggs causes immense animal suffering. The cows, pigs, chickens, etc. are often kept in appalling conditions and suffer extreme stress on their way to the slaughterhouse. In the end, they’re all killed industrially. The stunning measures are far from harmless. The captive bolt gun, which is supposed to render the animals unconscious in one fell swoop, often has to be applied several times, thereby shattering the cows’ skulls more and more each time. Pigs, on the other hand, are gassed with CO₂ – in other words, suffocated miserably.

The environment suffers, too. Did you know that Switzerland uses around half of its arable land to grow animal feed? Not to mention the fact that the same amount of raw materials that are imported from abroad, namely Brazil, where the rainforest is being cleared for this purpose? This is the only way we’re able to raise the more than 80 million animals for slaughter every year. That’s 220,000 every day.

What we’re doing for our excessive meat consumption is brutal, ruthless and destructive, even self-destructive. That’s one truth.

The other is that our body needs animal protein. Evolutionarily speaking, it’s still in the Stone Age. It hasn’t yet caught onto the fact that modern factory farming is problematic in many respects. Our bodies are still in mammoth mode.

That look doctors give you

Initially, as a new vegan, I managed well without milk, cheese, meat and eggs. But pretty soon, I was suffering from various complaints. Ironically, the symptoms were similar to those I’d experienced after having my Sprüngli breakfast: belly cramps, bloating, diarrhoea. Things got so bad I had to see a gastroenterologist.

The doctor carried out a colonoscopy and blood tests. My vitamin B12 levels were far too low. «What you’re doing is unhealthy,» she said. «We’re omnivores. Our bodies need meat.» That’s not what I wanted to hear. I didn’t want to eat meat. For moral and ecological reasons. I gave it to her straight with that look on my face people have who think their opinion is undoubtedly the right one. The doctor gave me that look doctors give you when you say something they find medically obnoxious.

I was prescribed an intensive B12 treatment. Four injections for a week, then one a week for four weeks, and finally one every month. I did this for several years. And it worked really well.

In hindsight, that wasn’t true, though. It never really worked.

«Are you saying I have to … eat meat?»

I kept on living with those complaints I mentioned. As well as with my intuition telling me a plate of spag bol would sort it all out. And me craving a huge portion of it. But I was vegan! And proud of it. I considered myself a more evolved species. I’ll admit that I looked down on meat eaters. I thought they were downright primitive.

Feeling superior to others is never good news. That’s when you’ve gone too far. You’re no longer about the cause but about vanity. And ultimately about being lost.

This works both ways. You’ve also gone too far if you think vegans are stupid because they’re vegan and fundamentally reject their arguments because they’re vegan arguments.

For ten years, my body had dutifully followed me and my ideology, but last summer it had reached its limit. The symptoms kept getting worse. I went to see my family doctor. My previous doctor was no longer there, and an older doctor was now responsible for me. He carried out all kinds of tests. Vitamin B12: more than enough thanks to the injections. In fact, he said: «There’s nothing wrong with you, Mister Meyer. The only thing you might be needing is animal proteins. You can’t simply supplement them all.» «Are you saying I have to … eat meat?» I asked. The thought alone was terrifying. «You don’t have to do anything. I’d just like to invite you to try it out and see if it helps.»

The next day, I went to the supermarket and bought myself a chicken frankfurter in a blanket of dough and a salmon bowl. It tasted delicious, but left me so emotionally distressed I ended up in tears. However, I felt noticeably better afterwards. «What’s the point of having a clear conscience if you’re doing so badly?» my partner asked me.

Good point.

I thought the occasional chicken frankfurter would cut it and allow me to find a comfortable compromise between keeping my conscience clear and feeling good. That’s what I thought.

A few days later, I travelled through Germany towards the North Sea together with my partner, who was also vegan at the time. When we arrived in Karlsruhe, I curled up on the hotel bed and growled: «I need meat. Now.» My inner caveman was in dire need of it.

We’d actually wanted to go for a vegan sushi. But I was intensely drawn to the Italian restaurant opposite the hotel and its photos in the window. Doubled up, I hurried over and ordered a pinsa with Parma ham. It was tasty and did me a lot of good. I thanked the pig that had given its life for me. «No biggie, your piggy!» the pig squealed from the afterlife.

That’ll sort me for a few weeks, I thought. Kind of like a python who gets by on the odd rabbit. That’s what I thought. Then I travelled to Norway to photograph nature and the Northern Lights.

Surrender

We were outdoors every day. It was cold and windy. A completely different physical challenge than typing away in my living room. My body finally capitulated on day two. I bought roast beef and chicken breast cold cuts at the supermarket and used them to fill stacks of sandwiches.

«Awesome,» my body said. «Give me more of that!» «But ... the animal suffering! The environment!», I said as I put another layer of roast beef on a slice of bread. «I hear you,» my body replied. «But do you hear me?»

Good point.

I’ve been eating meat every other day since. That’s all I need. But no less than that. On day three, my inner caveman asks for fresh woolly rhino.

Incidentally, my body’s recently started to struggle with wheat and other modern sedentary foods including sugar. It now prefers the Palaeo diet, a diet from the Palaeolithic period: nuts, fruit, vegetables and meat. If I stick to it, my gut’s happy.

The conclusion

I still consider the vegan reasoning to be spot on. Everything it entails is true. We eat too much meat, way more than we need and that is good for us. We’re plundering resources in a detrimental way and treating animals extremely badly. Absolutely everything speaks against going on like this. We urgently need to restrain ourselves.

However, the vegan conclusion, namely the complete renunciation of meat, does not make sense either. It contradicts our physiology. At least my one. Cheese might also be an option, but my body can’t handle it. However, the thing my body handles the worst is what I was doing for the last ten years.

It would be great if we all halved our meat intake. That’s all we need and the environment can’t handle more. We would no longer have to import soy from Brazil, either.

My second conclusion is about how we treat each other. We won’t get anywhere if we find each other shitbags for every difference of opinion and hatefully pick on each other because of it. This just leads to never-ending micro civil wars that produce no meaningful solutions, only bad moods and hard hearts.

We’ve forgotten how to have discussions because we believe it’s enough to take a stand against something. What a huge and fatal error. After all, both sides are often right. At least to a large extent. Accepting this means putting up with a contradiction. That’s also something we’ve forgotten how to do. And yet, it’s very refreshing for the mind when it realises it’s been walking in the wrong direction for quite a while.

All I can say is: less meat, more contradiction!