My name is Carly and I'm not a vegan anymore.

Vegan. Meat eater. Paleo. Vegetarian. Keto.

Food labels. We hear these words often and see them more and more frequently in pop culture.

Many folks with these titles have valid purpose, like environmental and ethical reasons or physical conditions. Still, we see so many with such a tight grip on these titles without this reasoning.

Why do we hold on so desperately to these labels you ask? As someone who for years held the title of “vegan” for all the wrong reasons, I can share a pivotal insight that changed the way I looked at food labels.

Before I started graduate school, I began my vegan journey. I watched horrific documentaries about animal treatment in factory farmers and fear-based, biased films about the harms of non-vegan eating. I talked with environmentalists who convinced me all animal-based eating was at the root of our environmental crises. So veganism makes sense right?

But perhaps the most influential force on me personally, and something that may be a bit embarrassing to admit, was seeing who vegans were in our culture. They were cool, thin, traveling, hippie chicks who liked the same music I did. Although, if you asked me why I was a vegan, I probably would have offered you one of the reasons above like health reasons or animal welfare, and that was true to some extent. But the deep-down, to-my-core reason why I clung so to this title was because I wanted what those cool girls on Instagram had. It was their identity. And now it was mine.

It was no longer just about food. It was about who I was, what I aspired to be and, most importantly, how others viewed me.

Boom. This hit me like a load of bricks when I came to realize it through some self-exploration.

I realized I denied myself foods I thoroughly enjoyed for so long. In retrospect, my body was craving things like meat and I denied myself of them because it did not fit my image. I realized I enjoyed meat. I wanted to eat it. I learned the tools of conscious meat consumption in my graduate program. I knew how to do it in a way that aligned with my beliefs. But the hardest thing I had to do was let go of the image. The identity. The answer to “so how do you eat?” And believe me, that was the hardest part.

I was so afraid of what people would think when the saw me eating meat. I was ashamed and embarrassed at first. I felt like hiding whenever I ate meat. I had a hard time telling my friends. The question of “why did you decide to eat meat again?” was tough. I felt the answer that I just wanted to and have wanted to all along was not exactly acceptable.

I came to understand that it actually was an acceptable answer. And, in fact, I did not need an answer at all. I did not have anything to prove to anyone. Being afraid of talking about it defeated the whole purpose. I wanted to be truer to myself. I was not going to allow my food choice to define me as a person.

So here I am, eating meat in a way that feels good to my body and my beliefs. I am on the journey of liberating myself from the expectations of others shaping my food choice. And it feels so good and so right for me.

I feel its important to challenge our beliefs and the beliefs of others about food in a respectful way. Lots of folks go about these eating behaviors in a healthy way with good intentions. Others could benefit from this story.

Can we all just work on not judging others, making comments or dwelling on how others eat? Let’s work on being more open-minded, supportive and empathetic to people with differing food choice than us.

Thanks for reading and holding space for me to be vulnerable, as always. Let’s keep the conversation going.