Growing up, I always ate meat, dairy, and eggs. Even though I ate meat, I’ve always had a problem cooking it. I hated the texture, and the thought of touching any blood made me nauseous. I remember being a teenager and telling my sister that I hope I end up with a husband who doesn’t eat meat because I never want to cook it.

In my early twenties, I decided to try modeling. It was something I thought about doing for years but just never took the first step. I finally contacted a photographer to help build my portfolio. That photographer and I ended up working together a couple more times after the first shoot. During one of our shoots, the topic of pork came up, so he asked if I ate pork and I said yes. He began telling me how dirty it is and that if I take a piece of bacon and hold it over a stove burner, worms would come out. I believed it because I already thought everything about pork was nasty (except for the taste).

I decided that day that I was going to try to go two weeks with no pork. Two weeks came and went and I didn’t miss it. So I added another two weeks and I felt the same way. Then I decided to try to go without pork and beef for a few weeks. Those few weeks also came and went. Once I was used to not eating pork and beef, I added chicken to the list. I ended up not eating pork, beef, and chicken for about a year and then decided to get rid of turkey.

After about two years of no pork, beef, chicken, and turkey, I decided to remove seafood. I actually remember the exact day I decided to no longer eat seafood. My boss at the time brought some food his wife cooked to the office and was sharing with my coworkers and I. This was a regular thing, so he knew I liked the fish and gave me one. When I looked at the fish, the thought of eating it made me feel guilty. I couldn’t shake that feeling off, so I told him I couldn’t eat it, and since then, I never went back to eating seafood.

I was vegetarian for a few years when I started to learn about veganism. It was intriguing to me that I didn’t have to eat animals or any animal buy products and still have a very well-balanced and nutritious diet. So I tried being vegan and I’ve had a passion for it ever since. I will say traveling while vegan has been interesting. Check out my post Traveling while vegan.