Fully embracing my new omnivorous lifestyle, I became quite the connoisseur of meats. Rabbit wrapped in pancetta. Bacon-wrapped-pork loin. Even bacon ice cream. My second date with the love of my life was a bacon safari, and I’ve been known to talk bar owners into giving me some raw bacon if the stores were closed so I could fry it up in the morning.

So why on earth did I, the woman who has declared pigs her favorite animal because they’re “wonderful in all forms,” title this blog post a slow transition to (mostly) vegan?

The short answer is that I could no longer ignore everything I’d learned. Let me first make clear that I do believe eating is a largely personal choice, and I have no intentions of telling my friends and family how they should eat. I simply want to explain why I’m weaning myself off animal products, and where I got that information. To give you a quick list:

• The China Study, by Colin T. Campbell, which outlines how what we eat impacts our health on every level.
• This article in the New York Times Magazine, from Jonathan Safran Foer’s book, Eating Animals
• Michael Pollan’s Food Rules
• Food, Inc.
• This critical information about the environment via Kathy Freston, author of Quantum Wellness: “World Bank agricultural scientists Robert Goodland, who spent 23 years as the Bank’s lead environmental advisor, and Jeff Anhang, a research officer and environmental specialist for the Bank, argue convincingly that more than half of all greenhouse gas emissions are attributable to our desire to eat chicken, pigs, and other farmed animals. That’s right: Add up all the causes of climate change, and you find that eating meat causes more than everything else combined.”

Many of these deserve blog entries of their own, but if you’re curious (or if you think your friend/sister/daughter/cousin (me) has gone crazy), go ahead and check out these resources.  For me, though, The China Study was definitely the most compelling, and made the single biggest difference.

It’s not that I’m determined to live to be 110; I just want my years here to be as vibrant and enjoyable as possible, and that means I have to be healthy. I’m only twenty-five, and I’ve already spent much too much time in doctors’ offices and feeling lousy. I want to do everything I can to spend the rest of my life living instead of shuttling from one office to another figuring out what’s wrong with me. I truly believe that a diet rich in whole foods and with little to no animal product is my best chance. (Well, that—and yoga.) The China Study is what finally got me to admit this to myself. As an added bonus, here’s a video of Kathy Freston interviewing T. Colin Campbell on extra.