L is for Lamb so Soft and Sweet
August 1, 2025
A poem by Amanda Benham, from Brisbane, Australia
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Why I Will ALWAYS Be Vegan
Veganism: Common Sense Waiting To Be Common
June 20, 2021
I have a T-shirt that says “I am vegan because I love life.” That is how simple it really is to me. I deeply love the idea that I can live as respectfully as possible by being vegan. I think…
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Awakened
October 20, 2020
Now that I am awake, I cannot go back to sleep. Awakened from a culturally induced slumber, I have made a pledge to myself—but, more important, I have taken an oath for other animals. I am now their caregiver, witness…
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Unlearning Speciesism
July 20, 2021
It’s simple, really—once you respect the rights of others, how do you stop respecting them?
Just like almost everyone else, my potential for compassion was hobbled at a young age. I grew up on a mountain, around hunting, and went…
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There is Hope
August 20, 2020
I grew up as a “normal” child. I used to like other animals just like the people around me. They were cute and fun to play with. During the summer holidays, which I would spend at a cottage with my…
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It’s the Golden Rule Thing to Do
February 21, 2021
I will always be vegan because “it’s the Golden Rule thing to do.” This moral and ethical precept teaches us that we should behave toward others as we would have others behave toward us. Non-vegans conveniently take the word “others”…
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To Make Life Truly Just
May 5, 2015
I was born into a fog. That hazy, dreary, fog surrounded me. Everyone around me was part of that same dark haze. So normal and right it seemed to be. I never questioned, never pondered, a non-murky life. I thought life was good, and fair, and just.
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A Life Without Violence
January 1, 2023
Have you ever dreamed of freedom, justice and, overall, a life without violence, discrimination and hatred? This has been a question I have constantly asked myself from a very young age. As a woman born into a male dominant, misogynistic society, I always thought of myself as being a victim of unequal treatment...
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The Destruction of Other Lives
August 30, 2022
Have you heard of the term cognitive dissonance? It is the mental discomfort you experience when your actions do not reflect your beliefs or values; it is the deep-seated feeling when one seeks justification, some sort of rationalization, for why…
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An Obvious Force for Good
June 15, 2022
There is, for better or worse, a righteousness associated with being vegan.
Four years ago when I told people—good friends, even—that I had decided to become vegan, some replied with a shocking bitterness that bordered on resentment. “Well, I guess…
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I Will Never Forget
May 15, 2022
Veganism is not about our health but theirs; it is about ethics, not food; about animal rights, not cupcakes.
Since I became vegan I have seen many more animals suffer and die than ever before; not in videos or in…
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Once I Knew, I Couldn’t Not Know
April 15, 2022
Growing up, I spent a few weeks during the summer at my family’s cottage in upstate New York. Nearby, there was an open dairy farm and petting zoo that I loved visiting. My favorite parts were feeding the goats and…
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My Biggest Passion
March 15, 2022
It was practically since the day I was born that I knew there were other species on this planet. Not that I had a concept of it, but I understood that there was a being, different from me, living in…
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One of the Greatest Sins of all Time
February 19, 2022
The history of mankind is peppered with horrendous acts once deemed normal: slavery, child labor, and even cannibalism. Oftentimes, these atrocities were said to be essential for a functioning society. With the advent of science and consequent evolution of morality,…
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They Can Count On Me
September 30, 2014
This is the first irrefutable truth I discovered in my life; that eating and using animals is, no matter how you look at it, an act of abject cruelty. When we eat or use animals, we are hiring the butcher…
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The Foundation of our Higher Selves
October 31, 2014
In the heat of the summer of 1966, revolution was in the air. Black people were revolting against the injustice of whites, women against the domination of men, and young people everywhere were expanding their minds beyond the restrictive perceptions…
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A Better World for Us All
December 1, 2014
It’s been nearly 14 years since I had my vegan epiphany and vowed to never again partake of or participate in anything offered by the machine of violence that we call the animal industry. Since that time, my appreciation of…
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A New Awareness
November 15, 2020
The following submission for Why I Will Always be Vegan was contributed by Salwa Maddad, Al-Sweida, As-Suwayda, from Syria.
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A Moment of Awakening
July 20, 2020
It was New Year’s Day, 2013, a month after my 53rd birthday. On a whim, I made a resolution to go vegan, or so I thought; I now know it was merely a resolution to try a plant-based diet. (I…
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No Going Back
July 7, 2016
I was brought up in a very carnivorous environment in Brazil. My father strictly made sure my brother and I ate all kinds of foods. I remember my brother crying, looking at his food on the table, saying that the…
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A Light Inside
May 20, 2020
I will always live vegan because, ever since the moment my eyes were opened to the horrors and atrocities of the culture of animal exploitation pervasive throughout our current global community, I refuse to participate in, support or encourage the…
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My Only Certainty
April 20, 2020
They say that the only things that are certain in this life are death and taxes. My imagination begs to disagree. The philosopher in me has debated death—the form of death; the beyond of death; the fear of death—from every…
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Living a Lie
March 15, 2020
I can say with conviction and without any hesitation that I will always be a vegan. I still remember very clearly when I became free from the brainwashing we are all subjected to about the necessity of eating other animals.…
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Enrichment Rather Than Sacrifice
February 15, 2020
When thinking of Kazakhstan, most people probably associate it with wide landscapes, horse-riding nomads and yurts in a remote countryside. This is what it used to be hundreds of years ago. The roaming nomad lifestyle did not allow people to…
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The Least I Can Do
December 29, 2019
Since I was a little child, I have always loved animals—well, I thought I loved “all animals”, but in reality I only loved and respected dogs and cats. I ate meat, dairy and other products of animal exploitation. I didn’t…
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The Ultimate Freedom
August 11, 2018
Merriam-Webster defines the word ‘soul’ as the immaterial essence, animating principle, or actuating cause of an individual life. The actuating cause of an individual life—what is veganism if not that which moves us to the core of our being?
Today,…
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This Is Who I Am
June 20, 2020
I once believed I was an animal lover, yet I had no idea what love really was. I never saw the cruelty I inflicted by what I ate, used or wore; causing so much suffering without a thought. I followed…
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Reborn
April 6, 2016
There was a time when a girl, with her family, raised chickens. She trapped one or two to sell for money or dinner. She wove coconut leaves and made them into chicken nests. Some of the eggs were for breakfast…
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My Way Home
November 12, 2015
I grew up in South Africa and experienced a number of transformative, life-changing events at an early receptive age, like trying to bargain with a female witch doctor who worked for my parents when she wanted to slaughter some chickens…
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Not a Second to Lose
September 19, 2015
I was raised to eat animals, just like most children in our society. I spent 58 years condemning sentient beings to lives of ruthless exploitation that would end in brutal death. For a few years I was vegetarian and then…
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I Knew Something Wasn’t Right
August 24, 2015
For 25 years I had been living my life like most other people in my culture and society, consuming the flesh from other animals, their milk, their eggs, their honey, wearing their skin, wearing hair taken from their bodies, using…
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Pushing Through to Freedom
July 31, 2015
I will always be vegan:
Because of the bear trapped in a tiny cage, continuously drained of the bile so prized by humans. The elephant whose family was shot so she could be used in a circus. The lobster who…
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The Only Way to Exist
July 1, 2015
There was a time when I was unconscious, wrapped up in superficial wants. My mind was fixed on my materialistic needs. I existed purely in a little bubble of simple self, warm in the comfort of my easy ignorance and…
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To Restore the Promise of Life
May 30, 2015
Have you ever looked into the eyes of a sow? She is not the “mere animal” you think you know. She senses and smells your presence. She can see your silhouette cast against the light. She advances, timidly, and seeks your eyes. Her orbs measure you, depose your shield of solid convictions and seek the empathic spark that is dormant within you.
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Humanity’s Next Step
April 6, 2015
I’ve been vegan for 36 years, therefore it is safe to say I will always be vegan. I committed to vegan living before any health benefits of the vegan diet were known. I stopped eating animals at age 12 when…
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Dark Alleys, Bright Aisles
April 20, 2021
Not all abuse happens in dark alleys. Much unspeakable cruelty takes place in the brightly lit aisles where we purchase the flesh of animals, their eggs, their milk, their skin, their wool, their feathers, and their fur.
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My Biggest Wish in Life
October 21, 2021
My journey into my love and fight for other animals started even before I was born, in a small town called Murska Sobota, Slovenia. For some reason, when my mom became pregnant with me, eating meat made her sick. Despite…
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A Stand for Justice
September 20, 2021
One day in March 2007, when I was 13 years old, I decided to go vegan, simply because I knew it was the right thing to do. Why should I participate in horrible violence towards other animals when there was…
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A Natural Progression
August 20, 2021
As a man of logic and reasoning, it was an obvious choice for me to go into the sciences. I moved towards the fields of medicine. It seemed natural to watch someone be cut open to have body parts removed,…
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