Why we chose this path

I grew up in a typical Irish family. There was a Full Irish breakfast on the table on weekends, a delicious ham sandwich for lunch and chicken curry or a beautiful steak for dinner. To this day, I love mashed potatoes, the deliciously salty taste of the deservedly famous creamy Irish butter, and a nice hot latte. I was diagnosed with milk, egg and wheat allergies almost 10 years ago.  I was quite young and had my whole life ahead of me. It was a sentence to find out I couldn't eat my usual breakfast, lunch or even dinner. I even had to give up on my favourite snacks and treats. Of course, I cheated a lot on my new strict diet. My stomach hurt an awful lot or cramped even though I now knew what not to eat, but I couldn’t always say no to the foods I was already used to.

Then I met Gábor, who had a completely different continental background. He then worked and lived in the hospitality industry for almost two decades. His passion was to cook and to eat even more so! An integral part of Hungarian culture is that they eat meat with meat. Spicy and rich foods happily high in calories. He tried and tasted new cheeses with a great love. At the beginning of our relationship, our fridge had a shelf full of all sorts of slightly or very smelly cheeses. He had a hard time giving up on them. For a while there were separate shelves for him and for me in the kitchen and in the fridge, but it made no sense to have two different kinds of lattes in the morning, to make two different types of toast, to have a Bolognese for dinner and make a regular spaghetti and gluten-free too. Gábor learnt his profession in terms of cooking. He loves to cook and experiment so after a while I became an experimental rabbit. He tried everything on me. Everything he had done so far with gluten, milk, eggs he learned to produce without them. It was the first time in my life that someone was paying attention such close attention to what I was eating and how I was eating. He wouldn’t let us have dinner from a fast-food restaurant every other day or make me feel tense in the restaurant when I had to ask for an allergen menu. He systematically emptied our kitchen and with it our store of ingredients that were unsuitable to me. My body was breathing. Then, on the other hand, we were both surprised that his was too. As he curated the foods which he consumed it became easier to digest and at the same time he became lighter and more energetic.

It would be a lie to say it’s over, that we never ate anything again that contained ingredients that were harmful to me. Gábor worked in a restaurant and he was not forced to do so. Needless to say, he immediately became the object of ridicule as he communicated that he would not eat this or that from now on. In a typical Irish restaurant, living on a long-term diet that is free of gluten, milk and eggs can be said to be impossible. It was easier for me, I was perfectly aware that when I cheated on my diet, my next day would be hell itself. But who can resist a typical Italian pizza that is almost dripping down with hot soft mozzarella, or a juicy burger hidden in a soft bun out of which melted cheddar flows? But each day we tried and it has become easier and easier to live without these unnecessary guilty pleasures.

Later, shortly after our wedding, we decided to try for a baby. My mother is a fertility consultant,

https://helenatubridy.com/ , so, I grew up very aware of how a healthy mummy is vital for a healthy baby. To do so, however, my entire body needed to be healthy. I listened to a lot of women and men tell their stories of having difficulty in conceiving. After talking with my mum and making some small lifestyle changes, I fell pregnant. Having heard more and more about the cons of a heavily meat-based diet, at the end of 2019, I suggested to Gábor that we leave meat out of our diet just for a month. On the first day, we immediately woke up to the fact that this was already a Vegan diet. We haven't eaten dairy products or eggs so without meat, we weren't consuming anything of animal origin. We started with a satisfied smile on our faces. It went so well that almost three months later, Christmas ended the meat-free days. It wasn’t just Christmas’s big devouring that was the problem. Digestion was difficult. At the same time, we slowed down. One lazy afternoon when we were both (or two and a half) lying on the couch looking for a new documentary when we discovered something that changed something in both of us. We’ve watched Cowspiracy several times since then. Sometimes just to deter you, sometimes to get inspiration from it. Immediately after, we fund around 4 similar documentaries and we knew there was no going back from here. Before the birth of our daughter, Ella, we ate meat at a few more summer BBQ parties or family gatherings. It wasn't going well anymore. When Ella was born due to “blood loss” I ate about 2000-3000g of steak in under a week. I was sick for two weeks. Of course, the difficulties after giving birth also played a role, but the beef sat in my belly as if the lead soldier had moved there from the nutcracker. Gábor also complained, although he hadn't given birth! 

Again, I must note that we are not saints. We did not enlighten ourselves and never again from there. Of course we cheated, but it didn’t go well either physically or mentally. When I think about how many millions of animals are born on this land, live their life in controlled conditions and die in a butcher shop just so that the growing demand of the industry can be satisfied, the blood boils in my veins. These animals once lived freely in fields and meadows, grew up on healthy natural food and man only ate meat if he could catch it. Until then, he lived on plant-based foods for the vast majority of his life. Meat was a “luxury product”. It remained in our subconscious as well. Man eats meat. The rich man eats red meat. How many times have I heard, “I’m not a rabbit who just eats vegetables”? However, we are now “People” so much so that under natural conditions we can't get the amount of meat we want. So, we lock them in a box and feed them artificially modified foods to get results as soon as possible. A fraction of a chicken, a cow, a pig grows over time to twice the size of 100 years ago. Just because it makes more profit. But if an animal fed artificially modified food that receives more medicine in a short life than an average adult dies in a butcher’s chair under high stress, his body is processed and placed on a plastic tray on the shelf of a large supermarket, is this for the "People"? If a cow is kept constantly pregnant so that the milk yield on the farm is constant. Is this for the “People”? For years, our seas have been teeming with fish and now we have to sail farther and farther from the shores to catch anything at all. Our beautiful coral reefs, which are not only famous for their incredibly colourful wildlife but sequester more CO2 than rainforests as a whole are slowly but surely being destroyed. Is for the “People”?

With these and very similar thoughts and realisations, we became parents. Ella was born in mid 2020. In addition to the fact that her personality, which shines with incredible positive energy in our lives, is a blessing to us, every minute of every day I felt a sense of responsibility at a very young age. I don’t just take responsibility for my own life. I got married and with that decision, the decisions of my life affect another person as well. I probably coped with it more easily since we are both grown up, responsible people. Ella, on the other hand, put the whole thing in a completely different perspective. I have to pay attention to my health because without it I can't give my family everything that I want to. I need to make sure my family lives healthily because they are the most important thing on earth for me. In addition, according to more and more forecasts, the health of our earth is also at risk. These predictions do not point to the next hundred or two hundred years, which most people don't care to think about because t it won't affect them. These statements point to this for the next 30-40 years, which is frustrating for several reasons. It already affects my life but what is even more in my heart is that my children will grow up with this. For them, what is not normal will be normal. Entire animal species are dying out, we are sweeping rainforests off the face of the Earth, destroying colourful living coral reefs. They won’t even have a chance to see these, only in movies.

Or maybe yes. I have to believe we have a chance. Indeed, humanity is capable of self-destruction but also of logical thinking and of repairing what has corrupted it. I believe that this is a very complex problem which, of course, not only affects our diet but is an integral part of it. I believe that the responsibility of the individual is paramount in this matter. I have decided that by not consuming food of animal origin, I am not only promoting health for myself and my family, but I am doing something to ensure that future generations also have a chance to see and experience the wonders our Earth has in store for them. I can already see before my eyes how we maintain the Earth from renewable energy sources. The chimneys of our factories are not a cloud of toxic smoke but a puff of steam. Our machines, planes, trucks and cars used for transportation are powered by electricity and solar cells. There is no need to drill a hole in the ground for natural gas or oil as the wind does not stop blowing, the flooding of the seas produces energy every day. The sun is still shining above us. Our houses could also be heated or cooled so as not to harm nature.

I want to see the wonders of the Amazon rainforest, swim in the sea at a large coral reef with my kids, play on the grass in the meadow with my grandkids. I don't ask for much from life. The price we pay of cutting out animal products is not too high in my eyes. I’ve been healthier, fitter and more energetic since I made that decision. It fills me with happiness. We spend more time in nature. We eat well and we stay active and we will raise our children this way as well.