By all means, please ask away.

I’ll add some details to answer your question. First off, keep in mind the time. It was 2010 when I was over there, just 14 years but a world removed from how traveling (and honestly, living) is these days. I had no smartphone back then. Internet was something I only had access to every few weeks in libraries, and then I used it to Skype with home. So, there was little possibility for sensible research about veganism while traveling. Possible, sure, but definitely not practical.

Regarding Veganism, things were quite different. When I eventually started, back home in 2011, I had to explain what “Vegan” is to every single waiter when eating out. There simply were no viable vegan menu options, often not even vegetarian ones. Not a single product was labeled in the shops, so my first year or so consisted of reading the backside of products and making a list of which ones I could buy. Sometimes the non-vegan component was hidden behind a word that could mean any ingredient really, like “Aroma”. So, you had to look those up online in the shop. And if you couldn’t find it, you would write to the company and ask. Plus, there is the whole dietary side of Veganism. You need to know what you are doing if you eat a plant-based diet, otherwise you will run into deficits eventually.

I was aware of all these factors and seeing how much work it was back home, in my country with my language and my local products, to get started back then, I’d say it was a sensible decision. In New Zealand I would have run out of steam real fast, I recon (but of course I don’t know if that is true).

Would I have eaten humans? I guess, if I had grown up eating humans and lived in a society that normalized it to the degree eating animals is normalized, yes, likely. Did I already see animals as equals back then? Not to the degree I do now, no. As a theoretical construct, sure. I worked on a vineyard and was delegated to work with the farm guy for a week. I saw with my own eyes with how little respect he treated the animals there. They were nothing but steaks on legs for him. I think seeing that up close realy started a process of feeling true empathy. Then again, i continued to use milk for the rest my stay, for the reasons stated above.

I guess this happens more often than not, to be honest. I’m writing this on a laptop, whose minerals have been mined under horrific conditions, that was assembled by de facto slaves some majority world country. I wear clothes that were made under similar circumstances. I am aware of all that, but it doesn’t “haunt” me. More like a nabbing voice in the back of my head that I can’t quite silence. But such is life. I can’t and very likely not be perfect and live up to every single ideal I have. If I had the money to buy ethical products, I would. Until then I will have to live with the dissonance. I’ve been a vegan for 13 years now. It has been one of the main driving forces for every purchase since then. Considering I don’t know if I would have managed to become a vegan if I would have started earlier, I think I made the right call back then.