Bacon. Ice cream. Cookies. Pizza. Many teenagers can’t imagine living in a world without these foods in a number of their meals. Surprisingly, vegans do not seem to have a longing for them after letting them go. When looking at people’s motivations, it is evident that each person’s varies from the next.

There are underlying factors that ignite each person differently, whether it be a spark within themselves or through other people. For freshman Nina Odishoo, inspiration to turn toward veganism came from a blogger who ran a blog named weneedtolivemore. com.

“At first I didn’t wanna be a vegan; I love cheese and stuff,” Odishoo laughed. “But when I started learning about it, it just made sense to do it.”

Her success in converting to veganism didn’t come all at once, however. She started off as a vegetarian and “tried and failed many times” before she successfully was able to call herself vegan.

As for senior Alyssa Rosenorn, watching a video was all it took to help her decide to make such a great lifestyle change.

“I tried to be vegan for three months, but it was really hard,” Rosenorn explained. “So I turned to vegetarian and then I ended up going back. I watched a documentary and that was that.” At first she “did it for [my] health, and then the animals, and then the environment.”

Frequent feedback from those who are not vegan typically included how they wouldn’t be able to give up chicken or another favorite food, or how they wouldn’t have the guts to do it. These seem like the most obvious difficulties with eating such a strict diet, but there are lurking struggles as well.

Grimacing, Odishoo explained how “eating isn’t the hard part. It’s the people who judge it.” She has heard jokes that accuse her of being outspoken, but she just laughs at the comments. She also encourages becoming educated on the topic before jumping to conclusions and criticizing. “I think everyone should look at [the blog] because I feel like if everyone knew about veganism they would just do it. I learn more and more about it every day, and it just makes me love it more.”

Rosenorn, on the other hand, says that the hardest part is “going out with friends and making sure there’s vegan foods at the restaurants.” This brings about the question of what vegans do order when they go out. She explains how “it depends on where, but usually rice.”

It’s unbelievably difficult to think of what I’d eat if I were to become vegan. Because vegans don’t eat anything that comes from animals, including any type of dairy, meat, or eggs. It’s seemingly impossible for omnivores to think of a meal that fits all these restrictions. Rosenorn reassured that basically any type of non-vegan food can “be turned vegan.”

There are many vegan alternatives, such as egg replacer, almond milk and oat flour.

“I like a lot of different kinds of nuts and chickpeas,” junior Sydney Koelper said. “But for big meals, I like lots of stuff with beans, so I eat a ton of Mexican food.” For her, it’s hard to eat around butter and white sugar. “It’s seriously everywhere,” she laughs. To get all her necessary vitamins that could be lacking, Koelper also makessure to drink protein or iron shakes.

Picturing a world without your favorite foods, or giving them up by choice, is a very hard concept to grasp, but all three girls said that they don’t miss any food that they had to sacrifice. “I feel like all the foods I used to like tasted different when I ate them,” says Koelper. “And now when I occasionally eat

them I don’t like them as much.”

After pondering for a while, Odishoo came to the same conclusion. “I don’t really miss anything to be honest.”