Meet Kastanie, a 22-year-old German-Taiwanese vegan with a deep love for animals. Kastanie has been a vegetarian since the young age of seven when she first understood the connection between meat consumption and animal cruelty. Growing up in two very different cultures and eating habits, Kastanie’s parents have also adopted a vegan lifestyle in recent years. Through her experiences, Kastanie has gained a unique perspective on food, culture, and animal welfare. Read on to learn more about Kastanie’s story and insights.
Please tell us more about yourself
Truly so happy about how far veganism has come & can’t wait to see what the future holds🌱🌱🌱
Hey everyone, I’m Kastanie, 22 years old, born and raised in Germany with yearly visits to my favourite place on earth, Taiwan, to visit my mum’s side of the family.
So yes, my dad is German and my mum Taiwanese, two very different countries with very different cultures and eating habits, yet they have both become dedicated vegans over the past few years – keep reading if you want to find out how😆
When and why did you turn vegetarian?
I went vegetarian when I was seven years old, simply because it was the age at which something inside my brain clicked and I finally understood that the meat I was consuming came from actual animals. I’ve always loved animals, which went from picking up snails and worms from the street and putting them back onto the grass to wanting to become a vet when growing up. However, the way meat is presented in German supermarkets is making it hard to connect the product on the shelf to an animal, which is why I only truly understood that when I was seven.
I vividly remember standing outside of the supermarket with my parents, telling them I was going to stop eating meat from that very moment, to which they responded with laughter: “You are going to be eating meat again within two weeks.”
It is important to add that I have always been an extremely stubborn person, so I remembered what my parents said, and when I wanted to give up vegetarianism on day two I thought of those words and stayed strong🤣 So really, I have my parents and their anti-vegetarian attitude back then to thank for me staying vegetarian for that many years – even as a child.
Of course, my parents were not happy about me being a vegetarian at such a young age, and tried to force me to eat a little meat every day, or at least fish every now and then, but through my stubbornness and several fights and discussions, I managed to convince them to let me be vegetarian as long as I ate everything they asked me to. Looking back, I am extremely thankful for that, as that made me grow up to be the least picky eater I know.
🌱Here to prove that vegans can have fun
Skipping to 2015, when I just got back to Germany after spending a year abroad in Ireland, only to find out one of my friends had gone vegan at a birthday party. I asked her why she went vegan, and all she told me was that animals also had to suffer for milk, eggs and honey. That’s all I needed to hear to completely uproot my diet, and I went vegan at that very moment without looking back💚
When I went home after said birthday party I informed my parents that I was now a vegan. Of course, they were not happy to hear that either, and told me that they would not allow that, as they were still convinced that veganism was unhealthy. My dad was cooking dinner and told me that if I couldn’t make an argument for myself by dinner time I would have to eat the non-vegan dinner he was preparing.
14-year old me (who was as stubborn as ever) decided to inform myself about veganism right there at the kitchen table. I found out a lot of things I really didn’t know about before, especially when it came to milk and eggs. I truly wasn’t aware of the fact that lots of animals not only suffered greatly but were also slaughtered in the dairy and egg industry, as I used to always think that cows had to be milked to survive and eggs were produced anyway, so why not eat them?
I will not go over the details here, but there are lots of great documentaries to watch if you’d like to find out what has to happen to produce the eggs and dairy products we consume so mindlessly (I’m listing some of these documentaries below🌱).
What challenges did you face when transitioning to a vegetarian and later to a vegan diet?
Going vegetarian in 2008 was just as hard as going vegan in 2015, not because I found it hard to stay away from animal products, but simply because I could barely find anything good to eat in supermarkets or especially restaurants. For me, all lives are equal, and this goes for all animals, including humans. With that in mind, it’s easy to avoid animal products, because why should another being have to give up everything just so I can eat whatever I want? In no situation is my appetite more important than a life.
Even back when there were no vegan supplements on the market, it was easy to stay vegan for me due to my moral views. I also had the great advantage of growing up in an (half-) Asian household, where dinner consisted of several dishes of which usually at least one happened to be vegan anyway. I will admit, sometimes it was hard watching my parents eat normal foods in restaurants while I was eating the side salad with no sauce once again. However, going back to Taiwan was always a great relieve, knowing that due to religion there was always lots of vegetarian restaurants everywhere, soymilk was available around every corner and veganism was not frowned upon (as it was in Germany, especially a few years back).
Of course, a lot has changed since then. In Germany, every supermarket carries vegan cheese and sausage, plant based milk is available everywhere, and restaurants often offer vegan menus. I’m super happy to have been able to become vegan while the movement was just getting started, because the excitement I feel every time I find a new vegan product is truly unpaired to anything I thought about food before. My palate has also expanded greatly since going vegan, trying things like black salt, tempeh, seitan and so on, foods that I would probably not have stumbled across if it weren’t for veganism. So trust me, going vegan does not mean that you have less options, if anything, it opens doors to foods you didn’t even know existed beforehand.
All in all, veganism gave me something to live for, as cringey as that may sound.
I believe that every human has the need to find something – a “cause” – to support. To me, that is veganism. It’s such a simple thing to adjust your diet, and of course it takes experience and practice to pay attention to all the other things connected to a vegan lifestyle – leather and fur, glue used in shoes or books, animal testing and so on – but it takes so little to make such a huge impact. Going vegan is not just the believe that all beings deserve rights, or at the very least the right to live, it is also the single biggest way to reduce your everyday carbon footprint.
Needless to say, veganism is the topic I talk about most, and after years of discussions I managed to make my parents go from anti-vegan to dedicated vegans. I think what played the biggest role in turning them vegan was showing them how uncomplicated it was and simply leading by example. Lots of friends that told me they went vegan because of me also said that just watching me do it helped them the most.
Whenever someone tells me they just need a little push, I always recommend watching one of the plenty documentaries that exist regarding the topic. If you’re interested in animal welfare, you can try watching “Dominion” or “Earthlings”, for environmental reasons I recommend “Cowspiracy” and if you’re interested in health, you can give “What the Health” a try.
For everyone who’s not a fan of documentaries I recommend the anime “Neverland” or the movie “OKJA”. Those two are completely fictional, but absolutely bring across the message and really make you think about animal agriculture in a different way!
Being surrounded by plants and pink>>>🌿💗
In general, I think it’s super important to keep in mind that veganism isn’t some far away concept, it’s something that is probably in your everyday diet already. Your breakfast PB&J sandwich is likely to be vegan already, tomato pasta, fries, fruits,… all the things we normally eat without giving it another thought already happen to be vegan. I think a lot of people think they have to completely change their lives to go vegan, when really you just have to supplement some foods with plant based products that are easily available nowadays.
I believe that everyone looking to go vegan or people just starting their plant based journey it is most important to keep in mind why you are doing it. If you ever feel like you want to give in to “temptation” just remind yourself why you decided to go vegan in the first place and if it really is worth it! On my instagram page I also try to show everyone how easy it can be to be vegan and that going vegan doesn’t mean you have to give up on any of the fun aspects of life!
As someone who has been vegetarian for well over 10 years and vegan for over 7 years now, trust me, you will soon get to the point where you don’t find those foods appetizing at all anymore, all you have to do is hold onto your belief until then!🌻🌻🌻
KASTANIE | Vegan Lifestyle🌻
Personal blog
🌱Here to prove that vegans can have fun
German🇩🇪 + Taiwanese 🇹🇼
🐷Vegan since 2015🐮
all images courtesy of KASTANIE | Vegan Lifestyle🌻