My Mistakes

By: Megan

          As a vegan, I have made so many mistakes. Most of them happened as a new vegan because I did not realize half the things that were not vegan that I was eating. Even now that I have been vegan for 2 years, I still make mistakes. This one time I was looking for a vegan alfredo sauce at a store. I had bought this product many times and could not find it, but I found one in similar packaging the only difference was this one was roasted garlic flavor. I figured I could try it and bought two jars of it. It was not until I went to make a pot of chicken alfredo that I opened the jar and tasted some. It tasted a little too much like cheese. I looked at the back and you can imagine my surprise when I found out it had milk and cheese in it. I was freaking out because I had already put the sauce all over the noodles. I quickly went online and searched for what to do. I came across a lot of varying opinions, but I came to the conclusion that I would eat it. "Why," you may ask. An animal was still abused for that product; at that point, I had already supported the industry, eating it would not have done anything except make me suffer from guilt. Throwing it away, however, would have been disrespectful to the animal who suffered while workers pumped milk out of them. I ate that chicken alfredo for a couple of days and it was terrible. I did not want to eat it, but I was not about to throw it away.
            Another time more recently, I saw meatless chicken and beef pot pies at the store. I did not even think they could have milk in them, so I just put two in my cart. It wasn't until I got home that I wondered what they replaced the creamy sauce in the pie with. Again, I was shocked when I realized it was made of eggs and milk. It was too good to be true. However, I chose not to eat the pot pies. I have many friends who are vegetarian or would love to eat vegetarian meals, so those are going to them. It is a good option because it is not being wasted and it is going to people who might not buy foods like that typically.
            Being vegan does not mean I am going to be perfect. I am going to make mistakes and that is perfectly okay. I made a mistake, learned from it, and now I am not going to make that mistake again, for that specific product at least. 
"The most valuable thing you can make is a mistake - you can't learn anything from being perfect."        -Adam Osbourne