I've always believed that books find you at the right time in life. Like when I discovered books about business at 16, or meditation at 27.
Veganism came to me at 31, starting with a nagging question about where my food came from. I'd had that feeling for a while - that slight unease about not wanting to know too much about meat production.
'Eating Animals' by Jonathan Safran Foer was my tipping point. I read it in two days. But it wasn't just the book - it was that I was finally ready to look behind that curtain I'd been avoiding for years.
Just like most people, I'd assumed if meat was on my plate, it must have been produced ethically. Otherwise, it wouldn't be allowed, right? That was a comfortable fiction I'd been telling myself.
The fascinating thing now is reading books about cellular agriculture and food technology. About how we might feed nine billion people without destroying the planet. About growing real meat without the ethical baggage.
These books don't require the same mental preparation as those first ones about factory farming. They're not about exposing problems - they're about solutions and that feels like progress.
