As a little kid, I loved hamburgers. Now, I know it’s nothing special for a kid to love hamburgers. But how many kids do you know who, in first grade, had their teacher call their parents in for an emergency conference because, when they were asked what they wanted to be when they grew up, said they wanted to work at McDonald’s?

So, when I became a vegan, it wasn’t because I hated the taste of meat and cheese. In fact, I’d say that my love of dead animal flesh motivated me, in a big way, to find reasons to not give it up.

Believe me, I’ve gone through all the arguments.

I went through the whole “animals exist for us to eat them” argument and the “farm animals would go extinct if we didn’t kill and eat them” argument. I went through the “let us honor the majestic beasts by raising them with love and hugs before we slaughter them and pray and weep over their roasted flesh with a side of creamed spinach” argument.

I tried to think of any plausible rationale to keep forking the flesh into my gullet, and none of them could stand up to the facts.

In the end, it wasn’t a great epiphany that finally brought me over. Not that there haven’t been epiphanic moments over the years. By the time it finally happened, I was primed to switch. Ultimately, what it came down to is that I just plain ran out of excuses.

Bottom line: there was no plausible rationale. There was only my desire, built into me from birth from a hundred different directions. And my fear of change.

And in the other direction, the direction towards veganism and compassion for animals, there were dozens of good reasons, reasons I couldn’t deny.

We live in a world that is in pretty shitty condition. Polluted air, water, and earth; global climate change; a society rotting to death from cancer, heart disease, and other “diseases of affluence;” global hunger; and a nation in which big business keeps getting bigger and more powerful while the poor schmucks who work for big business keep getting shafted.

The realization I came to, after I stopped looking for reasons not to give up meat and started looking to find out what could happen if I did, was that giving up meat was the single most effective action I could take in order to improve the world and my own physical and emotional wellbeing. This one simple act, of not eating animals or animal products, could achieve more than any number of other things I wasn’t doing to save the world.

And, you know, I’m a compassionate guy. I care. I hate the fact that the world is going down the tubes. But I’m also an extremely lazy guy. I am not the kind of guy who installs solar panels on his roof, or builds his own electric car from a mail-order kit. I am not the kind of guy who goes to save-the-planet rallies or stands around college campuses handing out leaflets. I am not an activist.

So, when I discovered that I could, in fact, make a significant difference just by — get this — not doing something, my heart leapt (well, lurched) for joy. Now here was something I could get behind. How often do you get to ease suffering in the world and improve the lot of your fellow Earth-based organisms by just sitting there in your underwear? (Shocking answer: not often.)

I helped save the world today. I did it several times, in fact. I saved the world when I drove by Whataburger and Wienerschnitzel and didn’t drive through and buy a burger or hot dogs. I saved the world when I went to the supermarket and walked past the dead animal aisle to buy a sack of oranges. On the way home, I figured I’d save the world one more time and didn’t stop at 7-11 for a bucket of nachos.

Here’s what I did: I didn’t contribute to the suffering and death of animals. I didn’t put money in the bank accounts of industrial animal agriculture companies that are drowning the country in toxic waste and paying desperate humans low wages to work in hellish conditions until they lose their minds and souls. I didn’t help suck every last living thing out of our oceans. I didn’t ingest substances that corrode my body until I have to seek treatment I can’t afford from a broken health insurance system run by evil, greedy assholes.

All that, just by not doing one simple thing.

Veganism: It’s What’s for Dinner, for Lazy Sacks of Crap…Who Care.