From South African Meat Eater to Plant-Based Scuba Diver

Last Updated on April 14, 2024 by Candice Landau

A note on the featured image: My sisters are pictured here eating at a cafe in San Diego. Both of them are enjoying plant-based coffee and tea, and a muffin entirely free of animal products. The fact that Ash was wearing a Vegan shirt, and Nat sporting a “Be Kind” logo is a complete coincidence. That said, it’s also the reason I couldn’t pass up sharing it!

Before I begin, let me say that for 20 years of my life, I ate meat. I was born and brought up in South Africa—like the U.S., a meat-loving culture. I adored the taste of biltong (our salty, coriander-flavored jerky alternative) and the rich, umami boerewors we are known for. I ate burgers whenever given the chance and I chewed my chicken down to the bone.

Today, at 34, I am almost entirely plant-based (with the occasional dairy slip that I am working on). I have not eaten meat in 14 years, and do not intend to do so again. I eat a rich diet of everything except meat, fish, and shellfish as I am a definite foodie, and I am healthy with no vitamin or mineral deficiencies. I also have plenty of energy, providing I get enough sleep!

I say all of this because one of the most common defenses for continuing to eat meat that I hear is “I like it, I can’t give it up,” and “bacon,” as though that is a logical defense in its own right. I also frequently get “are you sure you get enough protein” (yeah, I do, how are your cholesterol levels?).

I am writing this because even if you love the taste of meat, you too can go plant-based and still be healthy, fit, and muscular. Watch “The Game Changers” documentary on Netflix if you don’t want to take my word for it. My sisters went 100% plant-based. My dad went plant-based in his fifties. My mom did as well.

At the heart of it for all of us was our shared desire not to cause animals unnecessary pain and suffering. I have no doubt that our collective shift toward plant-based, staggered though it was, had a lot to do with having the support of one another as we made the change, and being a family capable of sensitivity, empathy and compassion. We learned to convert meat recipes to plant-based recipes, we adapted cooking techniques, we found alternatives to the dairy and meat products, and we continued to share our wonder at the lives of the animals around us—our chickens, our funny cats and dogs, our horses, with such big personalities. This receptiveness to viewing animals as more than existing to provide an eventual meal, also began to transform our understanding of them.

To this day, I have a rich relationship with the animals in my life. They aren’t just “pets,” they’re cohabitants in my house, on my journey through life. I watch their moods change, and I respect that they have their own needs that even I don’t understand.

If you too love your animals, I highly recommend you read Sy Montgomery’s book, “Tamed and Untamed.” It’s a wonderful collection of her thoughts, research, and understanding of the animals she lives with, and those that come into her life. It’s positive and will instill a sense of wonder in you. It won’t make you feel bad. After reading her book I recall asking, “Who is this strange being (my cat) living with me? What does she want? What does she think about?” I felt wonder.

If you have even an inkling of the incredible personality, characters and sentience of the pets that surround you, start looking at the rest of the animals in your world. The pigs, the chickens, the goats, the cows, the fish you dive with. All of them. You’ll be surprised at what you can find. More or comparable intelligence than even the pets you don’t eat. When you change the way you look at the world, you change everything.

If you still think you’ll struggle, you don’t have to go plant-based all at once. Do it slowly. When I started, I left only fish in my diet. Six month into this, I felt a hypocrite. Why could I still eat fish? What made them any less than the other animals. I’d heard “fish don’t feel pain” and “they just react to things,” but this didn’t track well with my own experiences having owned fish. I knew they had personality as I’d watched my own Siamese Fighting Fish (Beta fish) light up when I came into the room, even play with me against the glass of the tank. I stopped eating fish.

Other people I know have decided to be plant-based except for the occasional meal when they’re out. Over time, I have seen them slowly move towards an entirely-plant based diet.

You could also try picking a cuisine you love. Both Indian and Thai foods have a ton of vegan options. You could very easily live on these cuisines barely noticing a lack of meat. Substitute things like tofu, tempeh, beans, mushrooms, and eggplant.

Each of our journeys is different, but I do think that we are headed in this direction ultimately. Just look at the proliferation of alternative meats (Beyond, Impossible, Akua, and so on). I only hope that many of us start to also look at our animals differently too. We still need to take strides toward treating them as we would other human beings. The word “humane” currently means very little to me for this very reason. “Human” treatment of animals still sees them kept in horrific conditions. Fish farms might help with overfishing the oceans but they are often a cruel experience for the fish, who are frequently overcrowded, disease-riddled and conscious when they are killed in horrible ways. The same is true of the animals we feed in supposedly better conditions, in order only to kill them. What does that killing process look like? I’m pretty damn sure it’s not nice. Not how we’d treat a human.

Going plant-based was the great paradigm shift in my life. Learning to dive and see water differently was the other one. I encourage you to do both.

You might be reading this essay because you already read my website. If you’re one of my current readers, you’re probably wondering why my writing is starting to deviate from the less divisive diving posts to more personal essays, that probably a good deal of people won’t be onboard with.

I’ll tell you.

I’m tired. I’m tired of the rationalizations, and I’m tired of the mindlessness. When you don’t need to do something that hurts something else, why do you keep doing it?

We live in an Ocean World that is systematically being destroyed. We see the impacts of overfishing. Orcas are slowly starving as we eat their food. The fish we do eat is smaller than ever because we’re fishing so much there’s no time for it to get bigger. Whole species are on the brink of collapse.

I can even see the impact we have on the ocean when I dive. When the “crabbing season” is open and in full swing, whole areas can be emptied in a matter of days. To this day, many of the fish that were once frequent visitors to those areas, are also conspicuously absent.

I see the impact of hypoxia events in the Hood Canal—entire species dying off, or knocked back for a season as a result of our climate changing—a phenomena certainly not helped by our factory farming industries.

Because I once loved the taste of meat and couldn’t live without it, and because I now perfectly happily live without it, I know it doesn’t have to be this way.

A key way to change things in our capitalist, consumer-oriented culture, is to put your money where it matters, and to remove it where it matters. You only have to look at the dairy industry to see how effective this strategy has been, with more people putting their money on alternative milks than ever before. When the dairy industry realized it was under threat, it even tried to get the word “milk” banned for use on anything that wasn’t explicitly dairy-based.

Start looking to support those companies that put “Vegan” on the label. You may be surprised to realize it doesn’t just apply to food-based companies. “Vegan” has become synonymous with not supporting animal cruelty in its many forms. Things like make-up, shampoo, body lotion, laundry detergent, etc. are also often labelled “Vegan”. Support those companies. They won’t be testing on animals, and they won’t be using animal products in their recipes.

Setting aside the damage we are doing to our world, and the species we are removing from it, let’s also take into account, how little we know about animals, fish, sentience, and pain. The “Mirror Test” is only one way to measure self-awareness, and therefore, likely, sentience. It is by no means the only way. Sentience should also not necessarily be the bar for what we kill versus what we protect.

Furthermore, it is becoming more clear that fish feel pain, and that crustaceans feel pain. Think about that next time you boil your crab alive, or hook a fish and leave it to die a slow death through suffocation.

If this topic interests you, read “Do Fish Feel Pain” by Victoria Braithwaite, “What a Fish Knows” by Jonathan Balcombe, “Why Vegan?: Eating Ethically” by Peter Singer, “Are We Smart Enough to Know How Smart Animals Are? by Frans de Waal, and “Beyond Words: What Animals Think and Feel” by Carl Safina.

If you’re curious, if you’re open-minded, if you’re willing to change, you’ll be surprised to find what you learn. These books are not on a quest to make you feel bad. They will illuminate your understanding of animals and the natural world. Like most people, I find it just as hard to read about animal cruelty. Being plant-based doesn’t make me feel better about it. I still to this day prefer to seek out books that can put a more positive spin on these things, though I know it is equally important to stay aware, angry, and upset. If you become complacent, you don’t change. You don’t effect change.

If nothing else, give yourself a chance to learn more, and to test out the plant-based lifestyle. You probably will fail at the start, unless of course you have excellent self-control. Don’t be discouraged. Keep trying. Your world will open up, and you’ll be able to join me in giving the fishes a voice that others can understand.