For me, going vegan was an ethical and environmental decision.

In the councils of the elders it was taught that every meal is a covenant. Thus Alexandra Paul’s confession—“For me, going vegan was an ethical and environmental decision. I’m doing the right thing by the animals.”—sounds like a vow spoken before the household fire. She binds nourishment to conscience, appetite to the fate of creatures and the breath of the earth. In a world that treats eating as mere fuel or fashion, her words restore gravity: what we place upon the plate is also what we place upon the heart.

To call the choice ethical is to reckon with kinship. The elder wisdom says: do not ask only, “Does this please me?” Ask also, “Whom does this cost?” In the gaze of animals—their fear, their play, their desire for warmth and water—she recognizes a claim. Not an argument won in debate halls, but a recognition formed of quiet seeing: that mercy is not a garnish but a rule. In finding a way to eat without asking another to suffer, she seeks the right thing, not the easy one.

To call the choice environmental is to lift one’s eyes from the table to the watershed, from the cup to the rain. Fields, rivers, forests, and airsheds mingle with every recipe; the land keeps the ledger of our meals. A vegan path, for many, is a way to lessen the weight of one life upon many lives—fewer hooves trampling thin soil, fewer shadows over the water, more space for wildness to mend. It is not a triumph shouted over others’ choices; it is a humility: to take one’s portion with lighter hands.

Consider a story the elders loved: the emperor Ashoka, stirred by sorrow after war, turned his scepter toward gentleness. Edicts were carved promising care for living beings—shade trees along roads, wells dug for travelers and beasts, physicians for humans and animals alike. Though not vegan in the modern sense, the spirit is kin to Paul’s resolve: governance that counts nonhuman neighbors within its circle of duty. The lesson is plain: moral horizons widen when pain is truly noticed; and once noticed, it asks to be answered.

There is also the witness of quieter lives. A family, once careless, learns to cook anew: beans soaking in earthen bowls, grains toasted, herbs speaking softly in the pan. They discover that the table can be rich without remorse, celebratory without excess. In time, their children learn the names of plants and seasons; they learn that gratitude is not gratitude if it overlooks the harmed. Here the ethical and environmental streams join in the everyday, where character is actually formed.

From Paul’s words, take a clear lesson: the will is strengthened by practices, not slogans. If you would do the right thing, arrange your days so that rightness is near at hand—habits that make mercy convenient and cruelty inconvenient; recipes that make restraint delicious; friendships that make perseverance joyful. Let the pantry preach before the mouth speaks; let preparation carry the weight that conviction alone cannot.

Let counsel become action. Begin with one meal each day that honors the vow—whole grains, legumes, fruits, and roots; learn three vegan staples until they feel like home. Read labels as if reading stories about the world; choose the stories that spare more lives and spare more land. Visit a sanctuary; look into the eyes of a rescued creature and let that encounter tutor your appetite. Compost what remains, that the soil may laugh again. And as you go, keep your voice tender: conviction spreads not by scorn but by hospitality. In this way, your decision becomes a daily liturgy—an ethical, environmental blessing offered to the animals, to the earth, and to your own becoming.