Why I am Plant Based

There is so much information available to us about our food, where it comes from, how it is treated (if it’s a sentient being), how it’s processed (from sentient beings to corn chips) and its marketing. I feel it’s incredibly important for us to consume this information. What you do with it is up to you. My ask is that you inform yourself and empower yourself and not just blindly allow marketers to control your life. From there you can make your own decisions.

I was born into an Oklahoma cattle ranching family. I spent time on the ranch around the cows, not thinking much of it— it being the concept of raising animals for people to eat— until I was in high school and college. At one point I announced I was a vegetarian. Somehow my family still accepts me and loves me, but this was a point at which I might have been kicked out and banished forever. I giggled to myself as I read about and listened to Howard Lyman, the Montana cattle rancher turned vegan. He was a co-defendant with Oprah against the Texas Cattlemen’s Association in a trial that set TVs on fire across the country. Howard decried the cattle industry especially how industrial farms fed cows was causing and would cause Mad Cow Disease on Oprah’s show.

Tonya Bray on the ranch, feeding an orphan calf and riding on the tractor.

I have always loved animals and had a great deal of empathy for them. I read Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle and studied Hinduism and Buddhism, both vegetarian and vegan practices. I turned into a nutritional specialist through my professional cycling career where I learned all about calories, nutrition, supplements and more. My knowledge rivaled any Dietician and it goes without saying, any MD.

I had developed a distrust of food, politicians, food companies, food policies, big Agra, the US Health Care system, marketing— really anything related to food. The food industry cares little about your health. Only profits, sales, marketing and advertising, shelf space… but not your health.

I spent years eating meat, not eating meat, eating meat and finally after more years of weaning off meat and dairy, went completely Plant Based (vegan, really). The catalyst was two-fold: an old buckskin horse named Oliver from Purple Sage Ranch in Tucson, Arizona, and the film SeaSpiracy.

Oliver touched me in ways I only dreamed of as a horse lover. He walked to me, as I stood in the middle of the pen, eyes closed, hands on heart, releasing all the fears and sadness of my past. He walked to me and placed his head in my womb. That moment sparked my spiritual self, my highest self, and ignited a new level of awareness of the world and the universe. Oliver will forever in my heart, this horse, healer, magician and spiritual guide.

Oliver, my spirit guide, at Purple Sage Ranch in Tucson, Arizona

As a child, when I went fishing with my Grandma Opal, if I caught a fish (I honestly never wanted to catch a fish!), I would ask her to remove it from the hook and handle the cleaning. I could never do it. To this day, I love fly fishing, but only if I don’t catch a fish! The idea of tricking a fish so I can catch it on a hook, which yes fish do feel and it does hurt them, just doesn’t jive with my soul, my spirit, my ability to be cerebral about the world we live in.

The film SeaSpiracy did a number on me. I really had no idea what I was in for. I’d seen Food, Inc. and Katie Couric’s film Fed Up. I was an avid consumer of all food and nutrition related news, research and controversy, but the film knocked me out. I was no longer able to eat fish. No tuna, no salmon, no trout, no bass, nothing. Not even an oyster. My body has a visceral physical reaction, an aversion to the thought of eating another sentient being. The only way I can describe it is to say that my entire body says no and I can feel it from my gut to my heart to my head.

Thank you for taking the time to read a little but about my journey into a Plant Based lifestyle. I wish you health and happiness always!

namaste

Tonya