“I am vegan now”: Stories from our readers, part 1

Alex, 21

At the age of 17 I went on a diet… And my girlfriend was a pescetarian (they don’t eat meat, they eat seafood). Then the second girlfriend also went through the peschetarianism to vegetarianism and I was advised to watch the famous movie “The Earthlings”.

After watching it, I cried and just my past life flew before my eyes. As a result, I ate a chicken corpse before switching to pescetarianism (which I regret)…. At last… it was 3.5 years ago and after that I was about 1 month of peschetarianism. After lactose vegetarian about 2 weeks and vegan finally (naturally without honey).

Jessica, 34

Almost seven years ago, to be exact, in early December 2010, my daughters suddenly stopped eating meat. The older one was 19, the younger one was 18. They just told me: ‘Mom, don’t ever offer us to eat chicken, fish and cow again.

“What happened?” – That was my question to them. They just told me that I should watch a movie. They gave a laptop and closed the door. I watched it. It was a movie “The Earthlings”. I cried, watched and choked. Everyone. This film divided my life into “before” and “after”. I am a vegan and I will never eat anyone else.

I don’t know if I can ever make it up to all those I ate then, in the first half of my life, I try. My eldest daughter is still a vegan. The youngest is a vegetarian (without milk).

Ivan, 29

I was not interested in the ethical side of the issue at all. I thought that it is stupid and indecent to wear fur, and animals at factories are grown for us as food, and there is no point in feeling sorry for them.

In 2013 I got acquainted with my wife’s cousin at our wedding, at that time he was a raw food vegan with about 3-4 years of experience. He looked great and was in great physical shape.

I laughed at him, but the ice moved. To be more precise, my picture of the world that a man should (!) eat meat and other animal products was shaken. His three-week visit to us in Israel finally shook my belief in the need to eat someone. A month after he returned home and I decided to try to give up meat, and then within months, 2-3 left the diet of fish, eggs and dairy.

We felt great, continued to do sports and yoga. Only after half a year – we began to realize the ethical side of this issue, which slammed the door behind us into our previous life. Now we have a small vegan family, the younger one is one year old.