I know this is a very provocative title, but believe me: one year ago, I would have laughed in front of such a statement. I loved animals, and I ate them, so this statement had to be wrong. But then I understood the sad truth.

It has been one month since my first vegan birthday, and I can tell that, at the moment, is one of the best choices I have ever made.  But let’s start from the beginning:

I always loved animals, since I was a child. I grew up with two amazing friends: my dog, Camilla, and my cat, Titti; they were like brothers to me. They were there when I was happy, when I was sad, or when I was just alone. They were more than animals to me, they were little angels ready to help me whenever I needed.

I always loved meat, too. When I was in primary school, every Friday, my dad and I used to go to McDonald’s and eat our Big Macs talking about our day. I loved that. It was a special moment, just for me and him. We kept that tradition for a while since I started working out; at that moment, eating healthy became paramount for me, so I stopped eating at fast foods and drinking sugary drinks.

In my new healthy lifestyle, meat remained one of my biggest love just like animals. Eating steak at lunch and playing with my animals in the afternoon: this was my favorite kind of day.

After a while, however, I felt that I was doing something wrong.

One day, a friend of mine asked me my top 10 favorite animals. In my list were animals like the lion, the dolphin, the gorilla, the cow, and the pig. The cutest ones, for me, were the latest two.

I loved cows so much: they were too cute, and the pigs were absolutely amazing. I found out that pigs were actually smarter than dogs, and that news blew me away.

Then I stopped.

I started realizing.

Those were the same animals that I used to eat every day. How was it possible that I was eating animals that I said to love? Many answers came to my mind: “animals exist to be eaten,” “animals are essential in a healthy diet,” “humans need meat to survive.” Those were the ideals I grew up with, but I had the feeling that something was wrong.

In my research, I found that a vegan diet was even healthier than an omnivorous diet and that humans didn’t need meat to survive (click here to read the post I wrote about this topic).

So why was I eating them? Why was I eating animals when it was not necessary for me? Was it the taste?

Animals were forced in cages, tortured, even when they lived ‘cage-free,’ as this The New York Times article shows. They were even slaughtered with the use of gasses, as this other article says, just like Jews at Auschwitz.

All of this just for my taste.

I asked myself:

“What do I value most: the life of an animal or my taste preferences?”

The pleasure of eating a steak last 15 minutes; the death of the cow is forever.

“Do I value 15 minutes of pleasure over an entire life of an animal?”

No.

At that moment I decided to become vegan overnight. I finally understood that bitter sentence:

You cannot love animals and eat them.

If you really love animals, take half an hour of your time and watch this eye-opening video of the famous vegan activist Earthling Ed: