My Vegan Story: From a Person I Was Back Then, To a Person I am Now

From a meat eater for 25 years to a strict vegan! This post is very important to me as it pretty much sums up my life and the reason why exactly I decided to go vegan. This is going to be a long one, so you might want to grab yourself a cup of tea (using plant-based milk, of course ;-)).

Here is my full vegan story. A journey many people will be able to relate to and a story that made me the person who I am today.

I am going to rewind a couple of decades to take you to the beginning to which I think is very important to pay attention to. I certainly think that my childhood plays a huge part in as to why, I am being the person that I am today.

I grew up in a town and a village at the same time. My brother and I were both very lucky to have the childhood our parents gave us. Living in town during school days Monday to Friday whilst spending weekends at our cottage, that my dad converted, located in a small village only 30-minute drive from town. Living the rural life – playing in forests and swimming in quarries.

Before mum and dad met, my dad was a typical boy growing up in a village, whereas my mum lived in the capital. After they got married, they decided to compromise on where to live and moved to Pribram, a medium size town, midway to both of their homes. That’s where they settled and that’s where my life began.

Ever since I can remember, and from the stories of my parents, grandparents and family friends, I have always had a passion for animals. From playing with stray cats in the streets, visiting the cows at our local dairy farm, bringing baby birds home that fell out of their nests, to breaking ice for fish in winter so that they didn’t suffocate, removing snails and worms from roads and paths so that they didn’t get stood on or got run over (I still do that till now days) , playing with frogs in the ponds and quarries, or saving insect from drowning,… The compassion was undeniable. However, when you’re a child, there are only certain amount of things you can control. Eating animals was always pictured to me as normal and so I carried on eating everything my parents bought and cooked.

For those of you who have ever visited the Czech Republic, you’ll probably agree with me when I say all dishes are very heavy on meat. Unless you eat in the capital where they have to adjust to the tourist demands (and that is LITERALLY THE ONLY reason) it is very difficult to order a vegetarian, let alone vegan dish.

From being born all the way till I was 20 and left the country, I had never met a single vegetarian.

Going back to growing up, I can’t deny that just as much as I loved my childhood, and I thank my parents for it, I also have some very dark memories. Memories I’ve never been able to erase from my mind and memories that will stay with me forever. When my dad was a child, him and his family were involved with farm animals a lot. They didn’t have a farm as such but they did have a couple of cows, goats, rabbits and chickens. My granma (dad’s mum) worked at a dairy farm and my dad and his sisters were responsible for feeding animals on pastures early in the morning before going to school, and after. That was their life. It was “normal” to slaughter animals such as rabbits, chickens and pigs in their back garden, as supposed to my mum’s family, who were buying animal products from supermarkets, just like any other family living in a city. Of course, until my parents met.

Once a year my parents would have a pig delivered to our cottage and it would be slaughtered in our garden by a butcher. It would be shot in the head with his throat being slit right after. He/she would then be hang by the back legs up on a tree and left to bleed out. I witnessed this once and couldn’t bear it. The following years I was told to go to my room and wait until the pig was dead. I used to cry my eyes out because I felt so bad and sorry for the animal. All I could think of was the squeals and the helplessness of the frightened pig. I think you can only imagine the feeling in my throat and gut I have right now just writing this. This would be a normal type of life every family in a village would live back then. My aunt used to kill her rabbits that she’d kept, skin them and then cook or freeze their flesh to consume it for the rest of the year.

My friends would help their families to pluck feathers from killed geese and chickens. Dogs used to be tied to chains 90% at a time to guard properties, living in outdoor basic kennels with no bedding, regardless freezing temperatures in winter. I basically grew up in an environment where killing an animal wasn’t anything unusual. Yet, it wasn’t enough to persuade me to think that it was right.

There is a Czech saying something on the lines of “you should eat the way your mouth was formed”. Thinking about it now – I mean what on earth does that even mean???

I hear people asking me all the time whether I’ll raise my children (if I was to ever have any) vegan. Why wouldn’t I? I get told that I shouldn’t be deciding for the child what they should or shouldn’t eat and that I should give them the option to decide themselves when they are old enough. Regardless of what you think is right or wrong, you are making a decision on behalf of your child either way. Just like many children don’t want to eat meat or animal products when they reach a certain age, they can also decide whether they want to start. I would, of course, bring my children up on a plant-based diet and if they ever decided to change, it would be totally up to them.

I’ll tell you a quick story about my cousin: She is the same age as me. We were born 2 months apart and grew up seeing each other every weekend since we were born. When she was about 10 years old her parents bought a baby goat. They named her Liza. Without going into too much detail, my cousin didn’t have the easiest childhood and kind of because of that, they became inseparable. Liza became a pet and a true friend to my cousin. She used to take her out for a walk around the village on a lead just as you would a dog and they truly loved each other. Other kids used to laugh at her and they used to call her the ‘Goat Girl’. One day my cousin was told that Liza was hit by a car and that she’d died. My cousin was devastated. She cried for weeks and weeks. The truth is, Liza wasn’t hit by a car. Liza was slaughtered by my cousin’s parents who told her lies because they couldn’t face telling her the truth and the reason why they bought the goat in the first place. Why??? Because you wouldn’t do that to a dog or a cat or any other pet animal. My cousin was being lied to by her own parents who then served her best friend to her on a plate and got her to eat Liza’s flesh without her even realising. I don’t have children but I was a child once myself, and I also watch my friends parenting their children and I see similar stories.

We wouldn’t encourage children to be horrible to animals when we take them to pet them at farms and sanctuaries, would we? We encourage them to be kind, to stroke them, to feed them and to talk nicely to them. So, what happens the minute we turn away and leave these places? Are we honest with our children? Do we tell them the truth when they ask and question us? No, we don’t. And why not? Because we are scared of a change and inconvenience it would bring us. We don’t want our children to know the horror of the meat industry so we don’t tell them. Every child is born with compassion. It’s up to us to embrace it in them. I feel that I was born with compassion, to a certain extend it was taken away from me, but I then found my own way back to it. There is nothing wrong about me and my potential future children to be kind and respectful to all beings. If anything, I would be incredibly proud to raise children that respect our nature.

It wasn’t until I was 24 when I made the decision to go vegetarian. I remember being on a gym bike and flipping through TV channels to watch. I came across this video being shown on the news about pigs being tortured by the workers in a piggery. The pigs were being kicked, hit with metal bars, burnt by cigarettes, … It upset me that much I had to leave. I’ll never forget that! I then realised those pigs were suffering like this because of me. Because I was the one creating the demand for pork and the one paying for it. From that day I never wanted to touch meat ever again. I remember people at work making fun of me, telling me it wouldn’t last. We always used to keep sweets in the cupboards and I remember reaching for some gummy bears once, when I was stopped by a friend who was also vegetarian, explaining to me about gelatin. It didn’t even cross my mind for a second that something like gummy bears would contain an ingredient taken from an animal body part. I thought going vegetarian was way more complicated than I thought but then if it involved animal suffering, I was happy to give up things I liked. I also remember telling my mum for the first time. I was scared because as I previously mentioned, being vegetarian in Czech just wasn’t a thing. I can still see my mum’s face and hear her words: ‘You are going to be one of these skinny, see through girls with no colour in your cheeks!’

I am so proud to see how far I have come and that I am no longer listening to others to tell me what I should or shouldn’t do. Now, I listen to my heart instead and I do what’s right and important to me. Although it’s hard to live in such complex world where I disagree with so many things, I am doing the best I can.

In no way I am here writing this and blaming my parents. What I am trying to say is that often I hear from people that children shouldn’t be given an option until they grow up. When I was a child it was apparent that I loved animals and I believe that every child should be allowed to follow their feelings.

Every child is born with compassion. I was. The reason I keep mentioning children is because we listen to our children more than we think. I’m sure you’ll all agree that your child’s opinion is very valuable to you but often we tent to listen just that little bit less when the outcome is inconvenient for us, adults. For you…parents. In no way I am referring to myself as a victim but what I am trying to say is that I clearly wasn’t given a choice. I wish my passion was recognised and embraced. Although I think it definitely was recognised, I guess I just had to go with whatever was convenient for the rest of the family.

I would just like to say that I love my parents very much. Those who can relate to me will agree that veganism isn’t an easy topic to talk about with anyone, and especially your family. In fact, vegan conversations are the most challenging conversations, and any attacks I take very personally, especially if they are made by a family member. We usually turn to our families with issues we have. I don’t ever turn to my family when I have ‘a down day’ about the cruel world I often feel I live in.