I grew up in Brazil, in the heaviest meat eating state of the whole country (Rio Grande do Sul). We, gauchos, are famous for doing the best churrasco (barbecue) of all Brazil. In my household, we used to eat meat (and all animal products) multiple times a day. A pepperoni and cheese sandwich in the morning with a glass of chocolate milk, a steak in the lunch and some fish or chicken at night. All with a lot of cheese or dishes containing milk. That was daily life, and everybody around me was doing the same.

During my upbringing, in the 90’s, I was taught that animals couldn’t think, animals were inferior and they were here to be used. That was taught by biology teachers in school, that animals couldn’t think, they were only acting by instinct, and we (as a society) were not exactly sure if animals could feel pain, but probably dogs and cats could. The farm animals? Probably not, but we are not exactly sure.

I, and everybody around me, grew up with this brainwashing. After I finished university, I moved to live alone in another state (Sao Paulo) and there I started to question myself about multiple things. First thing I questioned myself was about religion, do god exist? I entered in an exploration of my beliefs and started to watch multiple debates about this topic. I was an avid watcher of a program called “The Atheist Experience”, with Matt Dillahunty a proeminent atheist and rational thinker.

In 2012, with 26 years old, I turned atheist. I felt like I was lied my whole life when everybody kept repeating “god exist, he is watching us all the time, he cares about everybody”, without providing a single good evidence. What made me become atheist was Matt Dillahunty using logic and rational thinking in all his debates, it was so obvious and the way he used to debunk all the opponents was so clear.

So, basically, from this moment on I watched all Matt’s videos. It was enterteining to me and it helped me to be a better rational thinker.
So, in january 2020, I saw Matt’s released another video, with a guy called “Cosmic Skeptic”. I thought the debate would be about theism, but actually, it was a debate about morality.
The guy debating Matt was so good in the topic, and got Matt in contradictions multiple times, something I never saw before. Basically, Cosmic Skeptic (aka Alex O’Connor) was defending that being vegan was a moral obligation, while Matt Dillahunty was defending that being vegan was a moral virtue.

Alex O’Connor started his argument with good evidence (China Study, Oxford EPIC study, the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics statement, etc) that being vegan could be healthy and sustainable, something that I never knew!! I was indoctrinated to think that I would die without meat. But he presented robust scientific evidence, and I accepted his claimed.

Then he talked about sentientism and how animals are sentient. That was also something that I also never thought about really. I learned in school that maybe animals don’t feel pain, that they just reacted to instinct when I was 10 and I simply never thought about that again. But he talked about pain receptors, the lymbic system, nervous system and the brain. And things started to become very obvious, and I feel very stupid, but it was also simply something that I never put any effort to think about.

Then he proceeded with the morality argument. And with simple logic and analogies, like “If I like to hear a pig squeal, and I feel a pleasure of thousand orgasms hearing this pig squeal, can I put he in a gas chamber? And if no, the act of not putting the pig in a gas chamber is a moral virtue or a moral obligation?”, so how can eating meat for taste pleasure would be morally OK?

The debate went on with millions of good analogies. Matt Dillahunty contradicted himself millions of times, which was very disappointed to me, since I started watching the debate because I was a fan. Alex O’Connor ended the debate saying “If you are not sure that what you are doing IS moral. If you still are not convinced if it is moral or immoral, don’t you think you have a moral responsability to at least be vegan and not pay for something you are not sure if it is immoral, while you do your research?”. Matt disagreed without any good counter argument, just saying “Oh, I don’t know if I can, because my diet is very strict, blablabla”. But that made total sense to me.

So, for the next 2 weeks I was plant based and I started doing my research. I watched Cowspiracy, I watched ALL Earthling Ed’s debate, Humane Hancock street outreachs. I read about the EPIC-Oxford study, China Study, The adventist health study, all a conscensus that it was possible to be vegan. I started to search scientific papers about animal consciousness. And that was so eye-opening. I learned SO MUCH about animal’s sentience and consciousness. I read the Declaration of Consciousness from Cambridge. I read so many papers about echolocation in bats and how they can navigate without seeing but identifying objects as thin as a hair, about pigs ability to understand reflection in a mirror to get out of a labyrinth, about pigs playing puzzle, about chickens sleeping with one eye oppening, about goats abilities to climb, about elephants remembering things from 40 years ago like it was today… I read so many papers about the animals abilities and how amazing they were. I felt like that was the real day I opened my eyes. But then, I decided I needed a next step. I watched Dominion. I mean, that was a 3 day job, because it is too much to handle in a single sit.

On February 4th 2020, I consider the day I went vegan. I went to the supermarket and bought everything new. Soy milk, toothpaste not tested on animals, deodorant not tested, a vegan shampoo, TVP (which it is very cheap and common in Brazil!), a vegan belt. I also started taking a vegan multivitamin that day (and I take everyday till today, because I don’t want to track my diet and I don’t want to have any health excuse to eat animals). And then I donated all stuff I had. I donated my leather belt, leather shoes, the milk, cheese, meat I had in the fridge. That was not food for me anymore, that was my friends…