A good burger, grilled meats on the barbecue or spaghetti bolo… For a long time, nothing pleased them more. But that was before. Before love touches them in the heart. A love that melts them every time they meet the gaze of this little furry or feathered creature, cat, dog or hen, which has changed their view of the animal condition and the way they compose their plate. .
How can you continue to eat meat and fish when you live with an animal you love like your child? This is the question asked by women and men who had never before thought of switching to a pesca-vegetarian, vegetarian or vegan diet. Yet they did, and tell their journey to 20 minutes.
“Animals have emotions”
In Adeline’s family, as in many others, a balanced meal was meat, with a side dish. “A plate had to consist of a portion of animal protein. I even teased my vegetarian friends because I was convinced that we couldn’t live without them. However, I grew up with cats, and even if my parents always ate meat, they raised me with respect for animals: they never took me to the zoo or ride a pony, judging that it was participating in a form of animal exploitation. I was sensitized but I did not feel concerned”.
This lasted until the day before the second confinement, when Adeline adopted Ravy, a kitten with long red and white hair. “By living with him, I realized that he had emotions, his own personality. I began to question myself about my relationship to meat, to think of those countries where the relationship to animals is not the same, where some consider a cow to be sacred and others where you can eat dog or cat. From there, I wondered who can decide which animal we can eat? If it is unthinkable for me to eat my cat, why would it be more acceptable to eat pork or beef? »
“Do not condone factory farming practices”
A reflection shared by Véronique *, 56 years old: “Four years ago, shortly after adopting an adorable senior dog, I realized that I could no longer continue to eat animals, nor to endorse the practices of factory farming and slaughterhouses. I realized that they have individualities and that this is not limited to pets alone”. In the same way, it was after adopting “Red Cherry, a little Cavalier King-Charles”, that Aurélien*, 48, questioned his taste for meat. “Four months after he entered my life, I told myself that I could not pamper my animal and devour others. It was incoherent, unjust and abominable. This change was obvious, to the point of regretting not having thought of it sooner”.
This same path, Anna*, 32, had after adopting hens, including “some cull [utilisées dans un élevage industriel de poules pondeuses et remplacées par un nouveau lot] who have suffered horrors and yet are so loving. In addition, I live a few steps from a goat farm, where they are born in a shed, spend their miserable lives there piled up, producing milk for cheeses, without ever seeing the sky or treading the earth, before to be killed to be transformed into a sausage. What convinced me to become a vegetarian. Widely shared motivations: according to one Ifop poll for France Agrimer published in May 2021, “vegetarians, vegans and pesco-vegetarians do so above all out of concern for the cause and animal well-being: 68% mention the breeding and slaughtering conditions, and 63% declare the have done because they think it is cruel to raise animals to kill them”.
“I started by reducing the meat”
If for Véronique, “becoming a vegetarian was very simple, in a weekend”, for others, it takes time to adapt. Like Mélanie *, 30, who has always had cats. “I started by reducing my meat consumption, then when I moved into my apartment and adopted my cat five years ago, I stopped eating it at home, before stopping completely in 2020. Today oday, I am a pesco-vegetarian. I don’t cook any more than before, there are more and more vegetable options in the supermarket, much cheaper than meat”.
Like her, Adeline went there in stages: “I thought it would be hard, but I got to a stage where meat disgusts me, I eliminated it several months ago”. This “disgust for meat is mentioned by 43% of vegetarians, vegans and pesco-vegetarians”, observes the Ifop survey. Adeline continues her food transition and “tries to completely stop fish, but it’s harder”. A new diet that prompted this 37-year-old woman to review her daily diet. “I used to order, I went to the caterer, but going vegetarian forces me to cook like never before, so to eat healthier. It’s a bit trickier to find restaurants that offer cool veggie alternatives, and not just a plate of veggies or fries. Ditto in the canteen where I have lunch, notes the school teacher: without meat, the plate often boils down to rice or peas and carrots. There are efforts to be made”.
“I stopped eating corpses, but also honey”
Aurélien, he “first opted for vegetarianism. My transition from vegetarian to vegan was done gradually, in a year and a half, and it was very easy: there were no animal derivatives that I had trouble quitting, and after quitting to eat corpses, dairy products, eggs and honey have never found their place in my house again”. Why honey? “A bit like for the hens: we lock up the bees, we use them so that they produce more and when they die of exhaustion, we replace them. How could I keep eating it? »
Passionate about cooking, Aurélien saw his vegan transition “as a challenge, to adapt traditional recipes in a plant-based version, like my tiramisu, which those around me love! So much so that several relatives have become vegans. In general, everyone reacted very well. An understanding that Mélanie also observed: “it just requires reviewing the menu during family gatherings”.
Like Aurélien, Adeline would like to become vegan, “in a year or two, the time to master all the alternatives”. Thanks to the advice of friends, the young woman discovers a new way of cooking, “no longer buys milk, yoghurts and cheeses of animal origin and masters the recipe for vegan carbo pasta. The next step is to do without it outside, but also to be able to cook without eggs, and no longer eat honey”. An evolution born from the meeting with his cat, “to the point that if he disappeared, it would pose an ethical problem for me to adopt another in my small apartment. From now on, it would be in contradiction with my convictions ”.