Terra Melson, Esq.

My epiphany arrived in 2019, during a back-to-back trip to Africa and Israel.  In Ethiopia, my driver asked me why I stopped the cab to go over and hug the wild goats walking through the impoverished streets.  Still shocked at seeing goats matter of factly walking around, I told him it was because I loved them and explained that this isn't seen the U.S.  He smiled and said "you see goats and you see love; when we see them, we see food."  I had just fed my driver and handed out money to children in the mountains.  These poor humans.  Those poor goats.  Who to root for?  The scale tipped in favor of the goat.  While the goats' freedom was illusory, in Israel I witnessed a sight I had never in my life seen before.  Cows, lots of them - mothers and babies - living in the wild, in the mountains, on the plains along the highway, basking under shaded trees, with no wires or factories to be found.  I'd seen wild horses, donkeys, and other "livestock" before, but never the staple of the American diet - the iconic cow.  They weren't "working" - that is, eating or milking.  They were communing, conversing and carefree, the same freedoms we have.  It was a sight to behold that forever changed me.  I was overcome with years of mounting shame from turning a blind eye to the cruelty of which I'd been conscious over the course of my adult life.  I made a commitment that day - NEVER AGAIN!  The day after returning to the U.S., I faced my worse fear and sat through my first undercover PETA video.  I had been to Army combat in the Iraq war, but what I had witnessed on that video traumatized me more.  I was inconsolable, mourning for three days while purging my home of all animal derivative products.  Since then, I've never touched another piece of meat, fish, egg, dairy, or honey, and have never once felt tempted.  The same holds true for non-food items.  It is as easy as breathing for me.