The following story, translated from Spanish, was found on the website of the Vegetarian Union of Paraguay (in South America). The author is Pedro Poyen Lin, the organisation’s General Secretary. The original is at www.uvpy.org/pedro.html

I have been a vegetarian since birth, due to an experience my mother had more than a year before I was born. Here is the story. One day, my mother went to the market and bought a live fish to cook for dinner the following evening. Upon reaching home, my mother put the fish in some water. The next day, she went out to work, not thinking much about the fish.

After work, as she was about to enter her apartment, my mother heard loud noises from within. Quickly, she opened the apartment door and looked around, but saw no one; everything appeared to be in order. Then, she looked down and saw the fish thrashing about on the floor. The noise my mother had heard must have been the fish knocking against the apartment door, perhaps hoping to escape.

Shocked by the fish’s act, that very evening, my mother thoroughly cleaned all the kitchen utensils, pots and pan. Then, she looked up to the heavens and firmly declared, “Never again will I cook the flesh of a sentient being!” That was 27 years ago. 

And, I was one of the tools that my mother used to influence others, because through me, she was able to demonstrate that a healthy baby could be raised on a vegetarian diet. With this example, my grandmother and great-grandmother became vegetarians too.

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