“It might sound crazy but that’s how it all started,” says the 26-year-old, whose Instagram bio reads, “Vegan actress.”
De Faría adopted an abandoned cat, Eleanor Rigby, while shooting a TV show in Colombia. She says whenever she ate chicken or meat (which she loved), she’d see her cat and started to think differently about meat.
“I started thinking how crazy it was for me to love and care for my cat and at the same time pay for somebody to kill, cut, and package another animal who feels the same amount of pain, joy, happiness, and desires as my cat,” says de Faría.
A life-changing decision
The Venezuela native says going vegan has been “the best decision of my life.”
It helped her while training for and shooting the action series, “Deadly Class.”
“It made me faster and stronger than ever and gave me all the energy I needed to wake up at 4 a.m., work out, and then go on a 16-hour work day,” says de Faría.
It was tough to radically change her diet at first, so she became a vegetarian, where she ate lots of cheese and bread and got sick.
“When I went fully vegan, I educated myself in terms of what to eat at different times and for different situations. Now I know that success comes with being prepared, so I don’t leave my place without nuts or fruit. It’s just that easy,” she says.
While her schedule is busy, de Faría, who’s also a singer, says cooking vegan is simple.
“It takes no time to cook some rice and roast some veggies,” she adds.
More than just a diet
Being vegan is about having purpose.
“It’s a statement about peace, love, and kindness to every single being on the planet,” says de Faría, who follows many vegan accounts on Instagram to inspire and teach her about recipes and the lifestyle.
“Just eat what comes from the earth, like rice, quinoa, all types of beans, all kinds of veggies, all fruits, all the nuts,” says de Faría, who advises avoiding processed foods. “Make sure your food is full of color and life.”