Pavel Tahkovuori was a Speaker at TEDxEspoo Youth 2025!What if everything you believed about meat - from childhood songs to food labels - was designed to keep you from asking a simple question: where does it really come from?For seven years, Pavel Tahkovuori, helped Finland’s biggest food companies make meat products look irresistible. He advised restaurants on how to make meat products more appealing, captured the perfect photo of a juicy burger, and shaped a comforting message. It was a job he never questioned - until one day, while eating pepperoni pizza, his girlfriend sent him an article that shattered everything he thought he knew. That Article featured a Swedish veterinarian who had worked inside a pig slaughterhouse. What she witnessed, the infections, the suffering, the silence - forced him to ask, for the very first time, what really happens before meat ends up on our plate.From that moment on, Pavel began to see animals differently. Not just the family dog he loved as a child, but all animals - pigs, chickens, cows - both those we love as a family member and those we consume. He could not disconnect anymore: He had always loved animals but also eaten them. Now, he was ready to ask why.This candid talk goes beyond a personal journey. It pulls back the curtains on how society teaches us to feel okay about something that might not be okay at all. From comforting but misleading labels like “happy farm” and “free-range” to childhood songs like Old MacDonald that tell us that factory farming is innocent and kind, Pavel reveals how storytelling has been used to soothe us into not questioning what is really going on. He asked those hard questions, and it changed his life. Today, Pavel is a vegan, the co-founder of an animal rights organization, and the author of a nonfiction book that challenges the meat industry's most powerful myths. In his Talk he shares how emotional disconnect is wired into our culture from childhood, what really happens inside so called “free-range” and “organic” farms, and how advertising quietly shapes our moral choices without us relaxing it.In Pavel’s Talk he also addresses common reactions he often hears: “But animals eat other animals.” “But it's legal.” “But I am just one person. Does it really matter?” He explains how modern farming affects not just the animals but the workers and the planet.At the end of Pavel’s talk he says: “We all have a huge impact in our daily lives, to our close people, to friends, to neighbors and to animals and the environment. We all create others, it could be either neutral, maybe sometimes negative and sometimes good. But what is most important for all is that each day we can choose to do better.”This is not a preachy talk. It is a genuine conversation about waking up, asking unforgettable questions, and choosing to live in alignment with your values, even if it means changing everything.#TEDxEspooYouth #TEDxTalk #TEDxEspooYouth2025 Pavel Tahkovuori is a Non-Fiction Author and Sustainability Expert with a background in the food business and a strong interest in how companies shape what we eat. Before Co-Founding Viral Vegans, he worked in market research, often for some of Finland’s largest companies. That experience gave him a rare inside view of the food industry giant's influence on consumer behavior. Today, he produces Finland’s most listened-to sustainability podcast and creates social media content that reaches up to 1.7 million people each month. This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at https://www.ted.com/tedx