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There
are many reasons to become a vegetarian or a vegan, but this is probably the
best one. If enough people became vegetarians, we could wipe out world hunger.
The premise is simple. A massive amount of food is grown to feed pigs, cows,
chickens, etc. If we ceased to intentionally bring these animals into the
world for our consumption, then all that food that would have gone to the
animals can now be used to feed hungry people. I'm not suggesting
starving the existing livestock. But if most people stopped eating meat,
it would greatly reduce the demand for animal flesh, so less animals would be
brought into the world to eat the staggering amounts of food grown for
them. This makes the extra food available for human consumption.
Obviously, animal populations could be controlled easily by separating males
from females.
I
saw a documentary called Forks Over Knives. The main message of the film
is a powerful one. A whole-foods, plant-based (vegan) diet is much healthier
than one that includes animal products (meat, dairy, and eggs). Several studies
have shown that a diet that includes too many animal products is more likely to
give the consumer of such a diet heart disease or cancer. We all have cancer
cells in our body. A diet that contains too much animal products could cause
these cells to develop into the disease. On the other hand, vegetables like
broccoli, cauliflower, and cabbage help fight cancer. Being a vegan is win-win.
It's good for you, and it's good for the animals. Conversely, not being a vegan
can be lose-lose. The innocent animals definitely lose. The non-vegan might
lose too when all the animals he ate reach from their graves to get their
vengeance by pulling him down with them.
As most people know, obesity has become a major
health problem in America. Before I became a vegan, I was wearing size 42 waist
pants. I was, as a coworker told me, pudgy (to say the least). I currently fit
comfortably into size 30 waist pants.
Anyone
who cares about the environment should be a vegetarian. Many environmental
organizations have come to the conclusion that raising animals for food
contributes to global warming and pollution in a major way. Because there are
so many of them, cows emit more greenhouse gases (from their bodies) than
automobiles. Countless trees have been cut down to make room for livestock.
Livestock production also leads to soil erosion, and the massive amount of
pesticides it uses contaminates earth and water.
As
a vegan, I assure you it is easy to be a vegetarian. Many different delicious
varieties of veggie burgers, and other foodstuffs, are ready and waiting to
fill the void when one ceases to eat meat. Some taste like burgers, others
taste like chicken
Ever
since I was a kid I've had problems with the way that people treat animals.
Whenever I saw someone walking a dog, for instance, it didn't seem right to me.
The dog wasn't free; he was leashed and under the control of the person who was
walking him. Also, I knew that some dogs were only allowed to go outside when
people took them out. I have understood, for many years now, why dogs are
treated this way. I have walked dogs many times, and I know that leashes help
keep them safe. Regardless, I think it's a shame that humans have taken control
of this world in such a complete and total way. Obviously, animals belong here
as much as we do. This world belongs to them as much as it does to us.
I
was raised to eat meat. My father left us when I was two years old, so my
mother had to raise me by herself; money was tight. I think this is the main
reason why I really don't miss most of the sorts of meat that she fed me. When
it came to steak, we didn't dine on fillet mignon, we ate London broil, which
is a shoulder cut. It was quite chewy. I don't miss eating steak at all.
Similarly, it's easy for me to do without the pork chops that I used to eat in
my mother's home. I'm picturing them now: with the ring of fat around them that
disgusted me every time. I'll admit that I really used to enjoy eating
hamburgers and bacon. If they were to announce on the news that, somehow,
hamburgers, bacon, and American cheese, all previously thought to be non-vegan
foods, are in fact all 100% vegan, then I'd probably run out and eat as many
bacon cheeseburgers as I could. Obviously, that's not going to happen. Besides,
I've eaten my share of bacon, cheese, and burgers.
I
also don’t miss eating eggs. I still can recall that egg farts are the worst.
Before I became a vegan, I enjoyed many foods that contained eggs: like
mayonnaise and baked goods. Since then, I have eaten many delicious vegan baked
goods, and there is a tasty egg-free product called Vegenaise that has
effectively replaced mayonnaise in my fridge. I don’t bake, but I know that
there’s at least one vegan product out there that replaces eggs in recipes that
call for them.
Once
I started to become aware of the horrible ways in which so-called food animals
are treated, I became a vegetarian. I was a college student at the time. I was
a vegetarian for about two and a half years, and then I went back to eating
meat.
I
used to live in New York City, and I used to watch a lot of TV. One of the
interesting things about watching TV in New York City is the variety of public
access television programming that is available. That is where I saw several
programs that had been put on the air by animal rights activists. One of the
first such programs I saw was narrated by Pam Anderson. It showed men treating
cows brutally in India. I had heard that cows are sacred to Indians, but, after
seeing this show, it was clear that not all of them felt that way.
I
also remember seeing chimpanzees confined in tiny washing-machine-like cells.
The chimpanzees had been deliberately infected with a communicable disease so
the scientists could study the effects it had on them. The scientists didn't
want to catch whatever disease they had given to the chimpanzees, so they kept
them completely isolated. That meant that they would not get to leave their
cells: at all. They would receive no physical contact from outside their cells,
and all the chimpanzees were separated from each other. Additionally, there was
nothing in their cells aside from the chimpanzees: no toys or anything to help
them pass the time. This enraged and saddened me. One could easily walk past
the door of this room, where the chimpanzees were being kept, and not even know
they were in there. Right away, I imagined what it would be like if I was
unfortunate enough to be trapped in one of their bodies. I think the ability to
sympathize with the plight of animals is one of the main reasons why people
become vegans and vegetarians. I'm very lucky that I've never been treated the
way those chimpanzees have been treated. I wouldn't be able to handle it. I'd
have nothing to look forward to except for death.
Watching
these kinds of shows convinced me to become a vegan. Once I found out what a
vegan was, I came to the conclusion that being a vegetarian wasn't going far
enough: at least as far as I was concerned. The main issue is intense
confinement. As many people know, pigs are considered to be at least as
intelligent as dogs are. I’ve seen, on TV, pigs who were much-loved pets. I saw
a pig push a soccer ball around and put it back in his toy box when he was
done. Unfortunately, many pigs and calves are forced to live in stalls that
give them no room to walk. Many of them don’t even have enough room to turn
around or fully extend their limbs. Calves are taken away from their mothers
shortly after birth so people can have the milk instead; naturally, this upsets
cows and calves. Egg-laying hens are often kept in tiny battery cages. Again,
as with pigs and calves, these hens are given only the bare minimum when it
comes to personal space. But this is only the tip of the iceberg. If anyone
wants to know how eating meat, eggs, and dairy causes suffering in the animal
world, there’s plenty of information about it on the Internet, in books, and in
documentaries. I highly recommend reading Animal Liberation by Peter
Singer: especially chapters two and three. Chapter two describes how live
animals have been treated when they've been experimented on in laboratories.
Chapter three lets the reader know what life is like for food animals that live
within the cruel confines of a factory farm.
People
are cruel to many different animals in many different ways. For countless
animals, ours is a reign of terror. I’ve seen cruelty to animals in movies.
Animals that are forced to perform in circuses are usually treated badly; they
certainly aren’t allowed to live natural lives. It’s horrible that many animals
have been killed just so people could have fur coats.
We
take everything, everything, from animals. We take away their freedom
and contentedness. We take away opportunities to follow their natural
instincts. We don't allow them to live the sorts of lives they were meant to
live. We often don't allow them to raise, or ever spend time with, their young.
Conversely, we make orphans out of baby animals. And, of course, we take their
lives and their mutilated bodies.
I’m
not perfect. The sweet seduction of Reese's Peanut Butter Cups has caused me to
fall off the vegan wagon. I've also given in to the urge to eat mozzarella
cheese. Since I became a vegan, in 2002, I have not spent any money on foods
which contain any meat, milk, or eggs. I went through a weak period. It began
at a former workplace. Sometimes my coworkers would bake cookies to share with
the rest of us. I’d see them on the break-room table, and sometimes I gave in
to temptation. I wasn’t proud of myself, but I attempted to rationalize my
transgressions by reminding myself that I hadn’t paid for them. I may have
eaten something that had milk or eggs in it, but I didn’t support the meat, egg,
or dairy industries with my money. I tried to convince myself that I had found
a loophole, but I knew it was bogus. At no time have I eaten any meat since I
became a vegan. I have since rededicated myself to being a vegan, and I am
stronger than ever when it comes to resisting temptation. For instance, instead
of Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups, I eat dark chocolate with peanut butter. Vegan
dark chocolate and peanut butter are very easy to find.
Spending
quality time with food animals could very well convince someone to become a
vegetarian. I have stroked the wattles of turkeys, rubbed pig bellies, and
hugged cows. This all happened when I visited Farm Sanctuary, which is near
Watkins Glen, NY. It is a great organization. Many of these animals really seemed
to appreciate the affection that people showered upon them. These are sweet,
innocent animals that deserve to be treated well.
There’s
no shortage of reminders why I should be a vegan. I've seen horrible footage. I've
seen a worker, who was holding a piglet by her rear legs, bash her head against
a hard floor repeatedly as she screamed. I've seen workers throwing live
chickens savagely against a wall. The same workers stomped on live chickens.
I've seen an animal skinned alive for his fur. I've seen plenty of footage of
animals being killed, and all of it is 100% ugly: no exceptions.
I
saw a documentary called Food, Inc., which, ultimately, angered me.
Toward the end of the film, the filmmaker visited with a farmer who raises food
animals in a "natural" way. For instance, the pigs seemed to have it
better than those who are forced to live on factory farms. A guy from Chipotle
Mexican Grill was also there. Apparently, according to what I heard in the
movie, they get their meat from places like that instead of factory farms,
because they care about animals. If they really cared about animals, they
wouldn't serve meat at all! They were all smiling and acting like this was the
perfect solution to animal suffering. They were gleefully ignoring the fact
that those pigs would eventually be killed, and that would be nothing to smile
and feel good about.
Also in the movie, a
farmer was preparing fresh chicken carcasses to be sold when he said something
like, "Isn't this great? We're not in a dirty building doing this; we're
outside." Around the time he was saying that with a smile on his face, one
of the employees took a chicken out of a cage and shoved her into a device that
was clearly designed to make slashing a chicken's throat nice and easy. That's
just what the employee did. The poor chicken cried out fearfully from the time
she was grabbed in the cage till she died. I disagree with the farmer and the
guy from Chipotle. Killing is ugly and it always will be.
I
won't be satisfied until nearly everyone has become at least a vegetarian: preferably
a vegan. The animals need many people to change the way they eat. The vast
majority of people do not need to eat meat in order to survive. They simply
choose to do so. These animals don't deserve to live horrible lives simply
because many people refuse to limit their food choices at all. Most people, if
not practicing direct cruelty, practice a sort of casual cruelty. Buying meat
in a store, ordering it in a restaurant, or buying garments made of leather are
all examples of casual cruelty. It's so easy to practice this sort of cruelty.
You don't have to kill the animals and butcher them. You're just paying other
people to do it.
Please
become a vegetarian. Giving up foods that contain eggs is the next easy step.
The hardest part, at least it was for me, is saying goodbye to all foods which
contain milk. Just remember, we are all animals. Think of all the things we
have in common with them. Like many of them, we have two eyes, a nose, a mouth,
teeth, and so on. There are many, many similarities between us and them. I
consider all the animals of the world to be my brothers and sisters. Please
don’t treat them any worse than you’d treat your daughter or your mother. And
please don’t support a system that forces them to live in misery until their
lives are taken for no good reason.
