Let me begin by stating that I love meat. I grew up eating meat two to three times a day. Beef, chicken, fish, pork, you name it and I ate it with delight. It was part of my healthy balanced daily diet, an unquestioned staple of my appetite. Growing up, I chose to believe that the foods I ate came from animals that lived happy, healthy lives. Unfortunately as I have learned over the years, this is simply and utterly not the case. My perspective about this important issue completely changed a few years ago when I had the opportunity to visit a slaughterhouse.
If you still eat meat and do not question your reasons for doing so aside from habit, I urge you to visit a slaughterhouse because you will never look at a T-bone, a chicken wing, or pork chop the same, ever again. I am not here today to lecture you or to deride you for being a meat eating enthusiast; rather, I am here as animal rights advocate attempting to promote you to seriously consider vegetarianism in the light of the evidence I will present in this brief presentation.
According to the American Dietetic Association, research from the US shows that less than one percent of Americans are true vegetarians, that is, who never eat meat, fish or poultry although they may eat foods derived from animals such as dairy products and eggs (ADA). The percentage of true vegans is of course even less. There are many reasons to believe that if you stop eating meat your body will suffer from a lack of vital nutrients. Although there are precautions to be made in this decision, the fact is that you can receive the same nutrients from other sources than meat.
Study after study has shown that a healthy and well planned vegetarianism fulfills all dietary necessities and significantly can lower the risk of various forms of cancer, osteoporosis, obesity, and heart diseases. Vegetarian diets offer a number of nutritional benefits, including lower levels of saturated fat, cholesterol, and animal protein as well as higher levels of carbohydrates, fiber, magnesium, potassium, folate, and antioxidants such as vitamins C and E (ADA). In addition, aside from strict veganism, there are many derivative forms of vegetarianism that you can adopt according to your physiological characteristics.
This is to say that vegetarians are not a homogenous group, despite what fast food corporations and meat addicts argue to the contrary in their attempts to depict all vegetarians as raving PETA protestors who throw paint on celebrities that wear fur in public. Vegetarianism is a conscious lifestyle choice that is based on moral, ethical, cultural, environmental, economical, social, and political reasons, among many other –als. Foremost among my choice was my belief in animal rights. I do not believe animals should be treated as objects for our mass consumption.
I understand how our diet evolved out of a hunter-gatherer necessity, but modernity has perverted this notion into an ideal of fast food production and frozen TV dinners. I am ethically opposed to injecting animals with steroids to increase their production value. I am morally disgusted by the medieval methods corporations use to propagate, hold, and slaughter animals. I am environmentally worrisome that the raping of the land to perpetuate these habits will eventually take us beyond the point of no return.
According to a 2006 United Nations initiative, the livestock industry is one of the largest contributors to environmental degradation worldwide, and modern practices of raising animals for food contributes on a ‘massive scale’ to air and water pollution, land degradation, climate change, and loss of biodiversity (Holm). Another important reason for choosing vegetarianism is based on the belief that animals do not deserve to live and die simply for our mass consumption or for scientific research.
In our age of technologically driven innovation, the age of cruel animal testing and treatment should be obsolete. Animal testing is completely different than animal testing because animals do not have the right to consent. Computer tests and simulations should replace the harmful practices that currently pervade animal testing. Animal testing is used for everything from pharmaceutical drugs to food products and disease causes. In this spirit the European Union plans to phase out cosmetic animal testing by the year 2009 and the United States should follow in their footsteps.
In closing, let me reiterate my main objective with this discourse, vegetarianism is a progressive, eco-friendly, and health conscious choice that transcends our own personal lives in the hope of creating a sustainable environment, in every aspect of our collective lives. I understand that this is not a decision that can be made in haste, or due to coercion and this is why I believe groups such as PETA have isolated themselves from the mainstream dialogue. I urge each one of you to reflect on your lifestyle choices and to make the changes you can that will benefit yourself as well as the world around you.
Every small positive change adds up to a greater momentum that can be built upon in the years to come, I look forward to you all joining me in this vision for the future.
Works Cited
Holm, Jens and Toivo Jakkala. “The Livestock Industry and Climate: EU makes bad worse. ” Spectrezine. http://www. spectrezine. org/europe/Holm. htm. Retrieved on 11 February 2009. “Vegetarian Diets. ” American Dietetic Association and Dietitians of Canada. http://www. eatright. org/cps/rde/xchg/ada/hs. xsl/advocacy_933_ENU_HTML. htm. Retrieved on 11 February 2009.