Someone on YouTube recently messaged me privately asking about vegetarianism. I wrote a reply and let my husband read it.. he told me it would make a great blog so here it is. Why I'm a vegetarian.
It's true that most vegetarians wouldn't eat meat regardless of how the animal was killed (even when talking about grown meat) because of health reasons. meat, for instance, (particularly pork and red meat) are linked to pancreatic cancer, heart disease, mental degenerative diseases, impotence, colon cancer, and stroke.. just to name a few.
The production of meat creates HUGE amounts of greenhouse gases. Eating meat not only destroys ourselves, but it destroys our home. A meatarian is not only directly killing an average of 95 animals per year but contributes greatly to the extinction of species every day. Rainforests are being cleared for cattle farming because meat is in such high demand. I try more and more every day to live green and being vegetarian is a great step towards that.
as far as plants and pain are concerned. right now our current knowledge of pain is that pain is defined as electrical impulses interrupted by the brain as pain or discomfort. While it may or may not be true that plants feel pain, and as of right now the evidence is towards the not since they lack a nervous system or a brain, it's almost certain it would not be the same kind of pain that we feel. All people must eat something in order to survive and until we create a super pill to take care of our daily dietary needs, we have to cause the least harm possible.
We know that animals feel pain, we know they feel fear, they love, get depressed and they create attachments. Despite what meatarians believe, most animals are nor killed humanely. Slitting a throat is neither painless nor instant. The "bullet" (not an actual bullet but i forget the name of the device) must be used very precisely to kill instantly which it rarely is. Most of the time an animal takes up to a minute to die while seizureing and suffering during that time. Chickens are commonly killed by putting them in individual cages with holes in the top through which their heads go through and a giant chainsaw (for lack of a better word) sweeps across the cages and decapitates them. While this may be efficient and quick, you can hardly call it painless.
In addition to looking at the cruelty of the animal's deaths, we must also look at the cruelty of the animal's life. They are often forced to live in stalls or cages with little to no room to move. Veal, in fact are put into tiny cages where they are not allowed any muscle movement in order to keep them "tender". While a happy cow living as free roaming can live 25 years, most in the milk industry live only 6. I personally eat eggs, but I buy cage free eggs. Piggs are often packed into cages many at a time so that they are literally crawling over each other. The cruelty of the animal's lives are true in the meat industry as well as the dairy industry (unless you're from an agricultural town with it's own dairy farms and you can inspect them)
as to it being human nature to eat meat. it is human nature to survive and yes, humanity has eaten meat in order to do that but that certainly doesn't make it healthy or good for you. Meat sits in the human stomach longer than any other food and is harder to break down. It's linked to more diseases than any other natural food. Other natural foods such as fruits, vegetables, seeds, nuts, etc all have health benefits and healing properties. Meat does not. I appreciate the need for meat to survive. If i depended on it for my survival I would eat it (i may not be able to kill it.. but that's what husbands are for).
From a spiritual point of view, Buddhists don't eat meat, Hindus don't eat meat, Jews and Muslims don't eat beef or pork. Why is Christianity the only major religion that does? These other religions must know something that they don't
Don't get me wrong, to be a healthy vegetarian you have to study.. a LOT and find out just what foods you need to eat. But once you do that, the rewards are vast and many. Vegetarianism has been around all throughout history. Such well known people as, Einstein, Pythagoras, Plato, Susan B Anthony, Gandhi, Buddha and many other intellectuals, spiritualists and leaders throughout time were vegetarians. The most beautiful writings, poems, and songs through time are about peace, love and the ability to live and let live.
1 comment:
I've read that meat eating was a status symbol, that only the wealthy could afford it. Kind of makes sense, not to mention that it's easier to process in bulk... no growing season. You feed it, you kill it, you eat it... no nurturing of crops or dependence to weather (at least not to the degree you have with crops).
I'm vegetarian because of an HBO special on factory farming, after which I couldn't bring myself to spend my money supporting that industry. My dad always says, "A dollar is a folding vote. If you spend your money on it, you may as well have done everything it took to create what you bought with your own hands."
That stuck :)
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