Hi everyone!
Welcome to my third blog post. In this blog post I want to talk about why I’m a vegetarian.
I can’t count the number of times people have told me, “I can’t live without meat! I love it too much.” Yes, there are instances where it’s okay if it’s for health reasons.
But some of these so called excuses aren’t good enough. I can’t force anyone to stop eating meat, and I don’t dislike or judge you if you do, but I think you should consider your reasons.
The worst problem is farmers don’t raise or slaughter animals in a humane way. We feed them hormones which not only isn’t healthy for the animals themselves, but it’s also been proven to make the meat unhealthy. The other problem is keeping the animals in tiny pens. A way to avoid this is checking if you can find animal products that mention “grass fed” or “free range.”
We treat farm animals as if they are crops. We call them factory farms; a factory is where you mass produce things, but animals aren’t things. They are treated as if they don’t have feelings. They have the same needs as ours: water, food, air, but most importantly, love. Why shouldn’t that be enough reason to give them the same love we’d give a human? They’re treated as though their main purpose is to be killed for food.
People say they love animals because we couldn’t imagine eating an animal we love, like our dogs, cats, horses etc, yet we eat pigs, cows, chickens, sheep etc willingly. But how much of a difference is it? In places like China they eat dogs and cats because they don’t own dogs and cats. People think it’s okay because most of them don’t have bonds with those animals in their day to day life.
I’ve always been told how important it is to have a balanced diet, and usually what people mean by that includes meat. Humans have the privilege of being omnivores, but that doesn’t mean they’re unhealthy if they don’t eat meat. I’ve found plenty of ways to get what I need from things that aren’t meat like beans, nuts, and tofu. Also, not every fake meat is gross. I promise there are good ones out there!
As humans we have trouble facing truth. If we think of what we eat as living, breathing beings it terrifies us. I want to make people aware of this.