There are many reasons for going on a plant based diet or becoming a vegan. I am writing this post to organize my thoughts and to share with others what I have learned and how I see it playing out in both my life and the life of those around me. I know some family and friends will, with great care, be concerned about my choices and I want to show them I appreciate their concern and am thoroughly looking at both my options and my reasons for a plant based diet. I am going to have to break this up into several posts. Organizing the posts by the following areas of reasons for choosing a plant based diet and for avoiding animal products seems most logical to follow and for me to compose:
- animal cruelty
- human rights violations (including physical dangers and issues like indentured servitude)
- dangers to the consumers
- negative environmental impact
- jeopardized health of meat and dairy consumers
*Because these areas are interrelated, I will not be fully separating them as I write these posts, but I will do my best to make it easy to follow and easy to find an specific argument you are interested in or would like to challenge. ;-) I will make the above bullets hyperlinks as I publish each post. This post will focus mostly on the first bullet:
Animal Cruelty and why I care about it. Let me quickly say that I have a lot of links in this post to see images or learn more about this issue. No image I link to is graphic or terrifying to look at. There are plenty of images and videos that are gut-wrenching and you can easily find those on your own. I will advise, though, that the links I share may have videos or images in areas away from where the links will first take you, also some are links to homepages and such, the first images and articles, etc. are ever changing -view discretion is advised.
Before I go into that, I told Alex last night that it's like I've been on a plank on top of a ball struggling to keep my balance, kind of like this
image. I have been been going shakily from one end of the board to the other (one end being "Go Vegan because it's not right how animals are treated" and the other being, "Go Plant Based for my health"). I was telling him that I think I have finally come to a peaceful place and can steady myself. Whether for health, or for animal treatment or the many other compelling reasons, I know that the less animal products the better! Now it's just time to wrap up my research and transition to a non-animal based diet. I will be blogging about our journey from the standard American diet to a plant based one (it should be entertaining as my family loves animal products).
Some background:
I used to be a vegetarian, mainly because I wasn't a huge meat fan and I had seen enough PETA pictures to ruin the taste for the meat dishes I did like. I gave up red meat (the meat I didn't like) in the 8th grade (a bazillion years ago, to be exact) and at 15 or so I gave up ALL meat. But I had enough dairy to keep 12 milk cows busy 24/7! I have never liked milk in a glass, but put chocolate in it and I'd down it in a heart beat. Yogurt, cottage cheese, cream cheese and anything cheese was what I ate!!! I quickly became a fat and unhealthy vegetarian. I gave up my no-meat life style my freshman year of college when I was tired of bruising all the time and figured lean meat like chicken and turkey would help me lose weight.
Veganism?!! that was just taking things too far! Back when I first heard about VEGANS I thought of them as freaks. I never thought I'd even consider being one, especially when I added white meat back to my daily plate. Yet, over the years I have given it a lot of thought. For a while I decided to sorta eat like a vegan (in the whole no dairy, lots of veggies way) -I ate lean cuts of chicken, but otherwise ate vegan. I did it to lose weight and it worked great! I often ate brown rice with lemon pepper and oven baked chicken breasts and steamed veggies.
So why the change? Why am I going from post vegetarian to vegan?
I never stopped caring about how animals were treated, but I didn't know how to reconcile my poultry and dairy consumption with what I knew about the cruelty of the meat industry. But I felt like I had to have a reason for why I could eat some animals and not others. I actually "reasoned" that eating turkey was okay because they were stupid
animals that would look up to the sky during rain and drown themselves. I concluded that if beheaded chickens could run around, they were okay to eat, too. I guess I
needed to have a reason why eating beef was "wrong" but poultry was
"okay." Truth is, I believed that beef was the unhealthy meat and
poultry was healthy.
Most importantly, I preferred the taste of poultry and could not stomach the idea of eating a steak. -not much more can be
honestly said about my "no red meat" stance. I also worked hard to avoid the fact that I was eating the remains of a once living creature when I ate turkey burgers and chicken hot dogs. To prepare a turkey or de-bone a chicken for meals, I literally had to mentally gear-up to not gag. When I was about five years old, I was eating one of my favorite foods, fried chicken, when I found a vein. I remember thinking it was a worm and asking my mother what it was. She quickly explained it was a vein and flipped my hand over to be palm up. She pointed out my veins at my wrist and explained the purpose of a vein. I gagged, threw up and refused to eat chicken ever again. I didn't eat chicken, willingly, for years and years later.
Though I am clearly guilty myself, I don't understand why we feel it is acceptable to eat one animal and not another. Why is it "acceptable" to treat livestock one way, but not a dog or cat? I don't get why a pig is for eating and a cat for cuddling. Sure, there are differences in size, but all the people who have had a pot belly pig for a pet will tell you they are amazing pets. Pigs are highly intelligent and social animals [1]. One person may see bacon when they see their rounded sides, but I see an animal and I see a lot more than ham and pork chops. Why is it disgusting to think of eating dogs, but not chickens? Horses are beautiful animals and I know many who have a pet horse and adore them, would do anything for them -yet in some countries like France, horse meat is a delicacy. When I pose these questions, I do so not to elicit a response, but to stir your thoughts (much like mine have been stirring for a while now). I honestly have respect for someone who can raise an animal and slaughter it them self. They have cared for the animal and have looked it in the eyes. They are not in the "la-la land of disconnect" that I and so many of us are in. I know for a fact that I just could not eat an animal that I raised (except to save my life, I should not say "never").
For the record: I do not believe animals are equal to people, not at all. I do not believe that animal rights are more important than human rights.
I will choose the life of a person over an animal and I will choose human rights over animal rights any day. But, I know, now, that they are not that far apart from each other. Many human rights are violated because of the meat industry. And I have more recently become aware of how much the meat industry is destroying our planet. I also know that kindness shown to animals fosters compassion and care for people, more on this later.
I am a Christian and believe that God has given us permission to eat animals and to use them as needed for labor and companionship. I do not believe we have to eat them or that our bodies are meant to eat them, but that we are
allowed to eat them. That said, I do not want any friend of mine or anyone reading this, to think I am passing judgement on them if they choose to eat steak every day! I am, however, writing this to share why
I am choosing a different path. And to shed light on why maybe
you should, too.
Going back to animal treatment, I want to highlight that animals raised for meat by industrial "farmers" do nothing
for the animals they raise beyond what is required by law (and the law has low standards, is violated regularly and is corrupted by lobbyist and a lack of "checks and balances"). Conversely, they do plenty harm
to the animals to increase profits.
For every chicken breast you buy,
every slab of bacon you fry
and every bite of a burger and fry
(I like to rhyme, I cannot deny ;-)
you are:
- having a commodity that taxes and depletes our planet of precious resources;
- endangers lives;
- employs illegal immigrants who work like slaves[2];
- and directly puts your life at risk.
No, I'm not being overly dramatic or exaggerating the facts. I wish I was!
I wish I had a weak argument for going vegan. The more I learn, the more I wish I just didn't know. Yet I am glad that I
do know. I prefer to be educated and to be
equipped to make positive changes for my family and yours and for our world, in general.
So, as a Christian, why do I care beyond how people are treated?
If God says we can eat animals, why should I try to prevent their consumption? Or even limit it? To briefly answer: God has told us to be good stewards with what we have been given. I can see nothing God-honoring in the way the meat industry of today operates. From animal abuse to hormone and antibiotic use, to indentured servitude (
ask any small farmer that decided to sign on with Tyson or Perdue to raise chickens) to things like mad-cow disease and E. coli,
the writing is on the wall! This is not at all how God intended things. Sure, nothing outside the Garden of Eden is how God intended, but this is no excuse for us to turn a blind eye to these facts so we can enjoy a cheese burger off the grill this summer.
I am not sure what you think of when you read the following names: Farmer John; Harris Ranch; Foster Farms -but I know they conjure up images of green pastures, a red barn, white puffy clouds with big blue sky. I see animals and a farmer in a straw hat, maybe chewing a blade of tall grass; a place I'd want to grow up, or at least visit. Take a look at
this image. Look at
this picture too.
Note: I am working on
transitioning to a vegan/plant based diet. I am not
yet a vegan. I had cheese and turkey on a croissant sandwich at a potluck three days ago. But after I learned the truth of the egg industry, how chicks are treated and what "cage free" truly meant, I stopped at least wasting money on the cartons that said, "cage free." I really like eggs. Quiche anyone? Egg salad sandwiches? Omelets? FRENCH TOAST!!!!!
mmmmmmmmm.... I really like eggs. But seeing what they do to the male chicks, and even the female chicks (did you know they have their beaks trimmed or seared off so they can be kept for their life in confinement the size of an 8.5"x 11" sheet of paper?). Here's a
good site to shed more light on why eggs won't be on my table anymore.
If you are anything like me you may be asking "
but what about humanely raised animals and humane slaughter?" I've looked into it and for the most part, humane is not really an option, and I am not just talking about financially. Certainly, there are much better sources for animal derived goods, but beyond the rare small family farm, you will not find humanely raised animals. And of these rare farms, many would not qualify for the description of "humane slaughter." Beyond the fact that it's pretty much an oxymoron, the problem with humane killing methods is the that the objective of the animal's death is not to stop its beating heart, but to make money off the animal's body. Sometimes even places that pride themselves on humane treatment of animals from birth to death have problems putting animals down in ways that can be called humane (e.g. sometimes a cow's skull is too thick to be rendered unconscious by stunt guns and after painful blows to the head they have to be shot, sometimes a few times). I found
this article on
Modern Farmer to be a great look at humane slaughter, and information in general about higher standards for animal care and slaughter -it is written by Mac McClelland, a meat eater who cares about animal welfare.
I already touched on eggs and how it's nearly impossible to find humane egg sources, but what about dairy? When I was a vegetarian, I used to think that I was free from cruelty causing foods.
Cows make milk, we drink it, make yummy cheese with it, churn the cream and make butter with it, it's natural and simple, right? Cows naturally lactate and I've always heard that they hurt if you don't milk them, so milking cows is kind, right? Now, I know that is not true. What does the life of an average dairy cow look like? This excerpt paints the sad picture:
A cow’s natural lifespan is about 25 years, but cows used by the dairy
industry are killed after only four or five years. An industry study
reports that by the time they are killed, nearly 40 percent of dairy
cows are lame because of the intensive confinement, the filth, and the
strain of being almost constantly pregnant and giving milk. Dairy cows’
bodies are turned into soup, companion animal food, or low-grade
hamburger meat because their bodies are too “spent” to be used for
anything else. To learn more.
Depressing, huh? I find it to be quite depressing on many levels. Mostly because I think it's really sad that such cruelty exists and that so few even care to make a difference. Though I find other cruelty issues much much more heartbreaking and disturbing (human trafficking, for instance) I do not believe that it means I (or anyone) should turn a blind eye to these issues. I would never want to live in a world that valued animals more than people, but I believe that if we cared about animals and valued all life, we would be a society that fostered compassion for the least of the least of these.
I could go on all day and night with what I have come to learn about how the average piece of meat gets to our tables. And the issues surrounding, animal cruelty, are many and greatly heartbreaking. I know that it is not easy to think about how many animals had a horrible existence and traumatic death just to be in your stomach. But I urge anyone reading this to think about it. Not just to make their stomach turn and leave them feeling bad. I urge people to think about it so they can begin today to make changes. I honestly doubt I will get anyone to become an over night vegan with my post here, but please remember that animal cruelty (and all its implications) are not the only reason to consider eliminating animal products from your diet. For many of you, the upcoming posts will be much more compelling. The following foot note will be a good lead in to the next post about human rights violations in the meat industry.
[1] A former kill floor manager gave the following account:
“The worst
thing, worse than the physical danger, is the emotional toll. . . . Pigs
down on the kill floor have come up and nuzzled me like a puppy. Two
minutes later I had to kill them-beat them to death with a pipe. I can’t
care." Read more:
http://www.foodispower.org/slaughterhouse-workers/
Helpful sites to learn more and make a difference (even if you don't want to go vegan):
http://www.psr.org/chapters/oregon/safe-food/industrial-meat-system.html
If you are a vegetarian and think you are doing enough for the welfare of animals:
http://measureofdoubt.com/2011/06/22/why-a-vegetarian-might-kill-more-animals-than-an-omnivore/
