I'm a vegeterian for about 98% of my time - only when I travel or at some celebration I want to try some speciality or I don't wanna offend the host. I'm a supporter or animal rights and I don't want to come back to eating meat .. However I don't judge anyone who eats mean. Because somehow it really is natural for human. In this post I'd like to share with you some thoughts about vegetarianism, (dis)advantages of eating meat and also I'd like to give you tips for how to eat meat ethically if necessary.
My Vegetarian Story
I had two main reasons for becoming a vegetarian. a) Inever used to like the taste of meat. b) I like animals and everytime I ate meat I imagined the animal who the meat is from. Also my granny used to raise rabbits and when I saw the little rabbits and then the meat she served us for a lunch .. I used to refuse to eat it. Also I started being interested in health benefits of vegetarian/vegan diet and about in conditions in which the animals are raised - and it became to repel me. Also since we got the dog I realize more and more that I would never be able to hurt an animal and I don't want to support anyone else to do it ...
Food Chain & Different Lifestyle
Overall there's something called the food chain. There has always been a rule in the nature that the organism who is lower in status means food for those who are higher. Bugs eat plants, rodents eat bugs, birds eat rodents and so on ... Everything has its position in the world.
Often repeated argument against vegetarianism is the fact that people were developed to eat meat. The cavemen used to kill and eat the mammoths, right? On the other hand you have to consider if we really need meat as much as the people in prehistory. Those people has completely different lifestyle, they had to be big and strong because they needed fat to survive freezing winters in caves. Nowadays we have mostly sedentary lifes and we can get any food in the supermarker so we don't actually need to eat meat. Also the cavemen didn't have anything else to eat. They used to kill the animals to survive. Now we have so many food choices. Any time of the year you can go to the grocery store and buy seasonal fruit, vegetables, legumes, grains and a lot of other products. We have freedom that those people didn't use to have.
Health
Meat offers important nutrients. Especially it gives you a lot of protein. If you're vegetarian or vegan, people will ask you all the time if you don't miss the meat, if you have enough energy, if you're not eak, if you have enough protein ... In fact the legumes and several types of vegetables may give you more protein that meat. For example spinach, kale or broccoli contain more than 40% protein. If you're afraid of weight or muscle loss, you don't have to. There are actually many vegetarian or even vegan bodybuilders who prove that eating animal products is not necessary to build the muscles. The only vitamin that vegetarians and vegans have to take in a pill is B12.
But let's come back to meat. Meat contains B vitamins, iron, zinc, selenium and other vitamins and minerals. Also it contains healthy fats - which you can also get from the plant-based diet. Some types of meat are so too high in fat so they increase the risk of heart disseases, increase cholesterol, red meed rapidly increase the risk of colon cancer, not to mention the fact that eating undercooked meat can also be at risk of infection from salmonella or tapeworm.
Meat Industry
The food chain can be considered as cogent argument for consuming meat. But it doesn't explain and excuse the tragical conditions in which factory farm animals are raised and killed. If people say that eating meat is okay because people always used to do it, why we don't treat the animals like in past?
For example let's think about the poultry farming. Chicken used to be killed in age of two or three months. Nowaydays the chicken are two times bigger in only 40 days (and they are killed in this age). People like the light meat so the chicken were bred to have bigger breast and achieve the required size in minimum time. The bones and organs are not able to keep pace with such fast growing. So the chicken are almost not able to walk and the movement cause them severe pain. They never see the sunlight - they are locked in complete darkness. They are fed by steroids and antibiotics to grow up faster. From the farm to the slaughter they are transfered in small cages and their wings and legs are often broken. Sometimes the cars which transport them are very cold so they are frozen alive. Then they are hung by the feet head down. They pour their heads in water with electricity that stun them. But some chicken are not big enough to submerge their heads into the water so they experience their death fully conscious.
The meat industry ignores the animal rights and their suffering completely. It's just a business.
World Hunger
870 milions of people around the world suffer with malnutrition altough there's enough food for the whole world. The excessive production of meat has its share. There is enough grain on the fields that can feed the whole world. But the irony is that most of those grains are used to feed the animals. Cows, poultry, pigs and even fish are fed with corn that is cheap and helps animals to grow faster. In fact the cows are actually supposed to eat grass that grows freely. According to statistics the world meat consuption is 41,9kg meat per person per year (average American consumes about 100kg per year) If people ate more plant-based food and limit their meat consuption, they may help solving the world hunger.
RESOURCES
For more informations I recommend you to watch movies Food Inc. and Forks over knives which I got most of the informations from :)
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| source: Tumblr.com |
My Vegetarian Story
I had two main reasons for becoming a vegetarian. a) Inever used to like the taste of meat. b) I like animals and everytime I ate meat I imagined the animal who the meat is from. Also my granny used to raise rabbits and when I saw the little rabbits and then the meat she served us for a lunch .. I used to refuse to eat it. Also I started being interested in health benefits of vegetarian/vegan diet and about in conditions in which the animals are raised - and it became to repel me. Also since we got the dog I realize more and more that I would never be able to hurt an animal and I don't want to support anyone else to do it ...
Food Chain & Different Lifestyle
Overall there's something called the food chain. There has always been a rule in the nature that the organism who is lower in status means food for those who are higher. Bugs eat plants, rodents eat bugs, birds eat rodents and so on ... Everything has its position in the world.
Often repeated argument against vegetarianism is the fact that people were developed to eat meat. The cavemen used to kill and eat the mammoths, right? On the other hand you have to consider if we really need meat as much as the people in prehistory. Those people has completely different lifestyle, they had to be big and strong because they needed fat to survive freezing winters in caves. Nowadays we have mostly sedentary lifes and we can get any food in the supermarker so we don't actually need to eat meat. Also the cavemen didn't have anything else to eat. They used to kill the animals to survive. Now we have so many food choices. Any time of the year you can go to the grocery store and buy seasonal fruit, vegetables, legumes, grains and a lot of other products. We have freedom that those people didn't use to have.
Health
Meat offers important nutrients. Especially it gives you a lot of protein. If you're vegetarian or vegan, people will ask you all the time if you don't miss the meat, if you have enough energy, if you're not eak, if you have enough protein ... In fact the legumes and several types of vegetables may give you more protein that meat. For example spinach, kale or broccoli contain more than 40% protein. If you're afraid of weight or muscle loss, you don't have to. There are actually many vegetarian or even vegan bodybuilders who prove that eating animal products is not necessary to build the muscles. The only vitamin that vegetarians and vegans have to take in a pill is B12.
But let's come back to meat. Meat contains B vitamins, iron, zinc, selenium and other vitamins and minerals. Also it contains healthy fats - which you can also get from the plant-based diet. Some types of meat are so too high in fat so they increase the risk of heart disseases, increase cholesterol, red meed rapidly increase the risk of colon cancer, not to mention the fact that eating undercooked meat can also be at risk of infection from salmonella or tapeworm.
Meat Industry
The food chain can be considered as cogent argument for consuming meat. But it doesn't explain and excuse the tragical conditions in which factory farm animals are raised and killed. If people say that eating meat is okay because people always used to do it, why we don't treat the animals like in past?
For example let's think about the poultry farming. Chicken used to be killed in age of two or three months. Nowaydays the chicken are two times bigger in only 40 days (and they are killed in this age). People like the light meat so the chicken were bred to have bigger breast and achieve the required size in minimum time. The bones and organs are not able to keep pace with such fast growing. So the chicken are almost not able to walk and the movement cause them severe pain. They never see the sunlight - they are locked in complete darkness. They are fed by steroids and antibiotics to grow up faster. From the farm to the slaughter they are transfered in small cages and their wings and legs are often broken. Sometimes the cars which transport them are very cold so they are frozen alive. Then they are hung by the feet head down. They pour their heads in water with electricity that stun them. But some chicken are not big enough to submerge their heads into the water so they experience their death fully conscious.
The meat industry ignores the animal rights and their suffering completely. It's just a business.
World Hunger
870 milions of people around the world suffer with malnutrition altough there's enough food for the whole world. The excessive production of meat has its share. There is enough grain on the fields that can feed the whole world. But the irony is that most of those grains are used to feed the animals. Cows, poultry, pigs and even fish are fed with corn that is cheap and helps animals to grow faster. In fact the cows are actually supposed to eat grass that grows freely. According to statistics the world meat consuption is 41,9kg meat per person per year (average American consumes about 100kg per year) If people ate more plant-based food and limit their meat consuption, they may help solving the world hunger.
ETHICAL EATING
I'm a supporter of vegetarianism because I'm sure that human don't really need meat. If you can get all the nutrients from plant-based diet, why do you eat animal products? However I understand that if you eat the meat all your life, it's not easy to give it up. Maybe you will never want to stop eating meat at all .. and I don't judge you! But please try to eat ethically! Which means:- Don't support animal abuse and don't buy meat from factory farms !!
- Buy meat from eko farms where animals lived freely and they were treated humanly
- Make at least one day a week meatless
- Don't close your eyes to the reality of meat industry - inquire, read and get informations
RESOURCES
This video is for really strong ones only. Personally I had to really convince myself to watch it till the end and during some scenes I had to look away ... But it's definitely worth watching, it shows the cruel reality of factory farming.
What is your opinion about vegetarianism? Do you think human should eat meat?
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