Meat: The ugly truth
By: Gisella Silva
You can choose to ignore the immorality of factory farming, you can choose to be part of it, but if you’re against animal cruelty and care for the environment, you’ll choose to do something about it.
You can choose to ignore the immorality of factory farming, you can choose to be part of it, but if you’re against animal cruelty and care for the environment, you’ll choose to do something about it.
My mom is an extremely impulsive person. About two months ago, I received a text from her saying “Gisella, I’m going vegan!” The first thing I thought to myself was: Here we go again; how long will this one last? A week? Maybe two?
It turns out, however, that she was actually serious about it. When I asked her why, I knew this was going to be an hour-long conversation because she has a tendency to dedicate an unimaginable amount of research to whatever her flavor of the month may be. This time, her research actually paid off.
Do you know how our Christmas turkey or Aji de Gallina ends up on our plates? Factory Farming. Chickens, cows, pigs, sheep, turkeys are crammed into indoor crates or sheds, where they are fed a staggering amount of hormones and antibiotics to make them grow faster and remain disease free – a tough task given their living conditions. They are prohibited from exercising, or even moving freely about. Female pigs, for instance, spend their entire pregnancy in a crate no bigger than the size of their bodies, where standing on all four legs is impossible. This way, the animals’ bodies focus merely on maximizing the meat, eggs or milk they produce. But the cruelty doesn’t end there. These animals don’t see sunlight until the day they are transported to slaughterhouses, where they are sunk in boiling water, bolted with electricity, or even skinned alive. Those considered unfit for consumption face an equally gruesome death and may be buried alive, left to starve, or chopped up in high-speed grinders (while still alive). It is in our nature to consume meat—and we’ve done so for years—but when did consuming meat becoming such an immoral act?
It turns out, however, that she was actually serious about it. When I asked her why, I knew this was going to be an hour-long conversation because she has a tendency to dedicate an unimaginable amount of research to whatever her flavor of the month may be. This time, her research actually paid off.
Do you know how our Christmas turkey or Aji de Gallina ends up on our plates? Factory Farming. Chickens, cows, pigs, sheep, turkeys are crammed into indoor crates or sheds, where they are fed a staggering amount of hormones and antibiotics to make them grow faster and remain disease free – a tough task given their living conditions. They are prohibited from exercising, or even moving freely about. Female pigs, for instance, spend their entire pregnancy in a crate no bigger than the size of their bodies, where standing on all four legs is impossible. This way, the animals’ bodies focus merely on maximizing the meat, eggs or milk they produce. But the cruelty doesn’t end there. These animals don’t see sunlight until the day they are transported to slaughterhouses, where they are sunk in boiling water, bolted with electricity, or even skinned alive. Those considered unfit for consumption face an equally gruesome death and may be buried alive, left to starve, or chopped up in high-speed grinders (while still alive). It is in our nature to consume meat—and we’ve done so for years—but when did consuming meat becoming such an immoral act?
The cruelty of factory farming on animals, however, is just one of the many reasons for my mom’s decision to become a vegan. The fact that it so drastically contributes to global warming is another large part of it. Did you know that more than half of the grains cultivated in the United States go towards feeding livestock? This means that a staggering amount of land, water, and petroleum based fertilizers, herbicides, and pesticides are necessary to produce the meat we find on our plates. According to the World Hunger Education Service, nearly 870 million people of the 7.1 billion people in the world suffer from chronic undernourishment. Thus, reducing our meat consumption would not simply aid in reducing the amount of fossil fuels we use per year, but it would also mean fewer people going to sleep hungry. If we were to take some of the grain used to feed animals and give it to the worlds malnourished instead, we would indeed be helping the poor, and all it takes is cutting back on or cutting out the animal products we consume daily.
Believe it or not, it is the animals themselves that are largely responsible for global warming; when cows and sheep burp and fart, they emit methane (23 times more powerful at trapping heat than CO2) and nitrous oxide (296 times more powerful). Thus, with global warming, it doesn’t matter how the animal was raised or killed, if you consume dairy or meat products you are still contributing to the greenhouse effect. In fact, according to the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization, the production of meat accounts for 18 percent of the world’s total greenhouse gases. When you put this into perspective, that is more than the damage done by all the cars, planes, trains, and buses in the world (combined).
At the end of the day, you can choose to read this article and tell yourself that it’s our human nature to consume meat, we’ve done it for years, so why change now? Although those arguments do hold some truth, as Mike Tidwell mentioned in his article “The Low Carbon Diet,” “we’ve also evolved as people who defecated indiscriminately in the woods and who didn’t brush our teeth. Somehow we’ve moved to a higher level on those counts.” So why can’t we do the same with our diets? Others might argue that animal products are the only way to get enough protein in our diet, but a little investigation will show you that the quantity of protein we need is small and there are plenty of ways to get it through grains, nuts, fruits, etc. A bagel, for instance, provides almost 25% of a woman’s protein requirements.
To be completely honest, despite what my mom told me, it wasn’t until I read Tidwell’s article that I begun to question my meat consumption. Becoming a vegetarian or a vegan is hard for someone living in Peru because there are few vegetarian options in restaurants and supermarkets. So for now, I’ve made an agreement with myself to eat meat twice a week at most.
In a year, however, when I’m in college in the United States—where vegetarian and vegan options are becoming more and more poplar every day—I plan on trying out a vegetarian or even vegan diet. According to Tidwell, “Anthony McMichael, a leading Australia-based expert on climate change and health issues, has crunched the numbers. He estimates that per capita daily meat consumption would need to drop from about 12 ounces per day in America to 3.1 ounces (with less than half of it red meat) in order to protect the climate. I would like to know that I am doing my own small part to protect our planet from its own extinction.
For once, I can honestly say that my mom’s impulsive action has actually rubbed off on me, and I’m glad it did. Many of us are unaware of the reality of factory farming and its devastating effects on animals, humans, and the environment. But those who are aware and choose to ignore it are contributing to the destruction of the planet on a daily basis several times a day. There are innumerable videos and articles that offer proof of the above; it’s just a matter of taking 15 minutes to look through them.
I recommend you start with Mike Tidwell’s article “The Low-Carbon Diet”: https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=859759420718364&id=192591294101850
Believe it or not, it is the animals themselves that are largely responsible for global warming; when cows and sheep burp and fart, they emit methane (23 times more powerful at trapping heat than CO2) and nitrous oxide (296 times more powerful). Thus, with global warming, it doesn’t matter how the animal was raised or killed, if you consume dairy or meat products you are still contributing to the greenhouse effect. In fact, according to the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization, the production of meat accounts for 18 percent of the world’s total greenhouse gases. When you put this into perspective, that is more than the damage done by all the cars, planes, trains, and buses in the world (combined).
At the end of the day, you can choose to read this article and tell yourself that it’s our human nature to consume meat, we’ve done it for years, so why change now? Although those arguments do hold some truth, as Mike Tidwell mentioned in his article “The Low Carbon Diet,” “we’ve also evolved as people who defecated indiscriminately in the woods and who didn’t brush our teeth. Somehow we’ve moved to a higher level on those counts.” So why can’t we do the same with our diets? Others might argue that animal products are the only way to get enough protein in our diet, but a little investigation will show you that the quantity of protein we need is small and there are plenty of ways to get it through grains, nuts, fruits, etc. A bagel, for instance, provides almost 25% of a woman’s protein requirements.
To be completely honest, despite what my mom told me, it wasn’t until I read Tidwell’s article that I begun to question my meat consumption. Becoming a vegetarian or a vegan is hard for someone living in Peru because there are few vegetarian options in restaurants and supermarkets. So for now, I’ve made an agreement with myself to eat meat twice a week at most.
In a year, however, when I’m in college in the United States—where vegetarian and vegan options are becoming more and more poplar every day—I plan on trying out a vegetarian or even vegan diet. According to Tidwell, “Anthony McMichael, a leading Australia-based expert on climate change and health issues, has crunched the numbers. He estimates that per capita daily meat consumption would need to drop from about 12 ounces per day in America to 3.1 ounces (with less than half of it red meat) in order to protect the climate. I would like to know that I am doing my own small part to protect our planet from its own extinction.
For once, I can honestly say that my mom’s impulsive action has actually rubbed off on me, and I’m glad it did. Many of us are unaware of the reality of factory farming and its devastating effects on animals, humans, and the environment. But those who are aware and choose to ignore it are contributing to the destruction of the planet on a daily basis several times a day. There are innumerable videos and articles that offer proof of the above; it’s just a matter of taking 15 minutes to look through them.
I recommend you start with Mike Tidwell’s article “The Low-Carbon Diet”: https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=859759420718364&id=192591294101850