I am a proud animal lover and animal welfare advocate.
I also eat meat.
According to some, including a friend of my own, this choice makes me a hypocrite.
To this group of people (and my said friend), my protein staple of ethically sourced chicken (and yes, I’ll be honest the very occasional Bacon and Egg McMuffin- for hangover relief) makes me number one on the PETA most wanted list.
While I respect their opinion and can see why some people might view it this way, I also respectfully disagree.
In reality, by saying you only constitute as a true animal lover if you don’t eat meat simplifies the issue into something far more straightforward than it really is. It groups a whole range of people into the one category; from the abhorrent animal trophy hunters sourcing animal heads for their billiard room back home, to the 80-year-old roast loving Nan whose closest companion is her adoring Poodle, it even includes many dedicated vets who spend much of their life putting our animals first.
Why do we love our dogs so much? Post continues below.
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An ethicist by the name of Peter Singer ran the numbers and found that:
Published figures suggest that, in Australia, producing wheat and other grains (as opposed to farming cattle) results in:
- at least 25 times more sentient animals being killed per kilogram of useable protein
- more environmental damage, and
- a great deal more animal cruelty than does farming red meat.
It's worth reading.
Going vegetarian might save cows, but how many mice, birds, etc are killed per hectare of crop?
If you can't watch footage of what goes on inside an abattoir or watch videos of mother cows having their calves taken from them (so humans can drink their milk), then you obviously have a massive problem with these things (as you should! They're horrendous!). And yet by purchasing meat and dairy products, you're literally paying for these things to continue.
You hate these things - to the point that you physically cannot watch them - but you willingly pay for them to continue. Something doesn't quite add up there ...
When you cut animal products out of your life (it's really easy, which is why so many people are doing it now!), you take away the need to do mental gymnastics every time you, for example, eat a burger or buy some yoghurt. When you buy the plant-based versions of those things, you don't have to worry anymore. You don't have to justify to yourself why it's okay to do so. You're not paying for people to hurt animals. It's freedom!
By the way, ethically sourced, free-range animals end up at the same abattoirs as the normal animals. Their lives end in the same terrifying way, seeing and hearing the slaughter of animals before them in line, in many cases not being properly stunned before they are hoisted up by one leg, their pelvis cracking in the process, while they are slit from neck to groin. Many, MANY abattoir workers have attested to the fact that production lines at abattoirs move so quickly that if an animal isn't stunned properly initially, there's no time to re-stun it - it just continues down the processing line while still conscious. 'They die in pieces' is what one worker said, referring to cows that remain alive while parts of them are hacked off at each point in the processing line. Even the freest of free-range chickens end up at the same processing plant as caged hens, many dying as they are plunged fully conscious into vats of boiling water. All chickens, free range or otherwise, are debeaked (akin to having your fingernail pulled out). All cows are de-horned (intensely painful) and castrated without pain relief. All pigs have their teeth pulled out and tails chopped off without pain relief. These are all standard, legal practices in the industry, even though you would be charged with animal cruelty if you did the same things to a cat or a dog.
Please consider watching the Australian documentary Dominion, which is available for free online (google 'watch dominion'). At least then you'll know exactly what you're paying for when you eat animals. And if you CAN'T bring yourself to watch it, then that just shows you how deeply horrified you are by what is done to animals for food. And perhaps then you will consider not continuing to hand over your hard-earned money to industries that do things you are so fundamentally opposed to.