The Plight of the Vegetarian
Chelsea Schoen, Tower Staff
November 3, 2011
Filed under Uncategorized
MEAT. Some of you may be saying yum, while others may be repulsed right now. If you are like me, you are in that latter category. Now maybe you just have a weird aversion to that word, but mostly likely, you prefer to not eat meat and are thus a vegetarian. But wait, you eat chicken you say? Ah, then you’re a flexitarian. (No, you’re not a gymnast.) See, many people brush off vegetarianism as a bunch of tree-loving granola-munching hippies, but in actuality, vegetarianism is a lifestyle with many different sects and benefits. Most people are unaware of the various sects and what they entail. For instance, when I’m dining at the Pryz and explain to someone I am pescetarian, I have had several instances where people respond asking where I worship and what my pescetarian faith entails…and then I explain it just means I’m a fish eating vegetarian. #awkward… So here are some of the most common sects and what they each mean:
1. Vegetarian: Refrain from eating meat, poultry, pork, fish, but usually eat animal by-products; in this sense, they’re also called lacto-ovo-vegetarians because they consume dairy and eggs.
2. Pescetarian: Refrain from eating all animal flesh with the exception of fish.
3. Flexitarian: A semi-vegetarian; one who usually follows a vegetarian diet but will occasionally indulge in eating meat.
4. Vegan: Do not eat any meat or animal flesh, no eggs or dairy, and will not consume foods processed with animal by-products.
People choose to go vegetarian for various reasons. Some make the change for the sake of animal cruelty and equality; others choose it as a healthier lifestyle. Personally, I chose to become a pescetarian because I don’t like the way meat and poultry are processed. I feel better putting produce into my body rather than chicken that was born mechanically without a head (it happens). Another solution to this problem would be to eat free-range animals or organic foods. Many restaurants are catching on to this trend and offering these choices. Right in DC, Busboys and Poets is a super vegan/vegetarian friendly restaurant that is incredibly yummy and not that expensive. Regardless of the reasons, vegetarianism is a healthy and delicious option, but maybe it’s not for you. That’s okay! Just be accepting of people with different dietary choices and be aware of the alternatives. Happy eatings!
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May all that have life be delivered from suffering. – Buddha
See yourself in Others – Buddha
The time will come when men such as I will look upon the murder of animals as they now look upon the murder of men. – Leonardo Da Vinci
A man can be healthy without killing animals for food: therefore, if he eats meat, he participates in taking animal life merely for the sake of his appetite. – Leo Tolstoy
I care not much for a man’s religion whose dog and cat are not the better for it. – Abraham Lincoln
Nothing will benefit human health and increase chances for the survival of life on Earth as much as the evolution to a vegetarian diet. – Albert Einstein
Animals are my friends… and I don’t eat my friends. – George Bernard Shaw
“Be the change you want to see in the world.” There are many problems in the world we can’t change, but with every meal, we have the power to create lasting positive change. – Mahatma Gandhi
“The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated.” –Ghandi.
“Never, never be afraid to do what’s right, especially if the well-being of a person or animal is at stake. Society’s punisments are small compared to the wounds we inflict on our soul when we look the other way”. – Martin Luther King, JR.(Many people don’t realize that his wife, Correta Scott King and their son, Dexter Scott King are both vegan).
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Meat and the Environment
Whether it’s overuse of resources, water or air pollution, or soil erosion, raising animals for food is wreaking havoc on the Earth. In fact, raising animals for food requires more water than all other uses of water combined, causes more water pollution than any other activity, and is responsible for 85 percent of U.S. soil erosion. America’s meat addiction is steadily poisoning and depleting our land, water, and air.
Many environmental groups, including the National Audubon Society and the Union of Concerned Scientists, have recognized that raising animals for food has a worse effect on the planet than just about anything else we can do.
How Does Eating Meat Affect the Earth?
Today’s factory farms leave behind an environmental toll that generations to come will be forced to pay. Whether it’s excessive water use or contamination, excessive soil use or erosion, excessive resource use or air pollution, America’s meat addiction is steadily poisoning and depleting our water, land, and air.
Consider this:
In an effort to conserve water, you might install a water-saver on your kitchen faucet, saving up to 6,000 gallons of water per year. Most of those savings would be lost if you consumed just one pound of beef (which requires 5,200 gallons of water per pound to produce—compared to only 25 gallons for a pound of wheat). Raising animals for food consumes more than half of all water used in the U.S. A totally vegetarian diet requires 300 gallons of water per day, while a meat-eating diet requires more than 4,200 gallons of water per day.
Producing just one hamburger uses enough fossil fuel to drive a small car 20 miles. Of all raw materials and fossil fuels used in the U.S., more than one-third is used to raise animals for food.
A typical pig factory farm generates raw waste equal to that of a city of 12,000 people. According to the Environmental Protection Agency, factory farms pollute our waterways more than all other industrial sources combined.
In December 1997, the Senate Agricultural Committee released a report that stated that animals raised for food produce 130 times as much excrement as the entire human population, roughly 68,000 pounds per second, all without the benefit of waste treatment systems. A Scripps Howard synopsis of the report (April 24, 1998) stated: “It’s untreated and unsanitary, bubbling with chemicals and disease-bearing organisms. … It goes onto the soil and into the water that many people will, ultimately, bathe in, wash their clothes with, and drink. It is poisoning rivers and killing fish and sickening people.
Catastrophic cases of pollution, sickness, and death are occurring in areas where livestock operations are concentrated. Every place where the animal factories have located, neighbors have complained of falling sick.” This excrement is also generally believed to be responsible for the “cell from hell,” Pfiesteria, a deadly microbe, the discovery of which is detailed in Rodney Barker’s “And the Waters Turned to Blood”
Of all agricultural land in the U.S., 87 percent is used to raise animals for food. That’s 45 percent of the total land mass in the U.S. More than 260 million acres of U.S. forest have been cleared to create cropland in order to produce our meat-centered diet.
The meat industry is directly responsible for 85 percent of all soil erosion in the U.S., because so much grain is needed to feed animals being raised for food. In the U.S., animals are fed more than 80 percent of the corn we grow and more than 95 percent of the oats. Raising animals for food is grossly inefficient, because you have to put 20 calories of food into an animal to get just one measly calorie back in the form of flesh.
The world’s cattle alone consume a quantity of food equal to the caloric needs of 8.7 billion people—more than the entire human population on Earth. According to environmental think-tank Worldwatch Institute, “[T]he easiest way to reduce grain consumption is to lower the intake of meat and milk, grain-intensive foods. Roughly 2 of every 5 tons of grain produced in the world are fed to livestock, poultry, or fish; decreasing consumption of these products, especially of beef, could free up massive quantities of grain and reduce pressure on land.”
Each vegetarian saves one acre of trees every year! More than 260 million acres of U.S. forest have been cleared to grow crops to feed animals raised for meat, and another acre of trees disappears every eight seconds. The tropical rain forests are also being destroyed to create grazing land for cattle. Fifty-five square feet of rain forest may be razed to produce just one quarter-pound burger.
Caring for the environment means protecting all of our planet’s inhabitants, not just the human ones. Animals suffer extreme pain and deprivation on today’s factory farms. Chickens have their beaks sliced off with a hot blade, pigs have their tails chopped off and their teeth removed with pliers, and male cows and pigs are castrated all without anesthesia. The animals are crowded together and dosed with hormones and antibiotics to make them grow so quickly that their hearts and limbs often cannot keep up, causing crippling and heart attacks. Finally, at the slaughterhouse, they are hung upside down and bled to death, often while fully conscious.
There are a variety of books that address the environmental consequences of America’s meat-based diet, including:
Vegan: The New Ethics of Eating by Erik Marcus
Diet for a New America by John Robbins
Beyond Beef by Jeremy Rifkin
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Until we have the courage to recognize cruelty for what it is -whether its victim is human or animal- we cannot expect things to be much better in this world. We cannot have peace among men whose hearts delight in killing any living creature. By every act that glorifies or even tolerates such moronic delight in killing we set back the progress of humanity. ~Rachel Carson.
Anna Sewell [1820 - 1878]
“There is no religion without love, and people may talk as much as they like about religion, but if it does not teach them to be good and kind to the beasts as well as man, it is all a sham.”
Isn’t man an amazing animal? He kills wildlife by the millions in order to protect his domestic animals and their feed. Then he kills domestic animals by the billions and eats them. This in turn kills man by the millions because eating all those animals leads to degenerative and fatal health conditions. So then man tortures and kills millions more animals to look for cures for these diseases. Elsewhere, millions of other human beings are killed by hunger and malnutrition because food they could eat is being used to fatten domestic animals. Meanwhile, some people are dying of sad laughter at the absurdity of man, who kills so easily and so violently, and once a year sends out cards praying for “Peace on Earth.”
-C. David Coates
Want to create a better world? Eat like you mean it – Go Vegan
http://www.nonviolenceunited.org/veganvideo.html
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You missed Plantarian, vegan does not necessarily mean health and is a box Plantarian is a road to health and sustainabilty
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A major societal shift to plant-based diets is essential if we are to have even a chance to avoid climate, food, energy, and water catastrophes.
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