People Should Not Eat Meat

Instead of dieting, people should look to maintain a healthy lifestyle. In an effort to do so, I have turned to a plant based diet. With new studies informing the public about the dangers of red meat as a carcinogen and its link to heart disease, I felt it was best to leave the burgers behind. While not wholly vegan, I no longer consume eggs, dairy, honey, and red meat and instead have replaced these animal products with leafy greens, fiber rich berries, and whole wheat pasta. This transition has not been solely about health, however, as, after taking an Environmental Science course, I learned about the damaging environmental impacts of the meat and dairy industries. In the United States, agriculture accounts for 80% of our water usage -- and bovine meat is the largest offender, using 48x more water than vegetables. Land usage for livestock is another massive problem and as the consumer demands for animal products increases, our available land is slowly eaten away at.

It used to be very common just to eat any meat we pick up from our local grocery store such as Walmart or Target, but with this upcoming millennial generation’s new lifestyle expectations, people are starting to care more about what they consume and how they treat their body. It is important to understand where the food that is being put in your body is coming from and whether or not it is really what you think. Most people understand that eating meat is healthy and good for you always, but the manner in which the animals the meat is being produced from are raised affects the way it tastes and how it either damages or helps the body. I personally believe that people should eat humane meat because it is much safer for the human body due to it

The meat industry has become quite the debate relating to the quality of the meat and its production in the past couple years. Even in the story My Year of Meats, which was during the 20th century, it exemplifies and gives various examples of how meat is potentially bad for your health and our environment. Of course, many would probably disagree on the grounds that “the average American eats 270 pounds of meat per year” (Walsh 1.5). However, is eating meat the only way it can be harmful to us? Regards to those who don’t eat meat, it still has and still will, largely impact their lives because of the way it is being produced because of the emissions and environmental problems that can arise.

An estimated fifty-six billion animals are slaughtered every year just for human consumption. The consumption of these animals is now redundant and wasteful because meat and dairy products are not necessary for the majority of human’s survival. Humans should stop eating animals and animal by-products because it is morally wrong, this is due to the fact that many of the animals humans consume can feel pain. Humans should stop eating other animals if it is not essential for their survival. In addition, the conditions that animals are subjected to in farms and slaughterhouses are harsh. Moreover, the amount of grain that is required to feed farmed animals is high and can be used to feed humans instead of animals that will inevitably be killed

World hunger has been a recent topic to arise, stating the if we didn’t eat meat, those grains used to feed livestock could be used to feed the world's hungry.

Statistics derived from the United States Department of Agriculture show that approximately 10 billion animals raised each year are killed for food in the United States. The toll taken to the environment by mass meat production and the consumption of animal products is never considered. No one to think about how many resources needed to produce enough meat to cater to excessive consumption of animal products all over the world. These animals need to eat and drink. Feeding 10 billion animals in the United States cost more than feeding the whole world. Statistics from the UN show that raising and feeding animals uses approximately 30% of the land mass (Kallen, 2006).

Everything you eat is affecting your body from the inside, and reflecting on your skin. People who developed a good eating habit look young and feel healthy. In order to maintain health, people have to choose carefully what they eat. Choosing the wrong diet might cause numerous health problems. The composition of meat includes fat, saturated fat and cholesterol, all these components increase the risk of diabetes, heart, and gastric diseases. Appropriately planned vegetarian diet improve health and may prevent certain diseases. According to the American Heart Association, “Many studies have shown that vegetarians seem to have a lower risk of obesity, coronary heart disease (which causes a heart attack), high blood pressure, diabetes mellitus and some forms of cancer.”(2) Also, consuming of meat is dangerous because we never know in which conditions an animal was grown. Animals raised for meat-packing plants are injected with steroids, hormones and other drugs in order to make them grow faster and produce more meat. So many people are looking for health problem solving, and the way out is right in front of us. Only we can take control of our live and

As an advanced industry leads to a greater productivity, animals suffer from the factory farming system, a form of “Intensive” industry, which keeps livestock such as cattle and pigs at high stocking densities. This system appears because farmers can gain more profits by reducing their time and expenses. However, this causes problems since people do not deeply think about animals’ treatment. The farm animals are being treated harshly in confined small areas and being abused just for the sake of humans. People should be concerned about the treatment of farm animals and improve the condition of them. Gary Steiner, a strict ethical vegan, goes further and asks people to stop eating meats in his essay, “Animal, Vegetable, Miserable” (Steiner, November 21, 2009). Even though improving the condition of farm animals alleviate their sufferings, Veganism

First of all, not eating meat is much healthier for the human body. Studies have proven vegetarians live longer than meat eaters. Just

We all know that nowadays we are dealing with the world food crisis due to the fact that our food resources are extremely low in comparison with the number of people that live on this planet. Some say that the best solution to this issue would be to stop eating meat. In case you are wondering if the vegan diet is the solution to the world food crisis, you should have a look at this article for a better understanding of this aspect.

Animal agriculture is the biggest threat to our environment. It is an immense waste of water. According to Dr. George Borgstrom, Chairman of Food Science and Human Nutrition Dept of College of Agriculture and Natural Resources at Michigan State University, it takes about 2,500 gallons of water to make just one beef burger. Water consumption from animal agriculture ranges from 34-76 trillion gallons annually. This doesn’t just hurt the environment—it hurts people too. How can we accept that there are currently 844 million people without access to clean water, and we are wasting it on producing meat? In fact, we’re not only wasting water, we are wasting land and crops. Animal agriculture takes up a vast amount of land, leading to deforestation, and causing more animals to become endangered. With the growing population of our planet, this isn’t sustainable. It’s expected that in the U.S alone, meat consumption will double over the next forty years. Crop farming only takes up ⅓ of the land that animal agriculture does. The chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) found that about 2.5 acres of land producing fruit, vegetables, and grain can feed up to 30 people. The same area if used to produce meat, can only feed up to 10 people. The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations estimates that Animal agriculture also contributes to 18%

Per-capita meat consumption has more than doubled in the past half-century, even as global population has continued to increase. As a result, the overall demand for meat has increased five-fold. That, in turn, has put escalating pressure on the availability of water, land, feed, fertilizer, fuel, waste disposal capacity, and most of the other limited resources of the planet (Meat. Now, It’s Not Personal!).

Several studies (Oltjen et al., 1996; Dahlen et al., 2014; Thornton, 2010; and Tilman et al., 2002) drawn the conclusion that as the world population increases the global food production must as well. The current meat practices in the U.S are unsustainable in terms of being able to meet the future demands of global society (Dahlen et al., 2014). Although livestock practices have changed dramatically over time to make production more efficient it has negative impacts on the environment and human health. Fortunately sustainable solutions do exist. Others livestock farmers around the world are implementing sustainable practice that improve the quality of meat and decrease their impacts on the environment.

People who do not eat meat tend to have fewer risks to acquire diseases than those who eat meat. Cancer, heart diseases and digestive issues can be prevented and have lower risks with vegetarians; for example, eating vegetables can lower the risk of colorectal

Vegetarianism is also another alternative that many consider will help feed more mouths. Since 1980, Brazil's meat consumption has more than doubled to 197 pounds a year and China's intake of meat has quadrupled to 109 pounds per person. It requires a lot of time and energy to produce animals for consumption. It takes about 7 pounds of corn to produce 1 pound of beef, 6.5 pounds of corn to produce 1 pound of pork, and 2.6 pounds of corn to produce 1 pound of chicken. From an energy efficiency standpoint then it makes sense to phase out the “middleman” of meat as it means that more calories are received per person and not lost. Moreover, animal agriculture accounts for 50% of water use worldwide so by reducing this activity, more water can be