The Meat Demand and A Call to Go Vegan

Over fifty-six billion animals are slaughtered yearly for consumption, but because we are conditioned from a young age to view animals as resources, we neglect that they are passionate and intelligent living beings. Cows want to enjoy their lives, pigs want to enjoy their lives, and many other farm animals want to enjoy their lives but instead are abused and confined in small cages. Ironically, though, when someone does likewise to a cat or dog, they’re prosecuted. The sole solution to these inhumane acts is Veganism. Veganism is the ideal diet because plant-based foods are plentiful, and it recognizes the unethical treatment of animals.

Key to the current state of America’s meat industry, according to Michael Pollan, author of The Omnivore’s Dilemma, is the fact that it is primarily hidden from the consumer. The consumer, as well as corporations, have chosen to build walls instead of demanding transparency. The general public and journalists are not permitted to enter abattoirs of many corporations, leaving the judgement of how animals should be slaughtered to the businesses themselves. State and federal regulations are not often put into practice as they should be, enabling the corporation to decide what is ‘humane’ and what is not. Handing this judgement to a profit organisation enables the corporation to find the most efficient and most lucrative system, ignoring

Exist many companies that raising well their animals but other that feed them with antibiotic, hormones, chemicals, etc. They just want to sell their product and make money but what happens with the persons who consumed that. Due to many children suffer of intoxication, allergy, etc. it causes serious illness problems, having no moral conscience on animal treatments, and the health of people. We need to try to consume health food instead buying fast food because we do not know how they prepared it or from where they got it. People can contribute to the cause of protecting farm animals by temporarily eating a vegan diet until laws are incorporated that prevent farm animal abuse, and promote welfare of farm animals during their lives. It is the ethically and morally correct decision to treat farm animals with respect. If people can do something to make a change for this cause, then they should, because it is for the benefit of both animals and

In the modern era, large corporations are holding feedlots without respect for ethics or safety. They don’t consider the magnitude of the effects of their actions, and are heedless of the safety of the environment, the animals, and the public. In the end, these large corporations get away with it because of the lack of regulations and penalties that deter them from such practices. In essence, these problems have, and will continue, to persist due to the lack of funding for federal regulatory agencies, as well as the lack of public knowledge and outreach upon the issue. It’s important to note that the food industry must adapt to the demands of the market. If the public calls for safe and wholesome food, then it is the responsibility of producers

Meat and animal products such as milk and eggs are some of the most consumed products in the world, this means that these products are in high demand. The livestock tend to live in bad conditions, they are injected with antibiotics and emit gasses into the atmosphere that contribute to climate change. These are some of the factors that cause people to become a vegan. Freelance writer Barbara Kingsolver, who specializes in social justice and the environment. Encourages people to eat locally as much as possible and that eating meat is fine as long as you raise the animals yourself. According to Kingsolver, “The blunt biological truth is that we animals can only remain alive by eating other life.” Kingsolver is an advocate for eating meat as long as that livestock is raised in a humane and non-cruel way. Being a vegan is more than not eating meat, when someone is a vegan they are fighting for animal rights. Vegans fight for lowering the gases that go into the atmosphere and better living conditions and treatment for livestock.

Animal products are everywhere! Most of the time they are overtly conspicuous, glaring at us from billboards, commercials, and around every corner. Unknowingly, however, animal products are covertly within countless processed foods from candies and Jell-O, to baked goods, sauces, alcoholic beverages, and condiments. Is it possible to avoid animal products when they are virtually inescapable? This is what I asked myself after watching the documentary, Cowspiracy (Anderson & Kuhn, 2014) which shined a bright light on the hidden truths of meat consumption. Already a student of food and nutrition, I had an upper-hand in this pursuit. Experimenting with recipes, often from other cultures, I discovered an entirely unknown lifestyle. As a vegan for

Animal cruelty continues to plague the meat and dairy industry and a policy to reverse this is enacting stricter regulations on meat and dairy labels that explicitly state the additives and preservatives used on the product. Moreover, my policy will persuade people to purchase meat and dairy that is ethically raised and is not made with preservatives or additives, this is my value of health. Moreover, my policy is for those who eat meat and dairy and are unaware of the health side affects of consuming it and the animal cruelty that goes into producing a piece of meat or glass of milk, which encompasses my value of compassion. We are a compassionate species who turns the channel during an ASPCA commercial. We root for Nemo, Babe and Bambi yet we watch the movie whilst eating fish, pork or venison. The hypocrisy is unbelievable yet not talked about. Most Americans do not recognize this link between our compassion and the animals we eat and the hypocrisy that surrounds it. In this essay I address the compassion humans posses and how it is being wiped out through eating meat and dairy. I also address how we have the potential to rid the meat and dairy industry of the abuse. I will also discuss how meat and dairy is detrimental to our health.

In 2016 the United States Department of Agriculture otherwise known as the USDA, estimated that Americans ate an average of 54.3 pounds of beef, 92.1 pounds of chicken, and 50.4 pounds of pork, per person, per year. Today I’m going to be speaking to you about why the population of the world should stop buying from and supporting the meat and dairy industries. I’m going to show you why meat is not intended for our human anatomy, why vegetarianism and veganism is better for the ecosystem than an animal based diet and I will show you how almost everyone in this room is condoning a rape culture.

Rather than consuming products from big factories, consumers should consider a vegan diet. As stated in “Eating for Your Health,” by the PETA organization, vegan diets “are healthful, nutritionally adequate, and may provide health benefits in the prevention and treatment of certain diseases” (PETA 1). Not only are vegan diets healthy for the human body, but it also reduces the slaughtering of animals. Importantly, consumers need to know that “free range,” “cage-free,” and organic products are not any better because they “are filled with artery-clogging saturated fat and cholesterol just like conventional animal products” (PETA 1). For dairy alternatives, there are many options including soy, nut, and rice milk in place of cow milk. Soy milk comes in many flavors such as strawberry, chocolate, and vanilla. Cheese, yogurt, and ice cream can be replaced by vegan recipes and products like the Toffuti brand that makes soy products. All these items can easily be obtained from local grocery stores and

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.

As different crazes and fads are appearing each day, we have come to expect them to simply fade away as the hype passes. However, veganism has stood the test of time in our fad society and is still increasing in popularity. Originally only thought to be a religious lifestyle, many people from different walks of life are becoming vegans. However, this poses many questions and sparks heated debates, mainly from omnivorous people who believe that veganism is against life’s natural order. Vegans, then, argue against an omnivorous lifestyle by bringing up facts about humans’ biological makeup and how humans are, contrary to popular belief, herbivorous by nature, not omnivorous. While both sides present good arguments to some, the veganism lifestyle contains more benefits and less harmful cons than an omnivorous lifestyle.

Why we eat what we eat is an issue that is very controversial. In 2007, Mark Bittman persuasively uttered, “there's no way to treat animals well, when you're killing 10 billion of them a year. That's our number. 10 billion. If you strung all of them -- chickens, cows, pigs and lambs -- to the moon, they'd go there and back five times, there and back." He even emphasized these statements: “The USDA is not our ally here. We have to take matters into our own hands, not only by advocating for a better diet for everyone - and that's the hard part - but by improving our own. And that happens to be quite easy. Less meat, less junk, more plants.”

The word “vegan” often strikes an unfavorable chord with people. Vegans do not consume any animal products, including meat, eggs, dairy honey, and leather. One might be surprised to find that participating in the vegan lifestyle can greatly preserve the environment. Currently over 56 billion animals are killed for food each year (“Food”). Producing land to house those animals causes great amounts of deforestation and feeding them uses 70% of all freshwater on Earth (“Evaluating the Environmental…”). Not to mention that the agriculture industry is responsible for 18% of release of greenhouse gases worldwide (“Are Cows the Cause…”). The environment is precious to people of Earth, but if current dietary trends continue, the downfall of the environment may be at play. If the population of the world turned vegan, how would the environment change?

Vegans claim to have good health and a lowered chance of getting diseases in general because they don’t consume animal products. A huge part of this is due to the fact that meat is a carcinogen as well as certain animal proteins. Results from a 20 year nutrition study show that “Researchers discovered that they could actually turn the growth of cancer cells on and off by raising and lowering doses of casein, the main protein found in cow’s milk”(Held). Horrifyingly enough is that this study has been out for almost 18 years, yet doctors and milk brands promote that “You need milk in order to get strong, healthy bones”, as well as mentioning that it’s a “good source of calcium” when it’s proven not to be. Not only is dairy bad for you, but it’s addictive.

The world has different views on whether it is ethical to eat meat. The most important moral should be that the animals are being treated humanely before and during the slaughtering process. Customers who eat meat need to know that the meat they are buying does not come from mistreated animals. Customers should be buying their meat from small farms or larger companies that promote cruelty-free production. Broiler chickens are kept to a point they can barely walk and hens are piled in a small cage with a half-dozen more hens. These hens end up eating their own cage partners, rubbing their breasts against the wire to the point they are bleeding and 10 percent of hens do not even survive these conditions. Factory farms do this so customers can buy eggs at a cheap price. We cull to keep populations of animals down and to keep them also from starvation. If an animal gets old or has a disease the people taking care of the animals should put them down humanely so they do not suffer through the process. If more places would practice humane treatment towards animals that are being raised for slaughter and training their employees how to care for the animals, society might not think eating meat is so cruel.