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this is the part where i rant about vegetarianism.
i became
vegetarian six years ago, after watching a documentary about slaughter
houses and the supposedly humane way in which cattle are killed. i cried, completely gobsmacked at the man operating the
twelve inch spike gun as he laughed when the cow mooed in distress. if
it’s meant to be painless and instant, why does the cow move around
and make so much noise? he said that when the spike is fired, the
animal’s nervous system is ‘de-activated’ so it feels
nothing, but the fact that it can take minutes to die obviously contradicts
this.
“in order to have sufficient milk production, it is
necessary for dairy cows to give birth to a calf every year. the calf is
usually taken away from the mother
immediately, and male calves are often bred to be veal calves - this is a
meat calf that will spend his entire life (26 weeks) in a wooden box, which
is too small for the animal to turn itself around in. this way muscle
development will be limited so that the meat will remain tender. because
the consumer prefers whitish-pink meat, the animal is fed an iron-deficient
diet, which causes it to develop anemia. when the calf is ready for
slaughter and is taken to the slaughterhouse, it can barely walk.” - vegetarian website.
so the tv programme was all it
took. the following morning i told my family
about my decision, the response was a mixture of laughter and ‘i can’t believe you’re being so stupid,
they’re only cows’. i’ve been
told since that the smell of bacon sandwiches is the one thing that’s
most likely to turn vegetarians back to eating meat. i
find the smell of meat, raw and cooked, entirely revolting, so another myth
disproved.
it’s so easy to not eat meat, now that every major
supermarket caters for vegan and vegetarian diets. we don’t need it
either, the minerals that are lost can now be replaced with vitamin
supplements and substituting other foods.
what amazes me the most is people’s denial – ones
i know who do eat meat say they wouldn’t
stop, and why should they? but mention the concept of killing the animals
they choose to eat, instead of picking it up pre-wrapped in
sainsbury’s, and they either lie and say ‘oh yeah, i could do that’ or admit how horrible it would
be. where do they think burgers and turkey sandwich fillers come from? how
can a person say they love animals, keep pets and still eat meat?
my six year old cousin asked me why i
wasn’t eating the same as her for dinner, and i
said ‘because i don’t eat
animals.’ she said ‘neither do i!’
happily tucking into spaghetti bolognaise. i
asked her what was in her dinner, and she replied ‘it’s just
some meat.’ i said ‘do you think that
might come from cows or sheep?’ ‘don’t be silly, jennifer! I don’t eat sheeps.’ she
said.
i
wasn’t trying to traumatize a little girl, or anything (honest!), i just wonder how aware children are about what they
eat. she loves animals, they live near farms so she’s used to seeing
cows and sheep. i again asked her if she’d
ever eaten one, pointing at them. she laughed and obviously thought i was being ridiculous. i
don’t remember discovering that meat was from animals when i was little, but the idea seems really upsetting.
another argument i’ve faced is
about god (woo). well, since i don’t
exactly believe in that, the idea of it putting animals on the planet
purely to feed us doesn’t mean much to me. even if god did exist,
surely it contradicts itself by saying on one hand ‘these are here to
be eaten’ and on the other ‘you must respect all living
things’. we’re so convinced we’re better than animals,
we’re more intelligent and have far superior communication, and we
therefore have the right to kill and consume them.
we’re just animals. stupid enough to kill each other
through war, and everything else through apparent superiority. we’re
no better than apes, dogs, reptiles, rodents: opposable thumbs convince us
otherwise.
for more
information:
meat stinks
peta
viva
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