After being a vegetarian for 2+ years I became lost and started eating meat again, but I can’t let that be a part of who I am anymore. I remember back when I was twelve, and I watched a video much like the one I have above. It changed everything for me.
Since I was little, meat has always been a part of my life. Part of every meal, every family gathering, every social event I went to. I didn’t know one single vegetarian, let alone vegan…Milk was always something that we had in the house. My siblings, cousins, aunts and uncles all drank it. I was force fed the idea that I needed milk to grow and become whatever concept of strong they may have had.
As long as I can remember, I have always had this internal conflict around eating animals. Animals have always been something that I loved, and to this day I still squeal with joy over the sight of ANY, and I mean ANY animal that I cross paths with. Whether it be the dog I pass walking on the street, the squirrel I see outside my window, the caterpillar I find on my walk, or the cat I can see inside my neighbors window! I don’t know what it is exactly, but maybe it is simply the pureness animals have within them, or their ignorance of the world or simply the cuteness of their faces…something about them just gets to me. I swear when I look an animal in their eyes I can see tiny little souls within them!
The thing is, I never really understood that we didn’t have to eat them. My world was once so small - I knew no other ways of eating - I never knew we had the choice. I still remember the first day I discovered it. I was twelve years old and browsing youtube, and somehow came across a video that showed the reality of what happened within slaughter houses, and bam, my mind was made up. I learned terms like vegetarian and vegan and I decided that being a vegetarian was who I was going to be. It was that day that my heart became so full of empathy and compassion for animals that I thought that that part inside of me might explode from feeling too much.
In a perfect world, I would never have given up on vegetarianism and I wouldn’t have to go through this process of starting all over again. I wish I could remember where I was mentally the day I decided to bring meat back into my life. What was I thinking? It’s not like my love for animals ever left me. I never and still cannot fathom how people can commit such horrendous crimes and acts of cruelty towards animals, so what was it inside me that let me eat a burger or chicken again? Am I really too blindsided by the taste of meat to simply ignore the realities of how animals are treated?
We have the power and the choice to be the voice animals do not have for themselves. If only we took more time to connect with them, we would all see that animals possess much of the same things we do. We all feel, express joy/sadness, nurture of offspring, seek safety and shelter, connect and make friends…To be short and sweet, I choose a plant based life because I do not view my own life as higher or more important than any other animal that has it’s own life to live.
And even though the animals themselves may be what impacts me the most, there are numerous health and environmental benefits that go along with it.
Meat is often contaminated with feces, blood, and other bodily fluids—all of which make animal products the top source of food poisoning in the United States. Scientists at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health tested supermarket chicken flesh and found that 96 percent of Tyson chicken was contaminated with campylobacter, a dangerous bacterium that causes 2.4 million cases of food poisoning each year, resulting in diarrhea, cramping, abdominal pain, and fever.
Help feed the world: Eating meat doesn’t just hurt animals—it hurts people, too. It takes tons of crops and water to raise farmed animals. In fact, it takes up to 13 pounds of grain to produce just 1 pound of animal flesh! All that plant food could be used much more efficiently if it were fed directly to people. The more people who go vegan, the better able we’ll be to feed the hungry.
Save the planet: Meat is not green. Consuming meat is actually one of the worst things that you can do for the Earth. It is wasteful and causes enormous amounts of pollution, and the meat industry is also one of the biggest causes of climate change. Adopting a vegan diet is more effective than switching to a “greener” car in the fight against climate change.
Warning - the consumption of meat is hazardous to your health! According to the American Dietetic Association, meat-eaters have an increased risk of heart disease, colon cancer, obesity, adult-onset diabetes, gout, osteoporosis, kidney stones, gallstones, diverticular disease, lung cancer and breast cancer.
Animal products, such as meat and eggs, are the only dietary sources of cholesterol and the chief source of saturated fat, the main causes of heart disease. Not eating these foods reduces the risk of heart attack by 90%. The fiber in vegetarian diets not only removes unneeded cholesterol and other cancer-causing agents, but helps in reversing atherosclerosis - hardening of the arteries. A 1990 study demonstrated reversal of even severe coronary disease through the combination of a low-fat vegetarian diet, stress management, moderate exercise and cessation of smoking. Vegetarians overall are 20% less likely to die from heart attack than meat-eaters
Diets high in protein, especially animal protein, can cause the body to excrete more calcium, oxalate and uric acids which form kidney and gallbladder stones. Vegetarian diets have been shown to reduce the chance of forming these stones. An ultrasound study found that 18% of meat-eating women had symptomless gallstones, compared to only 10% in vegetarians. Because a vegetarian diet does not force calcium out of the body, as meat does, vegetarians are at a lower risk for osteoporosis - the weakening of the bones, a major health concern for women.
Animal products are usually high in fat and always devoid of fiber. Vegetarians avoid animal fat, the consumption of which is linked to cancer, and get abundant fiber and vitamins that help prevent cancer. In a University of Hawaii study, vegetarians, on average, ate almost twice as much fiber as the meat eaters, especially cereal fiber. Vegetarians are therefore much less likely to suffer from constipation than meat-eaters. Blood analysis of vegetarians also reveals that they have higher levels of specialized white cells which attack and kill cancer cells. A UK study of over 6000 vegetarians found them 40% less likely to die of cancer than meat-eaters.
How much enhanced longevity can you expect as a vegetarian? The study of vegetarian Seventh Day Adventists found them to have significantly lower death rates than the general population. Men had lower death rates from coronary heart disease, stroke, diabetes, all cancers combined, and cancer of the colon, rectum and prostate in particular. Women had lower death rates from stroke, diabetes, all cancers combined, and cancer of the colon, rectum, breast and ovaries in particular. The study concluded that the more meat and eggs an individual ate, the more likely they were to die of those diseases. Dr. William Castelli found that vegetarians outlive meat-eaters by about 6 years. Populations that consume high amounts of animal flesh, such as the Greenlanders and Russian Kurgi have life expectancies of only 30 years. Populations such as the East Indian Todas and the Russian Caucasians, who consume little or no meat, have life expectancies of 90-100 years.
This video is so important, too! So so important to help us understand the manipulation we are fed from the meat and dairy industries. This one is not one of those graphic videos to stun you, but rather an informative, logical video to help you chose if animal products are actually right for you…
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