Conscientious Meat

Animal activists accuse meat eaters of being critical when it comes to picking which species to consume. For example, in source D, Jonathan Safran Foer accuses meat eaters of being fickle of the species they consume. He portrays meat eaters as being discriminatory towards the idea of eating certain species by contrasting the U.S’ meat eating choices with countries such as India, Spain, and French. However, Foer’s argument is impractical. To hold the whole world to the same diet standards is unreasonable; the differences in religion, accessibility, taste preference, and etc.

The opposition to meat labeling laws claims it is “too much regulation and cost to gyrate through unnecessary protocols just to label the meat”. But obviously the opposition really has no defense and just doesn’t want their product to plummet once the truth is shown to the consumer. Once labels are applied to meat countries with notorious standards and unsanitary practices will be justly shut out of the market.

There are myths about vegetarian diets that it is a healthy, moral alternative to meat and that it is far better for the world than meat incorporated diets. But the facts that state these claims are outdated, bias and poorly supported. Alternative meat products ravage US crops and don’t even provide proper, full nutrition to support a brain that has developed through years of meat sustained diets. Vegetarianism is a crop-destroying, world devastating, unhealthy and unneeded alternative to a weight maintaining lifestyle of meat eating. Top soil in 90% of US cropland is at a loss by 13 times the sustainable rate, this drop is due to the high demand for vegetables like soybeans, a vegetarian meat alternative, that take up 92% of the crops in the US.

Instead of trying to advocate for CAFO meats to remain available as a cheap source of meat we should be fighting to eliminate CAFO’s completely as they are an unsustainable enterprise which inevitably encourage overconsumption of meats and in extent promote obesity, diabetes, hypertension, and diseases of the like. We should be advocating to have our tax dollars be put toward subsidies that will further grass-fed farms and push for cheaper grass-fed meats. So much effort has been put towards maintaining the CAFO system but why is no effort really being put into bringing up the grass-fed movement. Throughout my research I realized that I could not find a single article which spoke kindly of CAFOs. I found hundreds of scholarly articles and essays which extolled grass-fed meats and others which criticized both but none that boldly supported CAFOs.

Meat can be very harmful to your health and the environment. That's why vegetarianism is an idealistic lifestyle. Meat-eaters unethically use resources by: killing animals, causing pollution and deforestation, and putting themselves at risk for high cholesterol, cancer, and obesity. We all know that one person amongst our friends or family that has a heart for animals and refuses the thought of eating a poor furry friend. Others believe that animals were put here for a reason to be eaten and used as a resource, but what most people don't know is how badly animals are mistreated in factories and in slaughterhouses.

So people have become accustom to eating beef which is something that is dangerously harming our planet. Even though it is our fault for opting to eat beef, not enough people have been educated to the harms of it. In the article “Eating Less Meat Essential to Curb Climate Change, Says Report”, by Carrington, Damian, states “But governments and green campaigners are doing nothing to tackle the issue due to fears of a consumer backlash, warns the analysis from the thinktank Chatham House.” Carrington is attempting to explain that not enough people are warned, which is why there are so many people that are uneducated. The reason the government is choosing not to put restrictions, is because they are scared that the consumers will “backlash” against them. The government should be worried about the future of this planet and not just about a bunch of angry meat lovers.

Unfortunately, the high demand and shortcuts made living conditions for the animal unsuitable. The meat produced today is much different than it was then. Most meat now are filled with hormones to raise them plumper. Animal rights and health issues is a enormous problem in the meat industry. We may mindlessly eat meat, but have we ever gave a thought where it came from or how it was treated when it was still alive?

All these points are important in justifying whether humans are morally right when choosing to eat meat. This paper will argue that it is morally impermissible to eat meat by focusing on the treatment of animals, the environmental argument, animal rights, pain, morals, religion, and the law. Treatment of animals Vegetarians are uncomfortable with how humans treat animals. Animals are cruelly butchered to meet the high demand and taste for meat in the market. Furthermore, meat-consumers argue that meat based foods are cheaper than plant based foods.

With numbers like this we cannot afford to kill so many living beings. Other people may think that not all nutrients are supplied in a regular vegetarian diet. They may think that not enough protein is supplied in a vegetarian diet. This is simply an assumption. Spinach contains twenty six times more protein than regular beef.

A meatless diet is healthier than a diet containing meat. According to surveys and examinations of the contents of the food products, meat contains more fat than non-meat foods. Since it is very difficult for our bodies to process high quantities of fat and it is being accumulated in our bodies, fat consuming causes many health problems. According to the American Heart Association, the fat in the food we eat should be no more than 30 percent of the total calories we consume daily. However, this is very difficult to achieve when meat is part of our daily meal plan.