Depressing and Not Well-Written Thoughts on Eating Meat

“Given that eating animals is in no way necessary for most people, should we?”

Well, I don’t know what I was thinking having both a happiness attempt AND reading more about food.

I feel so trapped underneath the weight of the way we do food in this country, this world. The fact that (until I have a lot of money) I cannot safely eat much of anything that isn’t influenced by factory farming (including many vegetables), unbelievable ethics practices, and well, corn and oil, is completely overwhelming. I can’t have a clue where my food comes from, most of it is total trash, completely stripped of its value to my body, which is why I have to take fiber pills a zillion times a day, and the rest of it is produced with sadistic slave labor. This is the case at KFC and nice restaurants alike. It is impossible to eat meat that is not factory farmed and didn’t live and die in horrible ways.

I already felt trapped enough in my life situation before reminding myself of these things, but I had to do it anyway. So now what? I never stopped being a vegetarian, so really spending the last couple of days crying about the billions of tortured animals just TODAY who are suffering the unspeakable to become dollar burgers and egg and bacon sandwiches only serves to remind me of horrors I can do absolutely nothing to change. I’m glad I reminded myself, but what good is any of it if I am unable to influence anyone to eat deliberately, be aware, and know that your choice is: absolute unspeakable cruelty in numbers that are nearly uncountable plus ecological destruction vs. my tongue likes it.

(I say this as a person who still eats cheese, and eggs maybe once a week. I know the packaging claiming cage free, vegetarian fed, blahblahblah is probably crap. I do pay a hell of a lot more for them, so I stupidly hope that means they are actually slightly better. But I definitely need to find a local provider for this.)

So much has been written about this subject that there is nothing new I could ever imagine adding. The problem is actually that I want to outline some of what has been said, but there are so many reasons for NOT eating meat, not eating meat under the current model of production in particular, that I have no idea where to begin.

Oh well, I’m going to ineffectually state some things anyway.

“We justify killing for the taste, but imagine if we tried to justify it for the sound, sight, or smell…”

It’s not just the animal welfare, although I think that should be beyond plenty reason enough.

• Human rights violations for the workers.
• Could feed the world with all the space, grain, water we take up giving to much less efficient meat-production (nearly 1/3 of the land surface is dedicated to livestock)
• Environmental destruction through air, water, and land pollution (it’s impossible to fathom the destruction we cause…I just, the more I read and see, I can’t believe this is possible.)
• Insane amounts of hormones and antibiotics given to these animals to keep them alive and fat long enough to kill them are affecting us and creating more powerful strains of virus that cause pandemics.
• Genetic engineering is doing the same, and these places purposefully create animals that cannot walk, reproduce, or even survive outside.
• Factory farming has almost entirely eliminated traditional farming, wiping out the little guy and the ability for consumers to choose. There’s no such thing as local anymore.
• Entire species are being wiped out due to overkill during fishing, including fishing for shrimp. We’re talking 90% of what’s pulled out of the water is NOT what was being fished for, but it all dies too and is tossed back in dying. You may think shrimp are not sentient and therefore ok to eat, but what about the 90% of everything else that depressurized, got sliced open, suffocated or drowned in the process?
• We are lied to by our government as to what is healthy and what is not.
• Top 3 killers of humans: heart disease, cancer, and strokes, are all connected to meat
• Breeds desensitivity to life in general, including other humans.
• The insane amounts of oil and gas used throughout the entire process.

Quotes I have liked recently:

• “Eating industrial meat takes an almost heroic act of not knowing, or, now, forgetting.”
• “Factory farming is not wrong because it produces meat, but because it robs every animal of every shred of happiness.”
• “I simply cannot feel whole when so knowingly, so deliberately, forgetting.”
• “People care about animals. I believe that. They just don’t want to know or pay.”
• “How much suffering will you tolerate for your food?”

And I haven’t even touched thinking about the HFCS issue. I mean, really! In my favorite bread! I can accept the responsibility for drinking so much Dr. Pepper, but in my attempts to have healthier BREAD I can’t even succeed.

And vegetables…oy. Trapped. I feel panicky and surrounded all the time. Knowledge and happiness are very difficult to reconcile.

ETA:

Another quote:

“To those for whom it sounds like a hard decision, the ultimate question is whether it is worth the inconvenience. We KNOW, at least, that this decision will help prevent deforestation, curb global warming, reduce pollution, save oil reserves, lessen the burden on rural america, decrease human rights abuses, improve public health, and help eliminate the most systematic animal abuse in world history.”

And in Food, Inc. the Walmart reps discussing their choice to go with more organics are very honest: It’s about money and the consumer has said they want to pay for this. We as consumers really do tell the companies what to do. But not with protests, with money.