Working title

Working title
Category: Food and Restaurants

Oh my goodness, right now I am just so saddened by what I have been learning.  As some of you know I have been considering becoming a vegetarian/vegan and have been reading and researching many things to come to an informed decision.  As I delve more deeply into this subject, I am heartbreakingly saddened at what I’ve discovered and at the same time a little disappointed in myself for having chosen to have been as blind as I was. Ignorance is bliss, and I think that’s the motto I have been adhering to most of my life when it came to the food I ate.

I mean DUDE my entire life I’ve been quite the carnivore. I love my meat! You name it, I ate it. It was normal, the normal thing to do right? It’s just what we do, we eat and we eat meat and we drink milk and we are told that’s just how it is and that’s just how it should be done.  I’ll admit for most of my life I actually scoffed at the whole vegetarian thing, happily biting into my burgers as I thought about how miserable a vegetarian’s life must be to go without such wonderful food.  My dad became a vegetarian, I even thought HE was being ridiculous.  People would mention things about treatment of animals, I’d see the absolutely INSANE things that crazy group PETA does [side note: i find it quite hypocritical to say you want to respect all living beings and then you go bomb some factory or something that could very well have a janitor working late, or assault people wearing fur. I lump them into the same category as those who are pro-life and then go kill an abortionist… bastards!]  But anyway, I would see the things they do and figured wow vegetarians are crazy insane lunatics, who needs that, and how about I don’t hear more about what the animals go through because it probably can’t be all that bad.  HAHA, yeah right!

So now that I’ve finally allowed myself to actually learn more about our meat and dairy industries without just dismissing the negative things I hear about it, I have realized how incredibly disgusting it all is.  There is no way I can comfortably put these things in my mouth after seeing what exactly happens to the animals they came from, from the second they’re born until the slaughterhouse.  It is some of the most unspeakable horrible things I’ve ever seen. I just always figured ooooh happy pigs frolicking in the meadows, then yeah sometimes they die and we get to eat the meat, la la la… but if everyone just knew what actually goes on to get that meat from the animal to our stores.  Like I said at the beginning of this, it’s absolutely heartbreaking… I was reduced to tears.  Aside from the humane factor of it all, after learning about the health of these animals before their meat gets to us… well that alone would make me want to stop eating it, even if I didn’t give a flying leap about animal treatment. Did you know it’s legal for cows and pigs to have CANCEROUS lesions on them and their meat still be sold???  Why the hell would I want to ingest cancerous meat?  These animals live piss poor lives and most are VERY sick by the time they are taken to the slaughterhouse…. I don’t think I’d like to eat meat that’s all sickly and infested with hormones and junk.  They give animals hormones so they grow at a faster rate, but because of that it causes all kinds of horrible health problems to the animal…. ick.

I don’t know…. I still have a lot of thinking to do about the whole thing. Again, I love my meat!  But there is no way I can keep on eating the way I have been after reading and seeing the things I have.  I have already decided that I cannot eat chicken, pork, or veal anymore.  Those were by FAR the most disturbing things, I can’t even begin to explain the atrocities involved there…..  No matter what I decide, even if I know I can’t completely go vegan, I can definitely say I am far more educated about what goes in my mouth and as such I can limit certain foods in order to, hopefully, save a few animals and live a much healthier lifestyle…. I don’t know if it’s true, but I read that if one person switches to a vegetarian lifestyle they will save 100 animals in a year…..

Points to ponder.

“There’s a schizoid quality to our relationship with animals in which sentiment and brutality exist side by side. Half the dogs in America will receive Christmas presents this year, yet few of us pause to consider the miserable life of the pig –  an animal easily as intelligent as a dog – that becomes the Christmas ham.”
-New York Times, author unknown-

“Nothing will benefit human health and increase chances of survival for life on earth as much as the evolution to a vegetarian diet.”
-Albert Einstein-