VEGETARIANISM : PLEASE READ THIS MESSAGE A lot of people think its a hassle. Truth is, meat-eating is the real hassle, the real self-sacrifice. Ill explain: Economically Meat-eating is just about the most expensive legal habit you can have. Its just way too much of a bummer for me to drive down to the store and shell out all that cash for a little slab of flesh. My approach is so much simpler – last night, for example, I tossed in three bucks grand total and made a big, tasty, filling dinner. It blows me away how expensive meat-eating is. Smart shopper, you dont need me to tell you more – just truck on down to the supermarket and scope out the facts. Health With all the stress on cholesterol and that stuff, its no secret that meat is a time bomb. I cant figure out how non-vegetarians do it. Id rather just relax and eat foods my body can handle. Call me lazy. If I had the body of a tiger or a dog, maybe things would be different. But my human intestines are about 12 times too long for meat-eating. See, meat decomposes a lot faster than plants. Thats why the intestines of carnivorous animals are only three times there body length – it allows them to get the meat out of their system quickly. But human intestines are 12 times the length of our bodies, and on that long trip to the toilet bowl, meat putrefies and makes all kinds of toxins. Colon cancer just doesnt sound very appetizing to me. Heart disease is no joke. The American Medical Association says, A vegetarian diet can prevent 90 - 97% of all heart diseases. And the kidneys... Even if I was only going to eat meat occasionally, my kidneys would have to work three times harder than a vegetarians. Ive seen enough old folks to know that kidneys aint something you want to mess around with. Anyway you get the picture. Environmentally Meat-eating not only does a number on my health – it wrecks the health of planet earth. First of all there is the incredible waste water. It would take you 95 liters of water to produce a pound of wheat, but to produce a pound of meat you would have to use 9500 liters. One billion tons of wasted water is produced by the meat industry each year. This highly contaminated runoff is, according to the United States Agricultural Research Service, a major cause of the pollution in the nations rivers and streams. Topsoil depletion is estimated to have reached 75% in the USA. More than 85% of this is directly related to raising animals for slaughter. Topsoil depletion is serious business – no topsoil, no food. And lets not forget about the deforestation. You know what the main reason for all this tree-cutting is? It aint for Kleenex – its the conversion of forests into grazing lands for cattle to be slaughtered. Need I even mention that the US meat industry is totally involved with the South American rain forest scandal? The earth is not a toy. Treat her right. Sociologically People are already shaking in their boots about over population and mass hunger. They say the earth cannot support her growing population. But the fact is that if the earths arable land were used primarily for the production of vegetarian foods, instead of for meat production, the planet could easily support a population of 20 billion or more. One acre of spinach, for example, produces 28 times more protein than the same acre used to pasture cattle for slaughter. Think about this statement of French agricultural economist Rene Dumont: The over consumption of meat by the rich means hunger for the poor. Im not dreaming that just by being a vegetarian the kids in Somalia are going to see three hot meals a day. But problems are solved one step at a time. Maybe I cant single-handedly solve the problem, but Id rather not be burdened by knowing that I am among those who create and maintain the hunger of the poor. Ethically How could I be against violence, yet eat the end product of mass slaughter. How can I claim that killing is wrong, yet not make a personal effort to reduce my own participation in it? Yeah, yeah – vegetarians kill too, they kill plants... Honestly, if you cant see the difference between picking an apple and slicing the throat of an upside-down pig, I know a good psychiatrist... Its impossible to completely avoid all violence. If you want to get exact about it, every time you breathe, billions of little bacteria meet their fate. Nevertheless, an ethical person will try to minimize the violence he inflicts on other Vegetarianism minimizes violence toward animals, towards plants (because less plants will feed more people when eaten directly, as opposed to first being fed to an animal to make her fat so she can be killed and eaten), toward the environment, toward other human beings, and toward my own body, mind and soul. Meat-eating is just too much trouble, for yourself and everyone else. Dont do it.
Posted on: Tue, 19 Nov 2013 13:34:14 +0000
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