FIRST LET ME HALF-WAY APOLOGIZE FOR THIS POST’S OBSCENELY LONG CONTENT, BUT PLEASE, PLEASE READ THE WHOLE THING – IT WILL CHANGE YOUR OUTLOOK ON CONSUMING ANIMALS AND ANIMAL PRODUCTS!!! (This is why I only half apologized – it is because while I am sorry for the post’s length, I am not a wink sorry about its content!)
This happened sometime around June 1st, and I, unfortunately, have been able to post about it until now. Please pardon my lateness, and realize that this was written as if the incident had happened only days before. Enjoy! (And by “enjoy” I mean I hope I scare you so badly with these true facts that you soil your pants in shock. Also by “enjoy” I am really saying I hope this impacts you and helps you make the choice to become a vegetarian!!!)
UUGGGHHH!!!!!! My father, yes, my very own FATHER said something beyond offensive to me the other day. I cannot even fathom how mad I am at him!!!
The Back Story:
Phoebe and I were arguing about who would get the leftover plain spaghetti because we were both hungry, and while Phoebe said she did not mind the meat sauce spaghetti, she would rather have plain. She finally agreed to take the meat sauce pasta, too, so I gave myself more of the plain pasta because she would be getting more pasta than me with her meat added. She flipped at this decision of mine to give myself more plain…It got ugly then – she threw the (closed) bag of spaghetti at me!!
It almost burst on my black and white striped tank top!
Then my dad tried to break it up – no problems so far, from father at least… He told Phoebe to just deal with it because meat was better anyway. At this I could not help but interject with my wisdom and say that meat was not better, by any means, and Phoebe told me to shut up. Then he said it…he said that AWFUL, HORRIFYING, AND COMPLETELY SEMI-STEREOTYPICAL sentence. What, exactly, did he say??
“Vegetarians are nut jobs.”
My father, my dad, my guardian who is well aware that HIS DAUGHTER, aka ME, is a vegetarian, called all vegetarians “nut jobs.”
I swear I almost strangled him.
Instead, I broke into tears when I got back home to my mom’s house, which was about 20 minutes later. Of course she got upset and it became a full-blown debate about vegetarianism and animals’ rights between me and my dad in my kitchen. (The cats (Prospero and Luna Sea) listened, too; they were very intent and you could see them rooting for me, it was obvious if you looked into their shiny little kitty cat eyes.)
The (Brief) History of Vegetarianism:
The word vegetarian is derived from the Latin word vegatus, meaning “whole, sound, fresh and lively.”
The Vegan Society was formed on September30, 1847.
Donald Wilson coined the word vegan.
Factory farming began in the 1950s.
The Bible Debate:
Now for you readers let me quickly put down a few reasons vegetarianism is the good, ethical, and much needed choice that most Americans (if not the people of the world, too) should make:
You people who are sitting at your computers reading this thinking, “You stupid girl, God put animals on the earth for us to eat,” let me say that you, my reader, you are the stupid one. For the love of God in Heaven, review the Bible before making that pointless and overused excuse!! God DID NOT put animals on the earth for human consumption, and, believe it or not, according to the Bible (which I do believe because I am predominantly Christian), every animal at the beginning of time when the Lord created the world was an herbivore. All animals ate plants in the Garden of Eden. Look it up if you don’t believe me, the words are right there in Genesis.
Now, think of this: Adam and Eve were not given permission to eat the oxen or any other animal until after the rise of sin. Hm, maybe that says something?!?! Another counter-argument as far is the Bible and religion are concerned is that argument that relates to the fact that God put man in possession of the earth. Here’s the thing you need to remember about this argument: Yes, we are in dominion over the earth, but that doesn’t mean that we should take advantage of it and turn into merciless killers just because we can. I mean, I could eat ice-cream for the rest of my life just because I am able to, but does that make it right? No. (Now I realize that this is not the best example because when it comes to eating ice-cream it is not distinctly wrong to eat it all the time; it is, however, bad for you and not the smart choice!)
The last argument I have heard concerning the right of us as humans and as “higher beings” than animals is one I heard from my father while we were fighting over the topic. It was this: that God was the first to use animals – he used them to clothe Adam and Eve. I do not deny this, but I do not think it changes much. It goes back to the sin argument: God would not have had a need to clothe the first two human beings if they had not sinned in the first place, for Adam and Eve did not even realize, nor did they care, that they were naked until they sinned and gained the forbidden knowledge that informed them or their current naked state of being. Just consider that.
Let me add right here that I highly encourage you to continue reading this post, no matter how long (it is currently 755 words, not to scare you off) this post is or how offended (sorry to all you people who fit into the “offended” category, but I’m here to impact you with this subject, not let you continue eating your hamburgers unaware) or bored you are at this point, because, if you keep reading, I promise you will learn something(s) that will profoundly impact your meat-eating habits (for the better).
The Nutritional Horrors of Consuming Animal Flesh and Products:
Now let me move on to the NUTRITIONAL FACTS (duh duh duuunnnn…) about being an omnivore verses becoming a vegetarian (or herbivore, in most cases. For those of you who don’t know, there are 3 2 types of vegetarians: vegans – people who eat no animal products including meats, dairy and eggs, and seafood or shellfish; lacto-ovo vegetarians – people like myself who eat dairy products, but choose not to partake in the consumption of meat and seafood or shellfish; and pescatarians – people who eat no meat, but do eat dairy and seafood and shellfish).
(Please keep in mind that not all of the nutritional facts I have found are listed below because they tie in with and will be included in the area of this post on animal cruelty in factory farms.)
Read these nutritional facts and weep, non-vegetarians; read ‘em and weep:
1) Vegetarians are less likely to be overweight. (One reasons is related to people drinking milk – milk is used to help baby cows grow, that’s its purpose! To fatten up calves so they can be big and strong in life! Therefor, what do you think happens to people who indulge in the consumption of cow’s milk…?!?! Yea, THEY GAIN WEIGHT, because the milk is doing what it was intended to do: fatten things up. This is why cows do not continue drinking their mother’s milk all their lives, it’s because they have already grown and therefor have no more need for the milk to fatten them up, just as humans have no need to continue to drink our mother’s breast milk after a certain age and weight!!)
2) Living on a raw foods only diet has been proved to decrease many, many health problems, and I highly encourage everyone reading this to go to youtube.com and watch the video called “Raw for 30 Days” – it is about people with diabetes who are cured, yes I said cured of their diabetes, in only 30 days by living raw. This study was confirmed by doctors and multiple other patients who tried it.
3) It has been proven that vegetarians are much more likely to live longer than omnivores.
4) Consuming a lot of animal proteins in meat and such causes kidney failure!
5) A study was taken by the American Cancer Society on 80,000 people trying to lose weight and in the end the results showed that people who had eaten meat around three times a week had gained substantially more weight than those people who had avoided meat and stuck to fruits and vegetables.
Are We Equipped to Eat Meat?
Now, if that still doesn’t convince you to go veg (which I’m sure it hasn’t yet because you people are stubborn and don’t like to admit that you are wrong, and because you all love your meat) then please consider the following reasons relating to your health and the whole “just because you can doesn’t mean you should” point that will hopefully help you decide to eliminate meat from your diet.
Here is a comparison between carnivores and humans when it comes to eating/digesting meat that proves that even though our ancestors ate meat in ancient times doesn’t mean that we are still equipped to eat the same way (or that they were even equipped to eat meat – you never know!).
1) Carnivores have acid-based saliva meaning that the digestion of meat begins right away so that they can avoid digestion complications later on, whereas humans have an alkaline saliva, which I feel compelled to point out is on the complete opposite side of the Ph Scale (you know, 1-6 is acidic, 7 is neutral, and 8-12 is alkaline…? Look it up if you don’t know what I’m talking about – even though it’s like, 7th grade science class knowledge…not to be annoyingly judgmental or critical!!)!!
2) Carnivores have ten times more hydrochloric acid in their stomachs than humans (hydrochloric acid is essential for digesting meat).
3) Our digestive tracts are way longer than those of carnivores, so guess what?! While the carnivore quickly absorbs the nutrients it needed from the meat (nutrients that humans no NOT need in the first place) and then gets rid of its waste and the bad parts of the meat, you omnivores are stuck with half-digested, rotting, fermenting meat clogged in your intestine because, thanks to your lack of hydrochloric acid, that meat was not properly digested in the stomach before it reached your super-long intestines!! Lovely, huh?!?!
Too bad for you all.
Cruelty Inflicted on Animals in the Factory Farming System:
Now that you have heard about the nutritional and structural downfalls of being an omnivore along with my responses to some Bible-inspired arguments, let me move on to the last point having to do with vegetarianism in this post, and that is the compassion argument.
I think that love is something that we all possess (although that love can be VERY hard to find in some people, and even harder for them to find it in themselves), and I also believe that everyone possesses a conscience – you know, that little voice inside your heart or your brain (depends on if you follow logic or intuition) that lets you listen to your built in right-and-wrong detector? The little voice that alerts you when you are about to make a mistake? The one that haunts you when you do something that you know was wrong, like when you took that candy bar from the store without paying? Yea, that conscience. Well, I believe that after you read this you will hear your conscience and your heart speaking to you and telling you that you know what is going on as far as animals’ rights in the food industries goes is wrong. No matter how tiny that voice is, unless you are absolutely heartless and would have no problem doing something like drowning your new puppy, you will fell something.
Let me tell you about the cruelty that is unheard of or purposely overlooked that takes place in the system known as factory farming, and also let me reveal to you what organizations like the FDA and other nutritional groups run by the government do about it: nothing. They don’t do a thing, which you will see as I begin my rant about animal cruelty in factory farms and about what happens to animals raised for consumption or what they produce (things like eggs from chickens and milk from cows).
Factory farming is the mass production of animals such as cows for consumption, or for what they produce, such as milk.
Factory farming is a sick thing that humans invented so that we can feed out gluttonous stomachs.
Factory farming is cruelty beyond all belief.
Factory farming should be stopped.
In the system of factory farming countless numbers of animals have been beaten, cut, burned, and have had intentional and yet unnecessary injuries inflicted upon them. People forced to work in slaughterhouses and factory farms are made to kill in inhuman ways innocent animals every day! It’s sick!!!
Here are some quotes from slaughterhouse workers:
1) “I’ve seen live animals shackled, hoisted, stuck, and skinned. Too many to count, too many to remember…I’ve seen shackled beef looking around after they’ve been stuck. I’ve seen hogs on the bleeding conveyor get up after they’ve been stuck.”
2) “One time I took my knife – it’s sharp enough – and I sliced off the end of a hog’s nose, just like a piece of bologna. The hog went crazy for a few seconds. Then it just sat there looking kind of stupid. So I took a handful of salt brine and ground it into his nose. Now that hog really went nuts, pushing its nose all over the place.
Here is the process by which some of the animals are slaughtered:
1) COWS: Cows are required by a “humane slaughter act” to be stunned before they are killed so that they do not experience any unnecessary pain. The way they are supposedly stunned is a virtuously painless method in which a metal rod is jabbed through the cow’s head near the temple so as to stun them. However, workers rarely hit where they are supposed to because the cows are very stressed and are not making it easy for the workers (I would be flailing, too, if I were about to be MURDERED!). Therefor, the cows are merely paralyzed, not knocked unconscious as they should and are required to be. The cows are then strung up by their hind legs and their throats are slit, causing them to bleed to death – a very pain-filled method!! After that they are put into a scalding tank to remove their fur before they are skinned and butchered.
2) PIGS: Pigs undergo about the same torture as the cows do, for they are also required to be “stunned” before their slaughter. Are they really stunned? No. As in the case of the cows, the pigs are merely paralyzed, not knocked unconscious. After the “stunning,” the pigs are also strung up by their back feet, sent down a conveyor belt, and they, too, have their throats cut. They are not, however ,given time to die and are usually still quite aware when they are thrown into the scalding tank. One worker at a slaughterhouse said, “I’ve seen hogs in the scalding tank trying to swim.” They cannot, however, stay afloat for long due to the fact that a giant metal arm – similar to that on an electric mixing bowl – comes down and pushes the pigs under. Eventually they either drown or are burned to death.
Sound pleasant so far?! Wait till you hear this one!
3) Chickens: Oh dear, the poor chickens…First let’s here a quote from a Perdue worker:
“After they are hung sometimes the chickens fall off into the drain that runs down the middle of the line. This is where roached, intestines, diseased parts, fecal contamination and blood are washed down. Workers vomit into the drain…Employees are constantly chewing and spitting out snuff and tobacco on the floor…sometimes they have to relieve themselves on the floor. The Perdue supervisors told us to take the fallen chickens out of the drain and send them down the line.”
Lovely, huh??!!??! Sound appetizing?! Yea, that’s what I thought.
(For those of you who have gotten this far and are reading this bold-printed note please come back some other time to this blog site to read the rest of this post and the conclusion of my debate (if I ever get around to it…). I apologize for having to add this note, as I wish I could continue to share my views at this current point in time, but I have given up on it right now. I don’t have the heart, time, or finger strength to continue typing right now. Sorry. Please return for the rest of this post leter. Thanks for reading, and I hope you continue to visit my site!)
Until this post’s conclusion, Goodbye!
~Airolyno swim.”
