Taking Sides.

"Take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented."
~Elie Weisel

The conversation of why I am a vegetarian always seems to come over dinner, naturally. And I generally say things like, "...well you're eating right now, so I won't go into it." I am that feel-good, don't-say-anything-that-makes-others-feel-uncomfortable kind of guy. But when focusing on that quote--reading and re-reading it--I am realizing that I am playing a part in the continued torture of animals. And if you eat meat, you are too.

The meat industry is among the grossest products of the human race. Ten billion animals are raised and killed every year in The United States alone; imagine the number when you include the rest of the world. These 10,000,000,000 animals spend their lives confined to concrete stalls and metal cages, terrified and suffering in disgustingly unnatural conditions. These animals live in fear and pain and you--yes, you reading this--are the cause of it. I am utterly sick of hearing people say, "No, don't tell me, I don't want to know." What willful ignorance! What a blatant grand admission that you like to live with shudders on your eyes! By your eating meat, you are keeping these animals in these putrid conditions. And by eating meat, you are keeping human beings to have to work in these same horrific conditions.

Chicks have their beaks burned off in order for you to have chicken fingers. Cattle and pigs are castrated at birth to make you enjoy the taste more. Cattle are dehorned and branded--of course without any painkillers. Cows spend the majority of their life standing in their own shit. Veal calves and mother pigs spend their entire life in lonely isolation, never seeing the light of day. Millions upons millions of animals are skinned and dismembered while still alive--and no one gives a shit because it all happens behind the scenes. That's the tawdry beauty of capitalism in a huge country like the US: you can reap the benefits and sweap the massive consequences under the radar.

I was a vegetarian for five consecutive years, and then I went on a mission trip where I was forced to eat meat. For three months we stayed in host families' homes, and in order for me to be on this trip I was told I had to eat meat. It would be 'rude' to not eat a meal prepared by our hosts. So I gave it up, and it was one of the worst decisions I have made in my life. It took me another five years to wake up and realize what I was doing--that my fork was a choice, and I was choosing to torture animals. I was choosing to keep humans in filthy work conditions.

It's been nearly a year since returning to being a vegetarian, and I no longer will play the role of neutrality. My beef (ha!) with the meat industry is not the killing and eating of animals. That is a very natural part of the circle of life. My problem with the industry is the methods and procedures that I have already mentioned--confining animals to dark steel crates for their entire lives, stuffing thousands of chickens into a windowless chamber and coming in the middle of the night to kill them, etc. As part of the so-called "greatest nation on Earth", how do we get away with this? It goes back to Americans and their blatant desire to not know the truth. And I will no longer be a part of it. In the interest of comfort I will no longer aid my friends in the role they play in torturing animals and locking human beings into a miserable life.

The answer is not to simply stop eating meat (though that is the option I would say is best). The compromise is for people to start researching what they eat and where it comes from. There are local farms all over the country that treat their animals humanely, and I'll tell you what--the quality will always be better. The purpose of factory farms is to produce the most meat using the leat amount of space/money. Because of these shortcuts, the animals suffer--and so does the quality. However, you as the consumer have the ability to vote with every food purchase you make. I encourage you to carefully consider where your food comes from, and if possible, find a local farmer that treats animals humanely.

Putting the shudders back over your eyes, however, is not an option. That is unless you like blending in with the crowd of ignorant Americans.

A Return to an Old Lifestyle.

“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.”

The New York Times Magazine, “An Animal’s Place”
by Michael Pollan, 11/10/02

I was a vegetarian for five years, and because of a missionary trip (back when I was a Christian) I was forced to become a meat-eater. Our team stayed in families' homes, and the program told me it would be rude to deny a meal that the family had worked hard on. I get that. But when I came back I never returned to my veggie-only lifestyle.

A few weeks ago I changed that. I woke up with a pile of Taco Bell wrappers around me, and I realized just how disgusting it is. Besides ethical and environmental reasons, the shit is just bad for you. How many calories are in a Crunchwrap Supreme? Oh, only 530...and it's not like I just ordered one Crunchwrap and called it a day!

(If you're curious about how much your meal at Taco Bell is, they have a nutrition calculator. I'm sure these numbers are far below what they actually are, though. Wondering what mine is? Well, I'm not telling, but I'll say it has more than 3 numbers. (oops).)

Ok, so back to the topic at hand--vegetarianism. So far I have tried a few new restaurants (Cafe Benevolence, which was FANTASTIC!) and I have made some very unique meals at home. It hasn't been all that difficult, and I certainly have felt more alert and better overall. But I then began to truly consider the motivators for this switch--was it just to keep me from eating crappy fast food, or was there more?

For long I've known that the cattle industry is the largest contributor of carbon emissions in the world--yes, more than all of our cars, trucks and airplanes combined. I've known that one can do more for the environment simply by switching to a vegetarian diet than almost any other lifestyle change. I've known that maintaining a vegetarian lifestyle would greatly enhance one's own health, while simultaneously lowering the risk of heart attacks, cancer, diabetes and help to reduce any unwanted weight. Overall, the vegetarian lifestyle is just a great switch.

But are these my reasons? They're good contributors. But, in addition to all of this, I think it comes down to this small detail: in a civilized society, why must we reduce ourselves to slaughtering over 9.7 billion living animals a year? It's a sad day when humans can have the mental capacity to have babies born in a beaker yet not have the emotional capacity to see that the meat industry is a blatant torture of animals. At this point I'm not making an argument for everyone to give up meat; I'm just curious why we must treat these animals so terribly.

Cows spend the majority of the lives standing in their own shit. Female cows are repeatedly impregnated so that they continuously make milk; the average cow is milked about 50 pounds a day. That simply is not natural. The relationship between mother and calf is very tender, yet immediately after birth calves are taken away to either become veal or beef.

Piglets are castrated without painkillers so that they will grow faster and have a more pleasant taste to humans. Sick pigs are frequently shot in the head with a nail gun (cheaper to kill than to fix). Sows (female pigs) lie in such small cages they cannot even turn around.

Chickens grow so fast that if a human baby were growing at the same rate, they'd weigh 349 pounds by the age of two. Chickens are kept in cages the size of shoeboxes their entire life, never having the opportunity to do as much as spread their wings. Chicklets, when first born, have their beaks cut off, of course without painkillers.

By simply a concern of ethics, how can I support this? I'll stress again--at this point in the argument I'm not advocating a vegetarian diet. I'm simply questioning why the animals must be treated in this way. And the answer is simple--it's money. It's economically cheaper to force thousands of chickens into a barn the size of a 7-11 than it is to let them live a natural life.

I understand the answer, I just don't accept it. And this, along with all of the previously stated reasons, is why I am going vegan. You're welcome to call me crazy, and I understand the implications of such a decision, but I cannot continue to pretend these types of practices are not occurring just to satiate my desire for certain types of foods.

So, there. I've declared it. No more butter, eggs, steaks, chicken, fish...oh, gosh, this is going to be hard...