Animals Have a Soul, Don’t Put Them In Your Bowl: Why People Shouldn’t Eat Meat by Catherine Houde

“If you were stranded on an island, and to survive you had to eat meat, would you?” I have been asked this question in my life more times then I can remember, and my answer is yes. Humans would do almost anything to survive in a foreign and dangerous place. My question for you is, if you lived in a place where you didn’t have to harm innocent animals to survive and be healthy, would you choose not to eat them? For most meat eaters out there I’m guessing that the answer is no. Most people eat meat because they think it tastes good, but at the cost of a living breathing creature, is it worth it?

First, a vegetarian diet is one of the best ways to have a healthy diet. Plants are full of everything you need to live a healthy and happy life without taking the life of an innocent animal. According to the American Dietetic Association, “appropriately planned vegetarian diets, including total vegetarian or vegan diets, are healthful, nutritionally adequate, and may provide health benefits in the prevention and treatment of certain diseases.” On top of that, many studies have proven that in America, vegetarians have better health rates than carnivores. I have been a vegetarian all my life, and I have never had anything more than a common cold that lasted a day or two. You can get everything you need from a vegetarian diet.
Despite this, some might say that meat has a good nutritional value. Meat has a good amount of protein in it. Although, this may be true, meat is not the best way to get protein. Things like dark leafy greens, nuts and seeds have a lot of protein also. The organization One Green Planet says ¨Here’s the facts. We need to eat foods that supply us with the nine essential amino acids that our bodies can’t make on their own. Some plant-based foods have all of them (quinoa, buckwheat, soy, chia and hempseed) while others have a mix of some and not others. As long as foods like legumes, nuts, seeds, whole grains, fruits and vegetables are consumed daily, you’re getting everything you need and more.¨ Furthermore, plants are the best way to get protein because you don’t need to kill an animal to get it.

Secondly, you will prevent cruelty to animals. Most people eat meat because they say it tastes good. Did you know that some animals in the US are treated so horribly that they are trapped inside a factory, in a small container where they can’t even turn around? How good does that piece of meat really taste when you know that poor cow or pig may have never even seen the light of day? How good does that meat really taste when you know an animal was viciously slaughtered just so you could have a burger. For Example, AnimalEquality – a website dedicated to animal rights-says “Over 56 billion farmed animals are killed every year by humans. These shocking figures do not even include fish and other sea creatures whose deaths are so great they are only measured in tons.” We are killing very intelligent, living, breathing animals everyday just so we can have their meat. We have no right to take whatever we want and not care what we have to do to get it. If we were in their shoes it would be awful. Kept in a small area, being fed extra food to fatten you up just so you can be a nice big blob of meat on someone’s plate. Being raised just so you can get murdered. We should start treating these animals with respect, and letting them live a happy life as long as they should live.

Finally, producing livestock is one of the largest drivers of habitat loss. The more animals we are raising for food the more farmers expand their farms to increase the amount of cattle they can have. When they extend their property they are clearing trees and other places animals call home. Gidon Eshel, a geophysicist at Bard College in Annandale-On-Hudson, New York, who studies how human diets affect the environment, says. “Now we can say, only slightly fancifully: You eat a steak, you kill a lemur in Madagascar. You eat a chicken, you kill an Amazonian parrot.” That’s because species-rich habitats are being converted to pastures and feed crops as the human appetite for meat swells.” When you take away habitats of animals their species suffer. The population of earth is going up everyday which means we have a lot of people to provide food for. The more people on earth, the more food people eat, and most of the population is carnivores which means farmers need to increase their amount of live stock. To support all that livestock they need a bigger farm, and to create a bigger farm they need to clear land. Most of that land they are clearing is home to creatures that are going to become extinct if we keep taking away their homes. The less meat we eat the more species we are saving.

Moreover, eating meat is not a good way to help yourself or the planet. Sure, you may get a tasty meal, but is that meal worth all the suffering animals and people? To get one step closer towards the goal of a healthier world, try dialing back the meat. If you can’t make a change for the animals then make a change for yourself and your health. We need to stop hurting the earth and ourselves because we don’t care, and start helping, anyway we can.