Running: 2 miles today.
I recently had a conversation with my daughter. She is a wonderful girl, almost nine years old, and she wants to be a vet. She loves animals almost more than people, and has a huge heart.
Totally unprompted, she came up to me and ask why people hurt animals. She had overheard a conversation about someone hurting their dog. I told her that some people are just mean, and that they feel strong when they hurt the helpless.
Never one to take a simple explanation at face value, my girl then wanted to talk about hunting and killing animals for food. She said that she understood that we need to eat animals for food, and that people hunt and raise animals for that purpose. She wanted to know why we had to kill animals for food.
I'm not one to hide things from my daughter. She is way too smart for that. I explained to her that in the distant past, humans had to eat whatever they could find, since they didn't have the variety of food readily available that we do today, and this would include whatever animals they could catch or kill. I also explained to her how things had changed. How factory farms now saw these animals immobilized. How beaks and pigs' tails were cut off for the convenience of the farmers. How more than 10 billion chickens were killed annually to feed only 300 million people. And finally, how the animals often get ill or go crazy from the confinement and unnatural conditions.
The funny thing is that none of this needs to happen. All of these animals die for a personal preference. People like to eat meat. It tastes good (not something that I disagree with). People don't HAVE to eat meat. Even the American Dietetic Association, who promoted the absolute necessity of meat for optimal health has acknowledged:
"Many people make the switch to a vegetarian diet because of the potential health benefits. According to the 2010 Dietary Guidelines, vegetarian eating patterns have been associated with improved health outcomes including lower levels of obesity, a reduced risk of heart disease and lower blood pressure. Also, vegetarians tend to consume a lower proportion of calories from fat and fewer overall calories, and more fiber, potassium and vitamin C than non-vegetarians. These characteristics, plus lifestyle factors, may contribute to the health benefits among vegetarians."
Completely true. No one needs to eat meat at all. Not even children. Not only are plant based diets better for health, but they are 100% complete in terms of the nutrients that human beings need. Even B12, which meat farmers (read: animal torturers) tout as only coming from meat, can easily be obtained from nutritional yeast. The ADA has this to say on the subject of vegetarian children:
"Balanced vegetarian diets are healthy for children and
may help them maintain a healthy body weight."
This brings up an interesting question: how does something as unimportant as taste justify the slaughter of billions of animals yearly? Taste is just a sensation. Would we feel the same about killing animals if we enjoyed it visually? Of course not. Why does our taste get a pass?
My 8 year old daughter reached the same conclusion. In her innocent child like ways, she asked "but daddy, if we don't have to eat animals for food any more, why do we still hurt them?" I don't really have a good answer for that question, but it is a valid one. Why do we continue to kill cows, so that we can have fast food hamburgers? Why do we kill pigs so that we can have ham for New Year's or Christmas? Why do we kill turkeys or chickens so that we can have Thanksgiving dinner, or eat fried chickens and potatoes?
I gave her the best answer I could. I told her that lots of companies made an awful lot of money off of the system, and that the system wouldn't change easily. When she asked me what she could do to fix it, I told her she could opt out. Opting out is a powerful thing. Each of us who refuses to consume animal products takes money out of the hands of the animal farmers. If enough of us do so, we will force them to choose a different income stream.
The main reason I adopted a vegan diet was for health concerns. That being said, I don't like cruelty, and I'm sure most of you feel the same. If you don't like the tortured death of billions of animals for something that we don't even need, choose to opt out too. I'm proud of my eight year old for wanting to do the right thing. She is young and healthy. What she cares about is the animals. If you do decide to opt out for whatever reason, please comment and let me know. I'd love to hear your thoughts.
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