May 15, 2006
I eat meat...
I think meat taste great...
I think, in the right quanities, meat can be part of a healthy diet if a person so chooses...
Eating meat is part of the circle of life for many animals. It doesn't take a genious to turn on discovery channel or even just go into the wild and see that an animal eating another animal is as natural as it gets. Nature is as raw as it is beautiful. Of course in nature, there are natural vegetarians as well as carnivores, and the debate is endless on which variety we humans are "supposed" to be. In other words, what are bodies are designed/evolved for, vegatables only or meat and vegetables.
I personally don't feel the need to take a stand on that debate one way or the other to say that REGARDLESS, we certainly don't need the amount of meat an average american eats!! The health of our bodies does not require meat as the staple of every meal. Though the meat industry loves to propose otherwise "MEAT, IT'S WHAT'S FOR DINNER"...COME ON!! Alas, meat as the staple of just about every meal is part of our culture, as it is part of many cultures and there are greedy opportunist all over the world that look at animals and only see dollar signs rather than sentient beings. Anyone who has a pet should be able to percieve that animals feel emotion, some are more aware of themselves and their feelings than others, but they are senitent nonetheless.
So, what gives these greedy humans the opportunity to make money off the misery of animals? Well, many factors, but the one directly controlled by all of us is DEMAND, plain and simple. With meat being the staple of every meal for such a vast majority of the worlds population, OUR DEMAND for meat creates the opportunity for profit and a lot of it. The conditions that some animals are kept in for factory farming (among many other) purposes are barbaric and atrocious.
There are far too many variables on this subject to list here. I TRY to make a difference by being mindful of how much meat I eat and where it is coming from. I say "try" because obviously it will take a majority of the population to make a difference. Now, I will also use my website to make posts from time to time on the information I find related to the subject. Especially information that highlights what each of us as individuals can do to make a difference.
If you don't care about the animals then you should at least take this information into account for YOUR OWN HEALTH. Many of the methods used don't just affect the animals but they directly effect you! Think about that antibiotic epidemic possibility you keep hearing about, and all that pollution that seems to be getting worse worse...factory farms are a HUGE contributor to both these issues and in this case what you don't know CAN KILL YOU. The following link is a great animation that uses the matrix as an analogy for a comical but very informative introduction to all the issues that I have only began to touch on....
and if you want to see video of the real thing, the real deal behind the meat you are eating...
You can close your eyes and turn your head but it is still there, and there IS something you can do. To begin with, reduce the DEMAND and you can help take the opportunity away from the greedy bastards that create these conditions!!
The following is taken from the blog of my local favorite coffee shop, Murky Coffee. It is an example of yet another way animals are being violated at the ignorance of those creating the DEMAND.
The infamous Kopi Luwak coffee.
So in a nutshell, Kopi Luwak is coffee ('rare' and expensive) that has passed through a civet, an feline animal indigenous to Indonesia, where this sh*t comes from. That's right, if you didn't know, 'Kopi Luwak' is recovered from the civet's poo.
"Normal" coffee does go through a fermentation process, which lasts a period of hours. What this civet's digestive tract adds is a unique sort of fermentation.
Now as strangely glamorous or intriguing as this all sounds, the fact is that without knowing how this all started, Kopi Luwak 'farms' have popped up in Indonesia, with caged animals (in horrible conditions) being force-fed coffee beans all day. Those opportunists are looking at feeding coffee cherries to other animals as well. Yuh.
So the moral of the story is, "Friends don't let friends drink poop."