Yes, it seems our dear human race's desire to eat meat is rather powerful.
However, if we are going to do it, it needs to be as dignified a process as possible, rather than an abusive and unnecessarily violent one during which animals suffer pointlessly for people to get a sick pleasure out of their place of power. And thinking about it, if the animals are treated badly and their health deteriorates before they die, surely the meat that we end up eating isn't going to be of very good quality?
Anyway, here's a thought regarding meat eating. Don't worry, I'm not piling more petitions on you! Although if you guys do find anything relevant to it (or any of these matters) please feel free to post them up. I'd just like to bring to your attention a couple of articles about vegetarianism and how it can change our planet for the better - not only to reduce suffering to animals, but also to preserve our planet and its ever fluctuating and fragile environment.
Here are the articles:
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=the-greenhouse-hamburgerAnd here:
http://www.alternet.org/water/134650/the_startling_effects_of_going_vegetarian_for_just_one_day/The jist of them is basically pointing out how much of an impact the production of meat for human consumption really has upon the environment. I myself didn't realise it goes to the extent that it does before reading these articles. Since the emphasis with meat eating is put so much upon the animals themselves, people don't really realise what's happening to the environment during the process of producing meat. It's not merely rearing a cow, killing it and putting its meat in a packet to sell - the process is long and produces an astounding amount of greenhouse gases which affect the atmosphere to a huge degree, particularly in the production of red meats. The articles explore the possibilities of people eating vegetarian meals for only a small amount of time, and what impact it could have. Here's a fact from the second article that might put things into perspective:
"If every American skipped one meal of chicken per week and substituted vegetarian foods instead, the carbon dioxide savings would be the same as taking more than half a million cars off the US roads". Half a MILLION cars! And that's taking into account that chicken isn't as detrimental to the environment as beef, for example. Imagine if no one ate red meat for one day alone - it would reduce our carbon emissions by a bigger percentage, and that's just one day a week.
Just a few thoughts to consider, and I feel as though I can stress this point to anyone who has a normal diet, because you're more capable of pulling this off. Let me explain; I turned vegetarian when I was fourteen because I didn't want to eat animals anymore, and was going along quite well with it until at the age of twenty, to my dismay, I was hospitalized due to the fact that I have massive food intolerances, as well as a digestive problem, which I didn't know about, and after so many years of battling against foods I couldn't eat (although I didn't know), my body had just had enough. I now have a completely restricted diet due to these intolerances, which although it makes me quite healthy as I can't just pig out on anything I fancy, is a great hinderance to my life. What I'm leading up to is that even though I'm a vegetarian by moral choice, I'm now being forced to eat chicken and fish because I'm intolerant to the foods which would give me the vital nutrients I need - I really don't want to eat any form of animal, but it's not up to me anymore.
My point is that a lot of you guys will have normal dietary needs, and can therefore turn vegetarian at the drop of a hat and be perfectly fine with it - so I suppose the articles are more directed at you in a way. Not that there's any pressure to do these things, of course! It's just that these articles prove that going vegetarian even for only one day a week can result in a considerable drop in our carbon emissions and if enough people did it, it could really help us along the way to preserving what we can of our world that we've so sadly begun to ruin. If you feel strongly enough about it, or are just curious, give it a go! You'll be shocked at just how many tasty meals you can put together that don't include meat - and giving your system a break from tough meats that are hard to digest does you a world of good, so you'll be improving your health too. Just a thought, folks.
xxx