Why I am vegetarian.

Hi Charlie,

For my first blog I would like to talk about my reasons for being vegetarian. This blog has no intention in forcing anyone into vegetarianism, my intention is just to express my point of view so that I don’t have to explain myself every time someone asks me the question (at least I will not have to re-explain to dose who read this blog).

My first contact with vegetarianism was through my sister, I was 9 at the time, I loved meat and didn’t understand (or respect I have to admit) the decision to stop eating it.

When I was 12, I had a sudden revelation while eating chicken : I had ethical issues. I didn’t think it was just, that animals died for my pleasure of eating them. And I believe animals have souls and deserve to live. That was my first and for a long time my only motivation.

About ethics, my view hasn’t changed but I added the fact that animals often live and die in horrible conditions : no space, no outdoor time, existing chances of dying while suffering.

Most animals at the origin of cheap meat are treated this way. However it is not this difficult to find good quality meat : better for the animal and your health (yeah because as you guessed it cheap meat is not that good for your health).

There is also a health argument. You may be thinking “But being vegetarian is bad for health you’ll end up with deficiencies” and at some degree you are right, some people can not be vegetarian because of those deficiencies but they’re only a minority. Staying healthy isn’t complicated really, unless you eat junk food all the time but in that case meat or no meat it’s unhealthy.

Being vegetarian actually has positive effects on health, as eating a lot of meat causes higher rates of diseases such as coronary heart disease (a group of cardiovascular diseases), stroke, type 2 diabetes and cancer.

Avoiding livestock industry could also avoid the creation of new epidemics. This is so because of the proximity between the animals which is favourable to the spread of disease between them and then to humans. Listeria monocytogene and salmonellosis for instance, are viruses wich spread through animals.

Therefore reducing my meat helps my personal health and the human population’s health.

Another of my motivations is ecology. Meat industry has in fact several negative impacts on the environment.

First, large quantities of water are being used as it is needed to raise livestock AND their food. The gap between the water needed to produce meat and the one to produce other aliments is clear : approximately 10 000 L for 1 kg of beef and only 3 000L for 1kg of rice.

That’s not it with water, water is also polluted as the organic materials produced by farming are washed into the rivers causing an imbalance in the ecosystem.

But it doesn’t just damage the water but also the land. Overgrazing can cause erosion which means that due to lake of sufficient plant cover, the soil is washed away.

Livestock also uses large surfaces, ¼ of the ice-free land is used to raise livestock and 1/3 of the crop land produces food for them. This is not even profitable as livestock eat between 3 and 20 times more than they produce.

This impacts forests : because of the high demand of meat, forests are cleared (26 000 km² per year witch is a lot more than the other causes of deforestation) to be replaced with pastures and fields.

Deforestation is a cause of global warming as trees “filter” the air. On top of that the fact that ruminants burp methane and that large amounts of fossil fuels are being used, also causing global warming.

Overall it is estimated that livestock industry causes 14.5 % of global warming

As you may have noticed, most of these arguments exist because of the overconsumption, if meat was consumed in a moderated way, the spread of diseases through animals wouldn’t be an issue, the environmental aspects I’ve mentioned wouldn’t be an issue, the bad conditions of animals would most likely not be an issue. So why am I vegetarian and not only low meat consumer? Well I can hardly control myself, so if I authorise myself a little meat I would end up with eating more than “a little” and my first motivation, my belief that it an animal’s life does not worth my pleasure still applies. But yes, I would agree that a good solution would simply be to consume less and better quality.

All I’m asking for is respect, you may love meat but please don’t be the annoying non-vegetarian trying to convince us that our choice was stupid. I know you suffer from pro-vegetarians who try to convince you, but it isn’t a reason to do the same with us, we have motivations and respecting them would be nice.

At the end of the day everyone eats or doesn’t eat whatever they want.

Have a great day!

A