Most Americans
have been raised on meat, poultry, and fish.
As soon as we are old enough to chew our food, our caretakers typically
begin to introduce foods to us that come from the animal kingdom. We’re not really given a choice; in fact, I
can remember many times over the course of my childhood and adolescence being
told that I would not be able to go out and play after dinner unless I finished
the food on my plate. We’re trained to
eat what is put in front of us from an early age and to refrain from actually
putting much thought into just what we are eating. But what if all we thought we knew about food
were stretches of truth? What if beef,
poultry, and fish weren’t really that good for us, or for our environment,
after all?
I want to say
right up front that I am by no means a strict vegan or even a strict
vegetarian. I spend a lot of time on
boats at sea with the Coast Guard and, well, let’s just say that they, like
most other institutionalized food service organizations, serve a lot of meat
and I’d probably go crazy if I limited my food intake to plant-based foods
every day. But I do have a greater
awareness these days of what I am eating and I do eat many meals where I forego
meat in favor of foods that are not produced from the animal world. As a result, I feel that I may be lengthening
my life a bit, and I truly believe that eating less meat has given me more, not
less, energy as I work my busy days. In
addition, I also believe that eating less meat contributes to a global cause
that could ultimately have many positive impacts on our world. Some of you may read this and think that I’m
simply a crazy liberal for thinking this way, but I hope that you’ll keep
reading so you’ll understand where I’m coming from here.
Consider how
animals are processed for food in this day and age. The techniques aren’t really publicized
because if the practices involved in factory farming were well-known, there
would be a whole lot less meat sold. Sixty
or seventy years ago, animals that were raised for food grew up on farms and
were treated more or less humanely before they were sent to slaughter. However, as our population has boomed since the
1950s, farming has moved from family enterprises to big corporate
business. Today, many animals raised for
human consumption never see the light of day and are raised without ever moving
out of their cages except when they are being prepared to be killed for food. That means they stand around in their own
waste for their entire lives. In
addition, they are given drugs so they grow quicker because time, after all, is
money. Animals raised under these
conditions have no quality of life and may well be spreading viruses they incur
while they are alive to the humans that consume them.
Despite what
most of us have been led to believe, one doesn’t need to consume animal-based
foods to obtain enough protein for their bodies to be strong and healthy. There are plenty of plant-based foods that
may be eaten that will provide more than enough protein for even the most
active athlete. In fact, animal-based
foods can elevate bad cholesterol levels and cause other health issues for
humans, including heart disease and stroke.
Studies have demonstrated that as people living in developing countries
are better able to regularly add meat to their diets, their general health deteriorates. They become obese and they develop the same
sorts of diseases we Americans have been dealing with for the past fifty years.
A third benefit
of eating plant-based foods is that they take less of a toll on our
environment. It takes a lot more grain
to feed a cow every day in order to fatten it up so that it can be steak one
day than it does to simply feed that grain to people. Every day, animal food manufacturers are
deforesting land all over this planet in order to create more room to grow
plants that will be fed to animals that we will eventually eat, rather than
feeding those plants to us directly.
Many view this practice as an inefficient use of resources that could be
utilized to better feed all of the people of the world instead of just the ones
in developed countries.
I don’t expect
you to read this and suddenly change your mind about how and what you eat. Even if the information contained here does
cause you concern, old habits die hard and I would be the first to tell you
that it’s damned difficult to give up food that one has grown up with his
entire life. I would invite you,
however, to do your own research so you can at least be informed about how
animal-based foods are ultimately harming our planet and how greater
consumption of plant-based foods can ultimately make us, and our world, a
healthier place.
