Why should one not eat animals? There are many reasons. One of these is RESPECT. Respect for one's own body, respect for the bodies of other animals, and respect for the environment. People don't seem to be aware of how harmful the meat industry is to the health of the consumer, the health of the animals and the health of the environment. To eat industrially produced meat today is to fail to respect one's own body because of the growth hormones and antibiotics present in meat products. Processed meat products such as fast food and frozen meals are full of additional chemicals and additives. 80% of antibiotics in the United States are used not to treat human disease but the diseases of animals on factory farms. Of course, it is difficult to control the use of antibiotics on these "farms". This may well be why we have had outbreaks of swine 'flu and avian 'flu. The antibiotics are needed on these farms because of the stress the animals experience and the filthy conditions in which they live. The growth hormones are used to increase the speed of the animals' weight gain in order to minimize the time between birth and slaughter of the animal, so that profits can be maximized. Thus the meat industry fails to respect both the bodies of animals and also the bodies of the consumers of those tainted animal products. In addition, the impact of the meat industry on the environment is disastrous, contributing to global soil erosion, desertification, water pollution and waste of land and water. Concentrated animal facilities produce lakes of toxic waste the content of which often leaks into the ground water and has even entered into rivers, killing untold numbers of fish.
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November 2017
AuthorI'm Alan (an anagram for "animal"), an ethical vegetarian. Our colour vision can be traced back to our distant relatives, the fruit-eating, tree-dwelling monkeys, who benefited from colour vision when looking for (ripe) fruit.
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