Becoming Vegetarian is the right choice but not an easy one to make

One day during class last week, we spent a lot of time and had a lot of good conversation and questions regarding the topic of vegetarians and people who continue to eat meat. It was interesting to hear from classmates different perspectives on why they agree or disagree with individuals who decided to eat meat or not. Something that I also found interesting was when we were reflecting on the film Okja and we talked about how one of the individuals who was strongly vegetarian was very close to passing out and was even refusing to eat a tomato. Personally, I had never seen or heard of a vegetarian refuse to eat any other specific foods besides meat but after going home and doing more research on my own time I clearly was not educated enough when it came to this.

There are also many different reasons that people decide to go vegetarian. For example, religious beliefs, guidance of parents and more but most importantly is because of health issues and the amount of concern of innocent animals being slaughtered. Studies have shown that choosing this specific diet will decrease the possibility of heart disease, prevent cancer, lose excess weight, avoid foods with contaminants and overall live a longer and healthier life. So what are we at risk for if we decide to eat meat? Diabetes, arthritis, obesity, cancer and heart disease along with many other health issues that will occur when continuing to eat meat more than you should.

On the other hand according to Occupy For Animals “more than 150 billion is the number of animals killed in the world per year by the meat, dairy, egg and fish industries.” Also on this website are the names of animals and it is constantly updating the number of all the different animals listed that have been slaughtered since I opened the website and to see those numbers consistently go up is very sad and honestly hard to look at. Personally, I do eat meat and never really thought or cared too much about what it was doing to my health. I may have assumed this because I grew up playing soccer and my coaches always stressed to get a good meal in right after a game, specifically protein and would encourage us to eat chicken. Not only did I think I needed chicken to always get my protein growing up but no one went out of their way to ever tell me that all the meat that I was eating turns out to not be very healthy for you after all. This is because all of the companies that are profiting millions of dollars would rather keep the public in the dark about these processes. When it comes down to it they don’t care about the animals, it’s all about business.

When reflecting and thinking about what we really know about what exactly we are eating and what people want us to hear and not hear I think of the film What The Health. (Accessible through Netflix or Vimeo) This film is known for effecting a lot of people’s life’s and decisions when it comes to food, specifically turning people into vegetarians. They state in the film that processed meats are equally as harmful to your body as cigarettes are and therefore kids should not be allowed to eat processed meat. At first, this was super shocking to me and I wasn’t sure if I believed it until they went into more detail about how these studies have been going on for a very long time. Another example of a sadly popular health issue is diabetes. Health experts stressed that this disease was due to lack of exercise/obesity and sugary foods. When in reality it is a diet that builds up the amount of fat into the blood. In other words a meat/animal based diet. This also makes me think about what else they may be lying or hiding from us. The only struggle with getting to the bottom of things is that individuals from large important health associated companies refuse to talk about any of it. So that makes people think, if there’s nothing to hide then why not talk about it? Because clearly there is a lot that is hidden from us. Therefore, it leads many people to become vegetarian so that they aren’t another one of the American’s that are overweight or sick from the processed foods that a lot of us eat everyday. Eating a plant-based diet goes far more than just saving animals or losing weight, it is saving peoples lives.

Moving on, these are all very understandable and important reasons to make the decision to go vegetarian.

Although we are aware of all the reasons we should not eat meat, why do people continue to?

People simply love eating meat. They love their steaks, hamburgers, and fried chicken. Personally, I grew up eating meat and although I have learned a lot about all the negative things that come with it, it has been apart of my diet as well as many other American’s for so long that it is hard to decide to just stop eating it altogether one day and never eat it again. It makes me think how will I find a replacement specifically for protein that is equally enough protein as I get from chicken and equally as filling. Although there are many different healthier replacements out there, I think we all can agree it would not compare to how tasty meat is. Another reason can be that people just don’t care. They may not care about the innocent animals that are losing their lives everyday or they may not care about their health and all the problems it may cause them in the future. Which is the sad part. 

Another reason people may continue to eat meat is because it’s natural and simply normal. Meat eating has been a tradition for a very long time and many just do not see a problem with it. Lastly, it can be apart of your culture or religion. Although there are many valid reasons for individuals to give up meat and go vegetarian, you also have to see it from the other side of things. And that is why it is still up for such a big debate in America today. 

Katie Coronado 

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