This spring members of the Wesleyan community have an important choice to make. We can choose violence, exploitation and environmental destruction, or we can select compassion and sustainability. Every month in the United States, hundreds of millions of nonhuman animals are killed for their flesh, milk and eggs, and they don’t have to be.
Life is hell for the billions of animals raised for food in this country. Female chicks in the egg industry have their beaks burned off, while male chicks (who are worthless to the industry) are ground up alive or thrown into the garbage. Mother pigs are kept for their whole lives in metal crates too small to turn around, and calves in the beef and dairy industries are castrated and branded without painkillers. These are only a few of the common practices used in the majority of the farm industry.
Study after study shows that vegetarians are healthier than meat eaters, suffering at lower rates of everything from heart disease to male impotence. The American Dietetic Association (the nation’s largest organization of nutritionists), states that “vegetarians have been reported to have lower body mass indices than non-vegetarians, as well as lower rates of death from ischemic heart disease; vegetarians also show lower blood cholesterol levels; lower blood pressure; and lower rates of hypertension, type 2 diabetes, and prostate and colon cancer.”
Eating vegetarian also puts far less stress on the environment and can help prevent world hunger – to produce a gram of protein from animal flesh, 14 grams of plant protein are required. The vast majority of all the grains grown in this country are fed to animals on factory farms. The manure produced by these billions of animals is one of the top sources of water pollution in this country, and the fumes emitted from the manure wreak havoc on the neurological and respiratory systems of the (usually poorer) Americans who live near factory farms.
Wesleyan students spend much energy trying to find ways to fight injustice. Farmed animal cruelty is violence, which many of us contribute to on a daily basis, and we can stop it. As a consumer, please consider your ability to decrease unnecessary animal suffering. Check out GoVeg.com or call 1-888-VEG FOOD for a free vegetarian starter kit, including a free DVD, or stop at C.L.A.W.’s table at MoCon at dinner Mondays this semester for more information.
Leave a Reply