Photographer : Az @ flickr
We are a compassionate species; we call the Wildlife Warriors when there’s a wallaby stuck in a fence, we cringe at the sight of road-kill, we even adopt dogs and cats as our life long companions. Animals have always been by our side—as our best friends and our helpers. So why do the majority of us make the conscious choice to eat animals? Where is the line drawn?
According to RSPCA Australia, the average Australian consumes around 107 kilograms of meat a year, which amounts to almost 500 million animals in total. That’s an easy enough sentence to read, but consider the emotional stress and physical pain those individual animals endure, and that sentence becomes a lot harder to swallow, so to speak.
To clear up anything your parents may have told you, the meat on your plate didn’t die of natural causes and chances are it didn’t live a happy life. The majority of animals raised for meat spend their lives in factory ‘farms’—huge, filthy warehouses. The animals are so tightly populated in these factories that they barely have enough room to turn around. For example, mothering pigs are debilitated in crates and stalls scarcely larger than their bodies. Many animals are pumped with drugs and hormones aimed at increasing growth and productivity. However, this often leads to crippling deformities and Sudden Death Syndrome because the animals’ limbs and vital organs cannot keep up.
Research conducted by People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), has shown that animals are sometimes abused, pushed, thrown and taunted by workers. They suffer from unimaginable cruelty—cruelty that, if inflicted on a dog or cat, would be illegal. The animal welfare laws in Australia are in place to avoid the unnecessary suffering of factory farmed animals. However, according to Australian Government legislation, castrating, tail docking and beak removal without anaesthetic does not entail pain; over populating animals in filthy warehouses and denying them their natural habitat or normal social behaviour does not entail suffering. The laws that are in place often conflict with codes of practice and often not even properly enforced. This means the animals farmed for their flesh aren’t protected against severe harm, because we humans, in all our superiority, tend to ignore what we know isn’t right, as long as it’s practical for us.
At slaughter, many animals are still conscious while they have their throats slit, or are submerged in scalding water to remove feathers and hair. Some life huh? And this is only skimming the surface of the issue.
If that’s not reason enough to stop consuming meat products, think of your health. Leading health experts, such as the Sanitarium Health Food Company, have advised that switching to a well-balanced plant-based diet is the best thing you can do for your body. Research shows that cutting meat from your diet reduces the risk of acquiring several forms of cancer, obesity, diabetes, osteoporosis, asthma, male impotence, and improves the immune system. If that’s not enough, vegetarians and vegans live, on average, six to ten years longer than meat eaters! Common misconceptions that a plant-based diet deprives people of important vitamins and nutrients, such as iron and protein, are based on old, misleading research and are fuelled by strategic and expensive marketing campaigns by meat producers. A well-balanced vegetarian diet provides all the necessary vitamins and minerals needed, even for children.
As more and more research emerges advocating the benefits of a diet without meat, major meat producers, such as Meat and Livestock Australia (MLA) are creating campaigns in support of meat consumption. The book ‘Well Red’, produced by MLA, presents one-sided evidence in a seemingly desperate attempt to win back those questioning the effects of meat. It even labels red meat as ‘Mankind’s first Multivitamin’.
Another frustrating aspect of ‘Well Red’ is the claim that ‘work is underway to develop strategies to reduce the environmental impact of meat production.’ But none of the potential strategies are listed. At a time when everyone is turning off switches, reducing miles and recycling milk bottles, the single most effective way to reduce an individual’s greenhouse gas emissions is being ignored—stop eating meat. According to the National Greenhouse Gas Inventory Analysis, in 2005 livestock was accountable for 62.1 mega tons of greenhouse gas emissions in Australia. Compare this to the 70.67 megatons of carbon emitted from road transport. It’s scary that what goes on your plate has such a far-reaching impact.
If this worries you, you can make a difference. The evidence is out there to help you make an informed decision. There are endless Australian and international sites with further information on the meat industry, as well as overwhelming support to help you go vegetarian. The ethical, environmental and health impacts of animal consumption do not compare with the well-being of your taste-buds. Join some of history’s most influential people; Leonardo da Vinci, Thomas Edison, Albert Einstein, Pythagoras and Benjamin Franklin, among many others, were all vegetarians. Now that’s food for thought.
For more information:
1. www.animalsaustralia.org
2. www.animalliberation.org.au
3. www.goveg.org
4. www.peta.org
5. www.mla.com.au
6. www.rspca.org.au
7. www.savebabe.com
8. www.voiceless.org.au
9. www.wspa.org.au
For Support:
1. www.peta2.org
2. www.vegsoc.org.au
3. www.vegiedelights.com.au
4. www.vegcooking.com
How do I know this?
Animals Australia, Why are more and more people becoming vegetarian? http://www.animalsaustralia.org/features/why_vegetarian.php
Animal Liberation Inc., Cattle, www.animalliberation.org.au/cattle.php
Animal Liberation Inc., Chickens, www.animalliberation.org.au/chickens.php
Animal Liberation Inc., Pigs, www.animalliberation.org.au/pigs.php
Animal Liberation Inc., Sheep, www.animalliberation.org.au/sheep.php
Australian Bureau of Statistics,
14.41 Livestock and Poultry Slaughtered for Human Consumtion,
http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/
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Australian Government Department of the Environment and Water Resources—Australian Greenhouse Office,
National Greenhouse Gas inventory analysis of recent trends and greenhouse indicators, 1990 to 2005, http://www.greenhouse.gov.au/inventory/
2005/pubs/trends2005.pdf
GoVeg.com, Eating for life, http://www.goveg.org/healthConcerns.asp
Meat and Livestock Australia, MLA Red meat and nutrition, http://www.mla.com.au/TopicHierarchy/News/Resources/
WellRed/Red+meat+and+nutrition.htm
Meat and Livestock Australia, Red meat and nutrition, http://www.mla.com.au/NR/rdonlyres/EF958ED2-3184-46CB-A33C-2AB4CA7830D9/0/Chapter_13.pdf
Meat and Livestock Australia, The role of red meat in healthy Australian diets, http://www.mla.com.au/NR/rdonlyres/B5518223-77AB-4D82-ACE8-9CDB3688DC38/0/SummaryReport2007.pdf
PETA TV—Animal Rights Television, Meet your meat, http://www.petatv.com/
RSPCA Australia, Fair Go for Farm Animals, http://www.rspca.org.au/campaign/fairgo.asp
SaveBabe.com, Help save Australia’s pigs! http://www.savebabe.com/
Voiceless; the fund for animals, What is Animal Law? http://www.voiceless.org.au/Law/Misc/
What_is_Animal_Law?.html
