Author's Note: Some of the links that I have provided have extremely violent content. Please have your parents to approve this article, and its attachments as well before you read it. Thanks.
Vegetarianism. What exactly is it? Vegetarianism is a diet that excludes every type of poultry or meat, but for me going vegetarian has been more than just a "diet". It's my new way of life.
I am so proud to call myself a vegetarian, considering all the good that I'm doing to animals, to the Earth and to myself. Don't understand yet? Fine, I'll explain.
It all began when a friend of mine sent me this video telling me it would "change my life". When I open the link, it was something I had never seen, something I had never imagined that actually happened now-a-days. The video was about how factory farms literally torture animals to get its flesh and products. Broken legs and beaks, throats slit open, chickens hung upside down, de-feathering, were some of the things I saw on this dreadful, nasty, gruesome video.
When I saw this, I was in utter shock. Juan was right. It changed my life. I decided I would go vegetarian. Why? You may be asking. Well, for a lot of reasons . . .
First, because of the horrible cruelty directed towards animals. Animals feel just like we do! Chickens, pigs, cattle, cows, fish, turkeys, all of them are crammed into super tiny spaces, where they can't even turn around. In the farms where they are raised, chicken get drugged to fatten up, and sometimes they get so abnormally fat, that they can't support their weight, and their legs break. Then they get hung upside down and have their throats slit even when they're fully conscious! They get their beaks and legs boiled. As you can see, chickens are the most abused of all the animals. Cattle get castrated and have their horns ripped out of their heads. Cows also get drugged to produce unnatural amounts of milk. Fish are crammed in tanks where most of them die. These animals never get to feel the sun like they should, except maybe when they're moved from the farms to the slaughterhouse, under extreme weather and most of them can't even make it alive.
If this isn't really cruelty, what is it then?
Second, for our environment. Believe it or not, eating animals does affect our environment. Animals raised for eating, are fed more than 70% of the grains and crops that we grow, leaving almost nothing for us to consume. Because of this, these animals produce 130 times the excrement of one third of the population of United States, and since factory farms don't have the system of sewage, this waste is all thrown to our rivers and oceans. And guess what? That's pollution baby cakes . . .
Also, all the chemicals and gases used to run these factories produce an amount of gas that is thrown to the atmosphere.
And third, for my health. Studies have shown that a vegetarian diet can prevent obesity, different types of cancer like colon cancer, stroke, heart disease and many more.
We are in the 21st century. There any many substitutes for meat, like grains, tofu, soy meat, etc. I have learned to cook my own meals because no one in my house is vegetarian. I will make a change though.
Now the question isn't why. The question is why not?
Go vegetarian, by doing this you will save more than 100 animals every year, and it feels great. Believe me.
Author's Note: Here are some links:
www.peta2.com
www.goveg.com
www.meat.org
