Here’s What You’re Missing When You Say 'Eating Meat Is a Personal Choice'
An Animal Rights Article from All-Creatures.org

FROM

Sarah Von Alt, Mercy for Animals
September 2015

It’s something we hear all too often, and something that many of us believed in our pre-vegan days.

If you still think eating meat is a “personal choice,” here’s what you’re missing...

Animals

Eating meat is not a victimless choice. All animals fight for their lives. But on modern-day farms, animals are violently slaughtered at a fraction of their natural life spans.

Additionally, many standard farming practices are so horribly abusive they’d warrant felony cruelty charges if inflicted on a dog or cat—things like cutting off tails, burning out horns, and ripping out testicles… all without painkillers.

The science is clear: Animals feel pain and are capable of suffering. When you say eating meat is a personal choice, you’re forgetting someone.

Climate Change

Climate change is easily one of the biggest issues threatening our very existence on the planet, and animal agriculture is one of the leading causes.

And it’s not just climate change. Animal agriculture is culpable for nearly 91 percent of Amazon destruction, uses a whopping 56 percent of water in the United States, and according to the Center for Biological Diversity, contributes drastically to species extinction.

World Hunger

Factory farming has far-reaching repercussions for people around the world, especially those living in extreme poverty.

By cutting meat out of our diets, we can help not only the billions of animals killed each year for food, but also the 842 million people who do not have enough to eat.

How? Consider this: It takes 16 pounds of grain to produce just one pound of beef. If that grain were fed to people instead of cows, there’d be a whole lot more mouths we could feed.

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