I Love Meat Too

Edward

WHAT’S AHEAD?

  • I ask you questions that you might not have asked yourself before.
  • I tell you about my own experience being a vegetarian.
  • I lay out all the good AND all the bad things about it.
  • I present you with a challenge.

I genuinely hope to see you on the green side! ;-)

WHY DOES IT SUCK TO BE A VEGETARIAN?
Easy peasy!

  1. Do you get to have all that lovely tasty food?
  2. Do the meat/veggie alternatives taste just as nice?
  3. Do you have 10x as many choices in a restaurant?
  4. Are there many places that serve food you actually like?
  5. Do you have as much variety in taste?
  6. Is it nice to have to read the packets of everything to see if it’s suitable for vegetarians?
  7. Is it nice not to be respected or understood in most other countries?
  8. Do you like having no choice other than roast potato, peas and rice at some festive events?

WHY WOULD YOU BECOME ONE?
Not as easy to chew on…

  1. Does farming badly affects the environment?
  2. Does it make you cringe watching/thinking about an animal being slaughtered?
  3. Do you agree you wouldn’t want that same fate on yourself?
  4. Do you accept you wouldn’t be able to comfortably slaughter the animal yourself?
  5. Do you agree you couldn’t eat your cat or dog who are no different to farm animals?
  6. Shouldn’t we as superior beings treat all inferior sentient creatures with respect?
  7. Can you live a healthy life without eating any meat?
  8. Could we consider meat a commodity; a guilty pleasure that could be avoided?
You answer for yourself.

I have to be honest, love meat! Before turning vegetarian I used to order steak and chips every single time my parents took me to a restaurant. My favourite pizza was pepperoni. I munched on chicken breast, tuna salads, hamburgers, shrimp stew and fish fingers. I drooled over boiled chicken liver with mashed potatoes and rice! I even enjoyed fried chicken hearts, a Brazilian delicacy. Meat really does taste good there is no question about that.

I fully understand that we’re in a society where eating meat is just common practice. We grew up doing it. We have learned to enjoy it. We have learned not to think about it all. It’s become a habit to us. And as we all know, habits can be very hard things to give up, no matter how bad they are! (i.e. smoking, drinking, nail biting)

So I agree that becoming and staying a vegetarian is not easy. I suffer daily don’t you think that I don’t! However welcoming the UK is to us veggies it’s still not easy. Being easy is not what turning into a vegetarian is about. However hard it may be, it’s a comparatively small sacrifice to your life that spares hundreds of others from actual sacrifice: suffering and death. And once that is realised it becomes an easy choice to make.

In soon enough time you get accustomed with the difficulties. It becomes a habit again and before long you discover new things that you enjoy eating and just don’t take much notice of it. And in contrast, you will be safe in the knowledge that every night when you go to bed, no blood was spilt to keep you alive. No suffering was caused under your name. Safe in the knowledge that you’ll be doing something indisputably right in so many ways. And it’s that knowledge and that feeling being selfless and doing what’s right as supposed to what’s convenient and pleasant to you, that makes all the disadvantages of being a vegetarian seem trivial in comparison.

So, before having your next meal I challenge you to question yourself:
WHY DO YOU EAT MEAT?

  1. Is it because you truly believe and are proud to say that it is the most absolute rightful thing to do?
  2. Is it because of a relentless habit; a guilty pleasure that with a bit of effort could and should be changed?

I myself am of many faults and have lots of bad habits that I am yet to correct. I just think it’s extemly unfair to keep a habit that hurts others. So despite loving meat, despite all the inconveniences, that’s why I stopped eating it. And that’s why I believe that, no matter how hard, all of us that are intelligent, kind and warm-hearted people should do the same.

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This entry was posted on Friday, December 12th, 2008 at 8:49 pmand is filed under . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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