God gave man dominion over the animals.  Animals are one of God’s creatures that we are to love and respect.  I do not want to support an industry that tortures and mistreats animals.

There, that’s pretty much a light summary of what I believe.  Of course this is usually followed up by one or two notorious questions:

“So if you don’t eat meat, how do you get protein?”

and

“So I can understand not wanting to kill an animal, but what about cheese and eggs? Nothing dies for those.”

This is good reinforcement for you as to why you believe in being vegan and also can be used as a chance to spark conversation with people who would never think to consider where their food comes from. Also, for new vegans, this might serve as something to hold on to so that when confronted, you have something to say that will, hopefully, knock their socks off.

So here is my question for you guys:

What is /your/ vegan elevator speech? and what are the most common follow up questions?

Now, since we do not need meat to survive, and in fact are healthier without it, then shouldn’t treating animals with such disregard and killing them so callously be considered a doubly barbaric act?

Until we are collectively able to use our intelligence to care about the well-being of all others and stop thinking solely about ourselves and our superiority,  it doesn’t matter whether we’ve been to the moon, built pyramids or iPhones –  we’re still no better than beasts.

We don’t usually think of what we eat as a matter of ethics. Stealing, lying, hurting people – these acts are obviously relevant to our moral character. So too, most people would say, is our involvement in community activities, our generosity to others in need, and especially our sex life. But eating – an activity that is even more essential than sex, and in which everyone participates – is generally seen quite differently.

The way food is sold an advertised today doesn’t help. Despite the recent upsurge of farmers’ markets, in the developed world almost all food is purchased from supermarkets. Shoppers are not presented with relevant information about the ethical choices that surround food. Instead, the world food industry spends more than $40 billion annually trying to make us eat their products – a figure greater than the domestic product of 70% of the world’s nations. That buys an avalanche of advertising that sweeps down on us from all sides but tells us only what the advertisers want us to know.

If slaughterhouses had glass walls, it’s often said,  we’d all be vegetarian. That’s probably not quite true – some people can get used to almost anything. But transparency is increasingly recognised as an important ethical principle and a safeguard against bad practice. Consumers should be able to get accurate and unbiased information about what they are buying and how it was produced.

There is a broad consensus within both religious and secular ethics that an ethical life respects virtues like fairness, justice, and benevolence. At the heart of these virtues lies a more basic principle: I cannot reasonably claim that my interests matter more than yours simply because my interests are mine. My interests may matter more to me, but I cannot claim they matter more in any objective sense. From the ethical point of view, everyone’s interests deserve equal consideration.

Obviously, animals can’t have equal rights to humans. Animals can’t have equal rights to an education, to vote, or to exercise free speech. The kind of parity that most animal advocates want to extend to animals is not equal rights, but equal consideration of comparable interests. If an animal feels pain, the pain matters as much as it does when a human feels pain. Granted, the mental capacities of different beings will affect how they experience pain, how they remember it, and whether they anticipate further pain – and these differences can be important. But the pain felt by a baby is a bad thing, even if the baby is no more self-aware than, say, a pig, and has no greater capacities for memory of anticipation. Pain can be a useful warning of danger, so it is sometimes valuable, all things considered. But taken in themselves, unless there is some compensating benefit, we should consider similar experiences of pain to be equally undesirable, whatever the species of the being who feels the pain.

We don’t need to eat meat to live. We only continue doing so because we are accustomed to eating these animals products and can’t imagine a meal without them, or because we like the way they taste. And these are not ethical justifications, given the harm these practices cause.

• 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! ;-)

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?

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.

1. To refrain from taking life (non-violence towards sentient life forms)
2. To refrain from taking that which is not given (not committing theft)
3. To refrain from sensual (sexual) misconduct (not committing rape, etc)
4. To refrain from lying (speaking truth always)
5. To refrain from intoxicants which lead to loss of mindfulness (specifically, drugs and alcohol)

Number 1 on that list is the one thing that over 95% of the world don’t do. Their morals stop with no hurting humans as if they were somehow more capable of feeling pain and more deserving of being respected.

• Save energy? meh, why bother, I won’t make a difference! I like my halogen light bulbs too much.
• Not buy from companies who use sweatshops? Nah, they sell millions already how will me not buying make any difference?
• Buy Fair Trade? These people live miserable lives anyway, how will 20p more change anything?
• Become a vegetarian? The animals die anyway, millions of them – it’s not me who’ll make it stop.

The problem of course is that when most people think that, indeed the difference made is not as big as it could be, exactly because of that. But difference is still made! The more people realise that each and every one of us does make a tiny % of difference, the more we’ll see the world change. It’s simple maths really!

And the process is also viral of course. You change your lifestyle > your friends see you do it > you talk about it > they change their lifestyle > and the message gets passed on. Slowly but surely the world will become a better place!

In the words of the amazing Gandhi: “You must be the change you wish to see in the world”. And I very much live by that.

So, do your part! In whatever cause that’s dear to you! I guarantee you will sleep much better at night with clear conscience that you are doing the right thing instead of “passing the buck”.

1. UNESSENTIAL: WE DON’T NEED MEAT TO SURVIVE
   Humans don’t need meat to survive and live a healthy life. They eat it because it tastes good. That alone is not a good enough reason to put animals through suffering.
2. HYPOCRISY: YOU COULDN’T KILL, GUT AND CHOP IT YOURSELF
   Most people don’t like the sight of an animal being killed, let alone could they do it themselves. Eating them is therefore hypocrisy.
3. COMPASSION: ANIMALS FEEL PAIN AND FEAR TOO
   Farm animals feel pain just like us and just like your pets. Electrocuting/cutting their throats is barbaric and inhumane. Farm animals are treated like a product and not like sentient beings that they are. They are fed hormones, are beaten and thrown about and live in confined spaces with complete disregard for their well-being.“Don’t do to others what you don’t want done to yourself”.
4. COWARDICE: LIKE BABIES, ANIMALS DON’T HAVE A VOICE TO FIGHT FOR THEIR RIGHTS
   Slavery was once legal. Women once didn’t have right to vote. Gays don’t have the right to marry in some places. But they all have a voice to fight for their rights. Animals can’t beg for their lives or freedom but that is not enough reason that they should be stripped from those rights. In the same way that killing an innocent and voiceless baby is the most horrific act of violence, so is killing and mistreating an animal.
5. HEALTH: VEGETARIANS ARE HEALTHIER
   Vegetarians live longer and have 40% to 70% less chance of getting cancer and other diseases than meat eaters.
6. ENVIRONMENT: ANIMAL FARMING IS BAD FOR THE ENVIRONMENT
   Half the rainforests in the world have been cleared for grazing; methane from livestock causes global warming; soil is eroded by cattle; slurry poisons waterways; and the seas are laid to waste by overfishing. The global appetite for meat and the industrial techniques of the meat industry are destroying the Earth. Farming contributes to 18% of all greenhouse gases produced by humans. That’s more than all forms of transport put together.
7. HUNGER: GRAIN THAT’S BEING FED TO ANIMALS COULD GO TO STARVING PEOPLE
   While 750 million people go to bed hungry every night, one-third of the world’s grain is fed to farmed animals. A typical Western meat-based diet can only feed 2.5 billion people: a plant-based diet will feed every one of us.

If you want more reasons follow these links:

http://philipngcc.homestead.com

http://www.watchearthlings.com

http://www.goveg.com

http://www.goveg.com/theissues.asp

http://www.meat.org

1. Why are you a vegetarian?
   Because as any human being I do not need meat to survive and I disagree with making an animal be treated like a product and then be murdered just because it tastes good.
2. What if the animal died by accident, would you eat it?
   No, the thought of eating a carcass disgusts me no matter how it died. Of course, if someone puts a gun in my head and tells me to choose between eating an animal that died accidentally and one that was murdered I would choose the one that died accidentally – but by choice I still wouldn’t eat it – I don’t NEED it and that’s the point.
3. But other animals eat meat too, you can’t make a lion into a vegetarian.
   For starters, we’re not lions. Lions don’t have a conscience nor a choice, they have large sharp teeth, they eat meat raw, from an early age they display hunting instincts; put a human baby next to a rabbit and check if it kills and eats it like a lion cub would. If you force feed lions with a diet of potatoes and vegetables they won’t be able to eat it nor will they live very long because they were made to be carnivores. Lions also defecate in front of each other and kill the cubs that were not fathered by them – should you do that too?

4. But these animals we eat are bread for it!
   How does that make it any better? Shall we start breeding slaves? Shall we start breeding dogs to use their fur to make teddy bears? Or breed humans to experiment on them. Breeding something for a purpose doesn’t make it right. These animals, whether they are bread for it or not, have feelings and deserve respect.
   Plus, salt-water fish are not bread for it, and as a result human’s over-fishing is causing HUGE imbalances in the ocean’s ecosystem.
5. They are just animals! They can’t think, they don’t care!
   Animals can feel the same amount of pain and fear that we can – they don’t want to suffer, they don’t want to die. Would it be right to kill a human with the mental capacity of a chicken? They DO exist, yet we spend millions with treatments to keep them alive and killing them would be considered murder and would put you in jail. This is called “specism” which a form of “racism”. The fact is that we are ALL animals, but we place higher morals and ethical values on our own species than on others – we somehow consider ourselves more worthy of being alive and being prevented from suffering SIMPLY because we are different species when in fact there is absolutely no reason for us not to apply the same morals to every animal other than the inconvenience it causes us from not being able to “taste” meat.
   It sounds absurd that we do it, but we do.
6. Didn’t humans evolve a larger brain exactly because they started eating meat?
   If that was true then one could ask why other carnivores are not even smarter than us. Plus, even if this statement was true it doesn’t mean that because of it we should remain with same habits we had 10 or 20 thousand years ago. We used to kill each other regularly, we used to live in caves, sacrifice babies in the name of gods, we used to die at the age of 35. I take pride in having evolved beyond that stage into a man who has compassion for all sentient creatures.
7. If you were stranded in an island and you needed to kill an animal to survive, would you do it?
   Yes, I would if it was absolutely necessary – being in that situation I would be removed from an environment in which I have a choice and would be put in one where in order to survive I would NEED to kill another animal to survive. That doesn’t happen on your day-to-day life – you always have a choice. Even if you’re at a friend’s house and they made a roast dinner, you wouldn’t DIE if you didn’t eat that day and you could always have the potatoes and I’m sure they would have other ingredients in their fridges to quickly make something different for you.
8. But then what do you eat?
   Of course your choices are limited because of the fact that most restaurants serve 90% of food with carcasses as an ingredient. But that is a small inconvenience to have to endure for stopping an animal from being unnecessarily killed to satisfy your palate. There are LOADS of options anyway, there are fake meats available, pasta, lasagne, omelette, potatoes, beans, vegetables, organic cheese, free range eggs… really, once you get used to it you don’t even miss meat at all.
9. Why do you not like to eat food that was near meat or touched meat?
   The best way I can explain it is by giving an example. Say you go to some village in China and they eat human featuses there – so you go to this restaurant and they have all these roasted human featuses on a tray and then some vegetables on another. Would you eat the vegetables?
   The thought of a carcass of an innocent animal being near my food disgusts me as much as that roasted featus would disgust you.
   Most vegetarians don’t feel that way and indeed by eating the vegetables only I am still not supporting the meat industry – so this is more of a “yuk” reason than a rational one.
10. What difference does it make? Everyone eats meat, so animals are still dying!
    What difference does it make to recycle, to save energy, to save water, to take public transport instead of driving a car, to not wear fur, to not buy from a company that uses child labour… by boycotting a practice you are doing your share and that’s all you can do really. If 100% of people ate meat in the UK there’d be an extra 50 million animals being killed every year to meet that demand – but about 8% of the people in the UK are vegetarians, and on average each vegetarian saves 100 animals from slaughter per year. It all adds up. Then one day there’ll be a tipping point – when 60-70% of the population turns vegetarian, the remaining ones will not have an option any more and then everyone will have to be vegetarians. Similar to when slavery was abolished – suddenly most people disagreed with it and the government forbade it – some people still wanted their slaves, but they could no longer legally have them. Now most people agree that slavery is a bad thing. Times change and with time are values are changing for the better.

    The biggest point is – we don’t need meat to live – and by becoming a vegetarian you are doing your part to slowly stop this horrible practice from going on.

It is written by a guy called Peter Singer who I now idolize. He writes so well and explains things in such a way that it is impossible to argue with him. Apparently most people who read this book turn vegetarians if they are not.

A passage of the book, quotes Jeremy Bentham when writing at the time when black slaves had been freed by the French but the British dominations were still being treated in the way we now treat animals.

The day may come when the rest of the animal creation may acquire those rights which never could have been withheld from them but by the hand of tyranny. The French have already discovered that the blackness of the skin is no reason why a human being should be abandoned without redress to caprice of a tomertor. It may one day come to be recognized that the number of legs, the villosity of the skin, or the termination of the os sacrum are reasons equally insufficient for abandoning a sensitive being to the same fate. What else is it that should trace the insuperable line? Is it the faculty of reason, or perhaps the faculty of discourse? But a full-grown horse or dog is beyond comparison a more rational, as well as a more conversable animal, than an infant of a day or a week or even a month, old. But suppose they were otherwise, what would it avail? The question is not, “can they reason?” nor “can they talk?” but, “can they suffer?”

Will leave you with that thought.