I wanted to write about something I’m really passionate about today: the logic of veganism and why it makes sense. I refuse to let people make me feel “weird” for being a vegan, though they try on a daily basis.
The truth is: veganism makes a lot of sense and that’s what scares people.
It’s so much easier to label vegans “weird”, “crazy” or “annoying” than face what they are trying to say. I find myself very conscious of trying to speak in a way people will listen, so they can’t simply label me “weird.
Listening to horrible facts and facing logic takes guts. It takes adjustment. It takes realizing you’ve grown up with a lot of lies. But it’s 100% rewarding, I promise.
A lot of people don’t listen to facts (thank you amazing Daniel Johnston for sharing this wisdom with me) the majority of people respond to emotions. People don’t give up on religion because dinosaur fossils get discovered and disprove Gods timeline, similarly, people don’t seem to respond to a statistic like “over 150 billion animals are slaughtered each year”.
It seems the masses are more likely to emote over an amazing weight loss story. Or the desire to be like a celebrity. Or the instinct to save a cute looking piglet.
I went vegan for emotional reasons after accidentally watching a cow be slaughtered. I was deeply disturbed and knew what I was seeing was wrong on every level. There was nothing “food chain” about it, nothing primal, nothing carnivorous and nothing natural. It was a shocking, horrific, and evil factory farm. Nothing more.
That is logical to me. It’s logical that a factory farm is not natural. It’s not natural to breed and house cows, pigs, chickens and goats in massive factories where they are shoved together, fed unhealthy food and “prepared” until fat enough to be slaughtered into Big Macs.
That is not logical. That is ridiculous.
Especially when the practice of carrying this out is causing such environmental and ethical devastation.
Ready for more logic? You will be fined and even possibly arrested for an act of “animal cruelty”. As severe as strangling a cat, or as simple as kicking a dog. You can, however, go and purchase a dead, tortured animal from a supermarket.
Logical? I think not. Think the chicken in your “Chicken Kiev” wasn’t tortured or treated with cruelty? Ha! Go do some research.
Is it logical that people will love and worship pets, buy them toys, buy them beds, cuddle them, take them for walks and also eat animals? Eat pigs that have the intelligence of a three-year old human child?
Is that logical?
Vegans are logical. Vegans are the ones scratching their heads saying: um… wait… THAT doesn’t make sense. That needs examining. Like humans are equal, shouldn’t all animals be EQUAL to each other? Why do humans decide their worth? Why are dogs more important than cows? Why are pigs less important than horses?
Animals have become whatever we decide they are useful for and that is ILLOGICAL. Especially when our use of them is causing mass devastation. Environmental devastation, ethical devastation and a health epidemic.
Humans decided that cows are only useful to be milked and eaten.
Is that logical? Let’s think: NO! Because we do not need cow milk and with each new day there are more and more studies proving dairy products are unhealthy for human bodies. More and more people are proving lactose intolerant, more and more people are curing disease by cutting animal products from their diets and the majority of commercial dairy products have lovely extras like hormones, blood and pus.
How is it logical to drink the milk from another animal? That is not logical at all. We are not in a period of starvation where we need to eat anything to survive. We should be investing in sustainable practices that are healthy for our bodies and an investment in a bountiful future that can feed the WORLD. Animal products are not a good investment. It takes FOOD and LAND to grow this “FOOD”. I hate calling animals “food”, but for arguments sake, let’s look at what is invested in this form of “food”. Animals have to eat, animals need land to stand on, petrol to transport them to slaughter, energy to power the evil factories, areas to dump all their waste (sometimes oceans FYI) – why use all those resources in such an unsustainable way? Isn’t it logical to just eat the grain and crops we are feeding cows ourselves? Use that land to grow plant foods, which, (double bonus!) is better for us anyway?
How is it logical to participate in unsustainable practices out of greed? Greed over a “delicious” cheeseburger? That is simply not logical! Especially when in 2014 you can have any of your favorite foods in a vegan version anyway.
If animal products were healthy for us, maybe there would be some sense in maintaining them, but guess what? They’re not.
Meat is not good for us, dairy is not good for us, eggs are not good for us, fishing is causing environmental devastation and their flesh is full of pollution and mercury.
None of it makes sense. I want to paraphrase one of my heroes Phillip Wollen who said in the brilliant “Animals Should Be off the Menu” debate, to just leave animals alone. He said he would “make a bargain” with meat-eaters. They can eat the animals currently locked up, but stop breeding new ones!
Great guy. (Vegan!) Logical, sensible and it’s hard to argue with that bargain. Why keep murdering innocent animals? Why keep breading living, breathing, thinking, feeling, intelligent creatures just to torture and consume? Because they “taste good”? I’m sorry, but that’s not good enough. Sweet Potato tastes good – eat that!
Let’s try and heal this planet and get things a bit more natural and harmonious. I’m no hippie, but I recognize our planet has a natural way and humans are seriously messing with it. If everyone was responsible for sourcing their own food, a lot of things would be simpler and food industries wouldn’t be so scary and corrupt. But, that is not the world we live in. We live in a world of supply and demand. Big business, big money and big companies. If you get eggs from your neighbors chickens, obviously that’s not my issue. My issue will start when your neighbor has to supply the entire street, so gets more and more chickens and has to start getting them to lay more and more eggs so people can eat more and more of them and then start to get higher and higher cholesterol.
That is just illogical. We control the demand, which will control the supply. (In case you haven’t figured it out, the neighbor is a metaphor.) While there is demand for animal products, there will be unsustainable, unethical industries. Think about it – be logical! Have your own animals if you like, but if you are going to buy from a store, shop or business – they can only supply the demand. While there is money to be made, animals will be exploited. If everyone wakes up tomorrow and wants “happy” “free range” eggs, they won’t be free-range for long. They will fast become a factory farm.
Put your demand in a place that is a step in the right direction. Healthy, wholesome plant foods. Vote against animal cruelty. Vote against unsustainable practices.
Go logical. Go vegan.
Great post, I especially liked your point about how animal cruelty is against the law but routine torture in the industry is overlooked.
I think the main reason why a lot more people aren’t vegan is because they don’t HAVE to be. This kind of routine cruelty is socially acceptable and distanced from our lives, so we don’t have to think about it. Obviously this doesn’t only happen with our food but also all the products we buy that, as far as we know (or care), have no history before we saw them in the shop. For many people, just looking for ‘free range’ and ‘organic’ labels is enough to satisfy any niggling guilt.
Having said that, I think we need to blame our ruthlessly money driven society, big business and the government for making it incredibly difficult to be vegan, and more expensive as well. While I am vegan, I realise that it’s from a place of privilege that I can be, which I think is the biggest shame of all. When someone is struggling to eat at all, it’s not logical to try and tell them what TO eat.
Not only is being Vegan cheaper, it is the lifestyle by default of many of the worlds poor. There is nothing prove liger about choosing to be kind, in fact it is essential to solving world hunger as the amount of land taken up to grow feed for meat is taking food away from the poor for the privelige of an obese rich nation to eat animals over plants.
Agreed with everything you said! This is a great post!
Nice post Hannah and enough to make me think. My family and I are looking to become better at just this. This type of article really helps me do it. So thank you.