For No Particular Reason

Many people have grown up to believe that animal products are necessary for life and/or healthy for us. This is scientifically untrue! This life is all about advertising. People have been advertised into believing blatant lies. There are cultures in which cancer and heart disease (in combination kills more than any other disease or cause by far) basically do not exist… What key factor is ALWAYS different? Overwhelmingly these populations eat a vegetable-based diet, and little to no animal products.

The countries with some of the highest rates of osteoporosis also have the highest dairy intake. Why would this be if dairy intake really strengthened your bones? Hmmm… maybe it is simply not true, and maybe we have simply been the victims of false advertising.

It is coming. I see truth in the future, when it can no longer be denied. Some are speaking it, and many are beginning to listen. Facts are hard to bury forever. When doctors are required to take nutrition courses... When the lies begin to fall away... It happened with cigarettes and it will happen again. Advertisements and lies won’t last forever.

Once it starts it is hard to stop. Next thing you know you are all too familiar with Monsanto, or BT cotton, or the suicides of farmers in India, and WHY (and not just the simple answer of crop failure), or the deforestation of our beautiful rain forests, which are dying, and WHY (and again, not the simple answer of “cutting it down”), you learn about manure lagoons and floods, and about massive fish kill and the spills of very poisonous organisms into our food and water, about the hormones and chemicals in your food, and a demand for drug sales that makes someone else rich. You begin to feel empathy for the farmer whose children have to walk through fields of chemicals. When one chooses to understand what a “Round-up Ready” soybean is they will catch a small glimpse only of the true horror of modern agriculture.

No plant on Earth ‘poops’, so why do you think our plant foods got contaminated with a virulent strain of E.Coli? Why are the two most concerning flu viruses of late called Avian flu and Swine flu? Why are these resistant strains of disease developing? Why did they stop calling it Swine flu and pushed the term “H1N1” instead? Why? Why are our antibiotics failing? Why are advertisers busting their ass to show you their green farms, rolling pastures, and “happy cows”? Why are they trying to pass laws that it is illegal to film a factory farm? What is it you aren’t supposed to know? You have to know anyone trying that hard to sell you something is LYING.

In discussing diet and cruelty – inevitably someone mentions that plants are alive, too. I could again reference the list of previous problems that do not exist with plant farming, but that would be redundant, so I also offer the basic anatomy and physiology… to the best of our ability to determine, plants do not have pain receptors. If overly confined they will not grow, so plants are always given the proper food and sunshine/basic life needs that animals are deprived of. Plants do not appear to grieve when other plants or their offspring are kidnapped and/or have no measurable reaction to the killing of their babies.

Dairy cows have been known to moo for their babies for many days. Pigs, which have the intelligence often equivalent to dogs, are known to become clinically depressed in modern farming settings. Chickens have been witnessed cooing to their developing babies while in the egg, and any naturally raised bird will always try to defend her eggs – in her mind they are her children and not your meal! Down is pulled viciously from live birds and cause a great deal of pain. Mulesing mutilates sheep for our wool. Animals used for fur are often anally electrocuted or just skinned alive so their fur is not damaged for you to wear and are also kept in confinement, in any kind of weather. Pigs have been found frozen to the sides of trucks after transport as no comforts are provided no matter what the weather. Unbelievably unethical animal testing is still pervasive. Bullhooks and beatings and withholding food are used to train animals for the circus, marine parks, etc. Dolphins and whales are often kidnapped from tight loving family units. There is no industry that relates to live animals that does not have an aspect of cruelty, all you need do is look. The proof is everywhere but no one looks.

If you attempt to eat only organic plant products and you avoid GMOs, pesticides, you say loudly that you want practices in your food that respected our soil and planet to produce. And, the land and water usage for producing animal foods versus plant foods is grossly different, so the simple conservation argument is also valid.

There are people called fruitarians. They eat only what naturally falls off the plant; thereby (in theory) they kill nothing for their food and live as true ‘foragers’ of food. I suppose that is for those who have strong beliefs in killing plants, too. I’m not quite at that level but I don’t make fun of it and understand why.

I am thankful for the plants that gave their life for me, and surely some bugs, snakes and mice, too, with plant harvesting. In an earlier writing I made clear that I do not believe that these things absolve me in any way from death, and I know I own some products that I have little control over the ‘ingredients’ (such as my car or products necessary for my job), but still I feel compelled to avoid animal products any time I am able.

As said, I’m sure field mice have died tilling crops, and bugs, snakes, frogs, etc. If I could produce 100% of my own food I would. Until that day I continue to try and buy only from organic local farmers. People who don’t have to poison our soil or water, or bottom-trawl our oceans to produce my daily nourishment. People who minimize harm and minimize waste, and don’t ever practice torture or confinement.

Waste is abundant and pervasive. Egg-laying hens are only produced for females as egg-chickens and meat-chickens are two separate industries. Cows we eat are NOT used for leather products. That is a totally different industry, too. We have turned farming into a massive confinement operation that cruelly treats animals as machines and wastes HUGE amounts of Earth resources.

We have many options available that do not cause suffering or waste or destruction. Why would anyone choose to cause suffering when it can be so easily avoided?

GO VEGAN.