Oh you’re vegan? You are such a hippie.
I get called strange names on the daily basis all because I stopped eating animal’s products of all kind. Twig eater. Food hater. Tree Huger. Everything under the sun just for not eating meat, diary, eggs or anything of that nature. Thank you society for the swell nicknames.
Let’s get one thing straight. Vegans should get a heck of a lot more respect for what they do, there are deep purposes linked to this lifestyle choice.
When you are vegan, you are not only standing up for animals (even though that is a huge part of it) but also for the environment, your health and logical morals.
Who ever decided one day that it was delicious to steal the squeezed juice from a cow and drink it? Or to grill some animal flesh and stick it between a bun and call it dinner? Eating animal products sounds just so unnatural to me. If you really think about it, and take away the societal expectation to eat meat, it would sound gross to you too.
We are so used to dissociating where our food comes from with the consumption of it. We never actually like to think about how that chicken wing got on the plate in front of us. What the process was to get the eggs for the omelet we are about to eat. We can not longer live our lives in this naive bubble. Start getting educated. I did, and it was the best decision of my life, because every single day, I know I am making some sort of difference just because of the decision I make with the food I eat.
One day, I woke up and actually educated myself on all the products I am eating. I basically found out that my entire life was a lie. Animal’s raised for slaughtered are not kept on a happy little farm, living a happy go lucky life. Even the ones that do live on happy little farms are killed in the most horrific ways. It’s time to stop living in the dark. Let’s get some things straight here:
People always say that getting milk from a cow doesn’t hurt the cow. Lie. Farmers don’t stroll out to the barn with a blue bucket to milk the adorable cow. Cows produce milk for the same reason humans do- to nourish their young, so the milk they produce is meant for their young. What goes on in most dairy industries is the forced insemination of cows (for all you questioners out there, that is pretty much a fancy way of saying rape), and the day after the calve is born, it is taken away from its mother, and then the cow is strapped down in a small space, having its milk stolen from them, only to be impregnated again immediately after they are sucked dry. This process severely shortens the lifespan of cows everywhere. Eggs from chickens go through a similar, un natural process. Animals are not raised in green fields, but most chained up, kept in small dark places, hung from ceilings, having their throats slit to have the blood slowly drain out of them only to provide that lovely steak you are about to eat later. Animals feel. Animals are smart. We are no better then them. This is incredibly unethical and there is no logical way to ever consider this moral… So if you are an animal lover, how can you let this happen? It’s almost to sad to even read.
Our world is NOT fine. We are in an environmental crisis currently. We can all stop the naïve act that climate change is not a huge problem. It exists. It is human caused. Flat out, that is a fact. Meaning, all the horrible effects that climate change will have on our planet: life threatening natural disasters, animal extinctions, and so on- is partly because we choose not to make a change in our lives and do something about it. People think that they can’t make a big enough difference, but that is false as well. One of the huge reasons climate change exists is because of the overuse of fossil fuel. According to PETA (People for- Ethical- Treatment of- Animals) 1/3 of fossil fuel is used for the production of animal products. By becoming vegan, you are reducing your carbon footprint by 60%, thus, being part of a movement that is saving our environment from disaster. On this earth, we also have the caloric means to feed every human being on this planet. However, we are feeding all this food to the cattle that we are breeding continuously to only slaughter, giving the meat to the rich. World hunger could be stopped…yet we decide to use that food to feed to animals for consumption? How does that make sense?
People always say that being vegan is incredibly unhealthy because I would have some sort of freaky deficiency, however, it is completely the opposite- animal consumption is negatively effecting your health. John Hopkins Medical Research Center found a huge link with eating meat to obesity, type 2 diabetes, heart disease and stroke. Not eating animal products is healthier for you. I personally want to live as long as possible, so refraining from eating animals is going to help me achieve that and not get some nasty disease.
What is hard to hear is usually the things that make the most impact on you. Stop living in the dark about what you are consuming, because what you are eating is what you are condoning to happen. All these wrongdoings are having severe impacts on your health as well as the environment. ALSO, animals are cute and innocent, and it is just cruel to hurt them. Bring on the vegan stereotypes. Call me a hippie, or a tree hugger. There is a purpose behind all this madness, and I am proud to be apart of the vegan movement.
