I am going to propose something radical about humanity's relationship with other animals that I am sure is going to ruffle a few feathers. Humans have needed to hunt and kill in order to eat, survive on the planet, weather the storm (both literally and figuratively), and to create medicine from animal bodies when they get sick. Since the inception of the human race, this has been an uncontested fact and the reality. However, it is the 21st century; we now can make food without anything having to die, or with any animal parts at all. Very, very few humans need to hunt to survive anymore. Medicine has become more refined, and in amazing ways. So can we please start thinking about the killing animals en masse, and to take active steps to change our food industry as a people, collectively? Because what we do to animals is cruel, beyond words.

I am the first person to eat a cheeseburger. I don't really turn down steak. I love to eat chicken. I will pay $14 for a small plate of calamari. However, since I have become more conscious, I feel guilty about eating food, and not because I am afraid of gaining weight. I realize now that for every meal that I eat with meat in it, something had to die, and I don't know even know what condition it was in or how it was killed. It is kind of surreal to realize that much of your diet is dead animals that have been mass produced to be grown, experimented on, essentially murdered, packed, and sent to distributors to be bought by consumers.

To me, the way we have animals is reminiscent of both slavery and genocide. Animals are grown and bred, billions of them, and they are used for their bodies to feed an entire society. They are systemically killed, but because they are thought of as not on the same level as humans, since humans are so evolved, it is considered acceptable to treat them less than how we would treat a human in the same situation.

I know that it is hard for some people to imagine a world without meat, myself included. However, I believe it can be done. What once was, is no longer. Thousands of years ago, for a lack of a better way of saying this, humans didn't have the option to think about not killing animals. We were just another animal on the food chain just trying to survive, no different than an eagle looking for rodents to eat in a grass field, or an anteater breaking into anthills, or a pack of lions taking down a zebra herd. However, we have an option now. We have evolved and created a new world. Meatless is not only an option, but it could be an evolutionary future. It is a long-term goal, it is not happening today, the next day, and probably for the next 100 years. After all, we have thousands of years animal slavery and genocide that we have to undo.

Changing our system of food is something that we have to put active thought on. If we are serious about evolving, about becoming a better society, about becoming conscious and growing a heart and being able to see other lifeforms' lives as valid as ours whether or not they are human, we need to change the way we see the other animals on this planet. We need to change the way we eat, and we need to admit that it is wrong to treat animals the way we do in order to make eating more efficient. If the animals we keep in cages were human, society would be outraged and would probably feel that the process we have to create the meatpacking industry would be a crime against the human right to live. So why is it okay for non-humans to be treated like they should be kept in cages and killed billions at a time to keep humans happy? Is the picture below the way to go? Or is there a better way?

*This photo as well as the cover photo was taken in person