Top Five Reasons I Am Vegan

1. I don't want to be a hypocrite.

Do you tell people you love animals?  Were you outraged when the National Park Service euthanized that baby bison?  Are you even more outraged by what's happening in Yulin?  How can people eat cats and dogs?!  Are you kidding me?  Do you know they grind up male baby chicks alive?  Do you know that cheese you can't live without means cows being forced to give birth to baby after baby?  They cry and howl for those babies like any mother would.  Nine of out ten of those babies are killed so you can eat cheap beef, or even worse, veal.  I am not just against cruelty against dogs and cats, I'm against cruelty of all kinds.

Either you love animals or you don't.  Either you care about the treatment of other living things, or you don't.  Maybe you should start saying, "I love dogs and cats, but feel free to torture and kill all other animals because they're yummy, so who cares!"  Of course, if you say that, I will think you're an idiot.  But at least then you'd be an honest idiot and not a hypocrite.

2. I care about what I eat.

For many years, I knew what horrific things had to happen for me to eat meat, but I pushed it out of my mind.  Unfortunately, most people don't have to do that because they don't even think about where their food comes from.  I can't tell you how many people have told me, "My meat comes in a package at the store."  Um, no...your meat came from a breathing, living, being who didn't want to be crammed into filthy pens and have their throats slit.  Really people?  How do you think the agencies that are supposed to be protecting us, have allowed for the use of massive pesticides, GMO everything, and high fructose corn syrup in all our food?  Because despite all the access we have here in America, as a society, we choose to stick our heads in the ground and pretend it's not happening.

If you educate yourself on meat and dairy, and still choose to eat both, that's on you.  If you choose to stay in the dark and not know anything about what you're putting in your bodies, or what you're feeding your kids, then that's much worse.  Don't stay purposely ignorant, educate yourself.

3.  I don't want to eat food that's killing me.

Forget about the animals and the torture and death and all that.  How about you focus on obesity rates?  The United States and Australia eat the most meat in the world, and both have the highest rates of obesity.  Everyone is getting fatter and sicker, taking more meds, needing more and more end of life care.  If you talk to people who were suffering from a variety of illnesses then became vegan, many have stories of how they got healthier and stopped needing to take so many meds.  Meat, dairy and processed foods are not good for you.  Use some common sense.  There are plenty of studies linking meat to cancer, argue against them as you may. There's even a Harvard study showing that dairy is not good for you.  I'll keep saying it, educate yourself.

I can personally say, that all my friends that are the most resistant to the idea of even cutting back on meat, are my friends that are very overweight or obese.  Your diet is literally killing you.  Eating meat is yummy?  Eating meat makes you happy?  Open your eyes; eating meat is literally killing you.  I want to be healthy and live a long life.  I want to watch my child grow up and be able to run around with my grandkids one day. I'm sorry if things like that don't matter to you.

4.  I care about the environment.

Yes, I am one of those people...ya know, not an asshole.  I bring reusable bags to the grocery store.  I use rags and not five million paper towels a year.  I never use plastic cups, plates or utensils.  I use cloth napkins, not paper.  I compost and have rain barrels.  I also get that eating meat and dairy is bad for the environment.  Even the United Nations is urging a global move towards meat and dairy free diets.  You don't want to read studies, then watch a documentary.  Educate yourself.



Did you know, "If all the grain currently fed to livestock in the United States were consumed directly by people who could be fed would be nearly 800 million," according to David Pimentel, professor of ecology in Cornell University's College of Agriculture and Life Sciences.  800 Million people....

http://www.onegreenplanet.org/animalsandnature/eat-for-the-planet-meat-and-the-environment/

So they next time you start waxing poetic about how we should take care of Americans before we worry about other people, think about how your refusal to give up meat is directly related to amount of land we have available to grow food to feed Americans, but we're wasting that space to grow grain for animals.  Hmm...heart clogging steaks and hamburgers for a few or feed 800 million people...  How does that make sense?

5.  I want to teach my child about empathy and compassion for all living beings.

Every time I see images of baby chicks being ground alive, or pigs cowering in a corner as they watch their friends throats being slit, or mother cows howling for their babies, I think of that movie, A Time to Kill, when Matthew McConaughey tells the jury to imagine the little girl that was raped was white.  I think, what if these videos were of dogs and cats, maybe then, people would care more.  Maybe then they'd stop posting idiotic comments on facebook and twitter like just saying, "bacon" or how watching those videos are "making them hungry".  Is this what we've turned into?  A mob of unfeeling, unsympathetic assholes?  Really?  That's not what I want my daughter to grow up to be.  I want her to be the best version of herself.  And that doesn't mean pretending horrible things aren't happening, just because I don't want to change for the better.

I was going to post pictures of the horrific ways in which meat makes it's way to your table.  The reality is, if you don't care, then you don't care.   Go Google it yourself.  Or check out this guy's thread.  Choose to eat meat or don't, but please don't choose to remain uneducated about what you're doing.  Educate yourself on what you're putting into your bodies and what you're feeding your families.  These animals matter.  The environment matters.  Not buying into bs that is keeping America fat and unhealthy and reliant on more and more drugs to stay alive matters.  Want more.  Want better.  For everyone.