Essay: The Humane Way

 
The article written by Ashley Capps, “12 Important Reasons To Go Vegan Today”, gives information on why a plant-based diet is better than one that contains dairy, eggs and meat. Most people were raised and taught that milk makes their bones strong and that meat and eggs are the best source of protein, when in reality it’s not true.
I agree with the author on the reasons to go on a plant-based diet. Not only will it save millions of lives every year, but it also has great health and environmental benefits. Capps mentions many reasons why switching to a plant-based diet is beneficial, but I believe that there is morally only one—the animals. I find it completely and utterly wrong for people to eat animals when there is absolutely no need for it. There are so many alternatives that it blows my mind that people still actually want to eat them.
Capps also brings up the point that the dairy industry is extremely cruel. Animals feel pain, joy and grief among other feelings. They also have personalities. I know that’s true because I grew up around animals my while life. Animals fear death and avoid pain, just like us.
Most people don’t make the connection that a cow has to be pregnant to produce milk. The milk she produces is for her calf, who never gets it. Dr Michael Klaper said “The purpose of cow’s milk is to turn a 65-pound calf into a 700-pound cow as rapidly as possible. Cow’s milk IS baby calf growth fluid. No matter what you do to it, that is what the stuff is”. So that brings up the question, why are we consuming this liquid filled with hormones made for a calf? If the tables were turned and milk was forcefully taken from pregnant women, the world would go crazy. In fact, humans won’t even drink human breast milk unless they’re infants because they find it repulsive. From their own species! So why steal it from another one?
The dairy and egg industry cause a huge amount of unnecessary pain and suffering. There is a common misconception that the animals live a happy free life before they are humanely slaughtered. What is humane slaughter anyway? Is it when someone hugs a cow while its throat is being slit? There is no such thing as humane slaughter, it’s a term made up for people to feel better about the meat they’re buying.
Most chickens are confined in cages so small they can’t move. Their beaks are cut off so that they don’t peck each other, and the male chicks are disregarded because they don’t serve a purpose to the industry. The terms “cage free” and “free range” doesn’t mean that they are happily running around a farm. It only means that they aren’t in individual cages. Having tens of thousands of chickens packed into a warehouse where they can barely move is still considered “free range”. The terms arose because society is starting to be concerned about the welfare of animals. So people want to treat animals better, but have no problem in having them slaughtered unless it’s done in a humane way. WHAT?
Animal agriculture isn’t sustainable. It has a major environmental impact. Capps mentions that animal agriculture is “the single greatest human-caused source of greenhouse gases, land use, and land degradation; the number one source of freshwater pollution, and the leading driver of rainforest destruction”. If animal agriculture is destroying our planet, why are we funding it? The answer is simple—money. There’s a handful of people who benefit directly from the industry.
Eating animals isn’t healthy for humans. In fact, a male on a whole food plant-based diet only has a 4% chance of heart disease, while one that eats meat has a 50% chance. The pharmacy industry doesn’t want us to know that because guess who would find a huge dip in sales if people all of a sudden weren’t getting sick? Exactly. Money is more important than health.