The abuse and slaughter of animals is a primary reason for any to be vegan. But there are the environments being ruined with animal agriculture, so there is environmental reason to take being vegan seriously. Likewise with all the more resources being used for animal agriculture, and all the water, and all the land, for it, and there is the contribution to emissions associated with climate change with the warming of this planet. Having just all whole food from plants is also very healthy for us. Being vegan is done for the animals but all these things as more reason make a strong argument for it. And I found it is not hard at all.
For me it’s because of the workers.
Hurting non-human animals, ultimately, hurts the human workers and human communities that have to do it. Numerous psychological studies have found that slaughterhouse work is enormously damaging to the human mind, and statistically slaughterhouses are found to increase violent crime and suicide and addiction and spousal abuse. To my shame, personal experience affirms that killing animals is harmful to psychological health.
Once I made that connection between the suffering of human and non-human animals I knew I couldn’t participate in the consumption of animal products.
The basis of understanding the trophic levels is paramount. Whenever one consumes from a trophic level, one is destroying more from the levels below. If people decided tomorrow to only consume carnivorous animals, they would be requiring even more animals, and therefore even more plants, meaning even more microorganisms. The quantity of energy one gets from one animal is less than what the energy intake of that animal was. Always. The larger the animal, the larger the loss. This does not change. Not even in the scavenger’s rule of the wild. Not even amongst other organisms in this planet. Never. It’s basic understanding of entropy and biology, but somehow this eludes the general population. However, the complexity of how trophic balance is achieved is more complex than this.
But still, this is why consuming from the lowest level possible ensures the lowest destruction possible. And why I am a big supporter of Precision Fermentation. Using bacterial and microbial life to grow our food as directly as possible is ingenious.
Sustainability, veganism, ethics… it’s all the same. We should all aspire to live our lives ensuring the minimum destruction possible. And if one uses one’s energy for the protection and the betterment of all life, not just oneself, or just animals, but plants, mycelium life, and microorganisms as well, the better it is to life itself on earth, regardless of species and categorization.
Syntropy vs entropy.
For me its also the fact, that keeping animals requires a lot of resouces, especially meat. So this is a really inefficient way to eat.
Instead of using crops that humans can eat, crops for animals are being used.
Yeah but they’re toasty though.
