I am not scared of all the witches, zombies and assorted goblins wandering about on Halloween. What really scares me is the meat industry.
This is the industry that mutilates, cages and butchers billions of cows, pigs and other sentient animals, feeds carcasses of cats and dogs killed in pounds to chickens, exposes undocumented workers to chronic workplace injuries at slave wages, exploits farmers and ranchers by dictating wholesale market prices, punishes documentation of its abuses through unconstitutional “ag-gag” laws, promotes world hunger by feeding nutritious corn and soybeans to animals, generates more greenhouse gases than any other human activity, generates more water pollution than any other human activity, creates a permanent “dead zone” in the Gulf of Mexico that dwarfs the BP oil spill, creates deadly antibiotic-resistant pathogens by feeding antibiotics to animals, creates epidemics of salmonella, listeria and other infectious diseases, and promotes mortality from diabetes, heart failure, stroke, cancer and other diseases.
Now, that’s really scary, and this is why I am dropping animal products from my menu.
Will Turmeric, Wellington
Not only is vegetarianism good for the environment, but it is good for the body. Read the book, “The China Study” for research on this topic. Use common sense, if you at least limit your meat intake (not necessarily eliminate it), you can potentially enjoy more years to your life, and more healthful years at that. I do not eat meat because of my belief in compassion and my desire not to inflict pain on other beings…including animals.