Hello! (^^)/
Long time no see. Today, I’d like to write about a topical subject: eating meat.
Peta recently made a move about the subject, their ways to communicate are considered to be controversial, but I think we should leave the ways to convey a message aside to focus on the real problem here. There will always be hard or soft ways to communicate, I believe that as long as it’s efficient, it’s all that matters. Weirdly enough, the more you shock the more it works…
As I said in a previous post, I’m a semi-vegetarian: I don’t eat meat at all, except a bit of fish like once or twice a week.
Most of the people around me stay very skeptical and believe meat gives you all the nutrients you need. Unfortunately, I realized most of the people are not truly informed about what are the needs of a human body, and most importantly, what are the real needs into a particular environment. Too bad there are still people who consider vegetarians as fragile and sick human beings.
(Once, someone even told me that vegetarians/vegans lack of intelligence as it’s only red meat that provides you the nutrients your brain needs to think and to succeed in life…)
What about the millions of vegetarian people in the world? India alone holds 400 millions of vegetarians (40% of the population) and according to recent polls, Europe counts 1 to 6% of vegetarians in each country: for example England has 6% of vegetarians, meaning 3.6 million people.
The subject’s very wide, so I’ll come back to it in several posts, because there are many shades and many things to say. I don’t believe there is one way to eat, I believe we live in a world with different types of people and different environments, each one of us has a unique way to eat. The secret is to listen to your body, nothing more.
It’s been more than two years now that I completely stopped meat, I never felt something’s wrong, on the contrary. Plus, I’m still discovering the amazing varieties of food and recipes. When I used to eat meat, I didn’t realize how many variations exist: cereals, spices, vegetables…
In this first post, I’ll tell you about the basic information you need, to understand more what’s going on nowadays in our society, especially in factory-farming.
We could say that meat was never a real need for humans around agriculture or a wealthy environment of course. We have all the nutrients we need in everything we grow or in nature, no worries here.
The first argument I hear about is the Prehistoric Men cliché: they used to hunt and eat meat, so one might think that originally, humanity needs meat. Well no one told us that scientists believe Cavemen were mostly eating fruits and vegetables available around them, a bit like monkeys.
We’re in fact fructivorous, studies of our digestive system and teeth prove it. (One simple test for you to try out: put a bowl of fresh fruits and a bowl of fresh red meat in front of you (consider you have to eat it raw). At anytime of the day, what will you wanna eat more?)
With the arrival of the Ice Age, nothing could grow anymore, therefore they had to hunt in order to survive. Since then, humans started to eat meat. This is one theory about our History.
But, how could we be sure about something that happened millions of years ago? Scientists will always debate about it. And does it truly matter now? Today we’re an evolved specie of the human race, we should be interested about what we are today, with of course the help of the past.
Now it’s very logical to eat according to our environment, and not according to what Society dictates us to eat. I understand Eskimos have to eat meat as there’s almost nothing else to consume in their environment, they can’t be vegetarians (and they shouldn’t).
Even when we were eating meat, it wasn’t more than a couple of times per week. Since the 1950s, when our society started to create the concept of consumerism, consumption of meat suddenly increased. Now people are eating meat everyday, up to twice a day.
I think we can’t deny the fact that diseases and health problems have increased all along with these new habits, add on top the disastrous ways animals are treated to produce meat, and the destruction of the environment we’re responsible for, just to get a piece of meat on our plate…
There are various documentaries about the effects of meat on our health, on our system and on our planet, like Meat the Truth by the Nicolaas G. Pierson Foundation or Food, Inc. by filmmaker Robert Kenner. Today we have no excuse, all the information we need is so easy to get.
Today, it became a big deal. Things could be so simple though…
Reducing consumption of meat is the best way to ensure a better future for the environment, and a better health for yourself. You could also become vegetarian or vegan, it’s really up to you and what you feel you need. Now most of the doctors say meat consumption shouldn’t exceed twice a week.
If you wanna buy meat, please try to do so from honest farmers who take care of their animals, leaving them wandering freely in a meadow or elsewhere. Try to be informed as much as you can, but most importantly never buy from big brands or big corporations.
This is what’s happening inside of their walls. Watch this small documentary and get a first insight of the reality of factory-farming today: Meet your Meat.
That’s all for today, I’ll “meat” you later on in future posts.
a new way to live out green 