WHY I'M VEGAN
by Chay Neal - http://www.thechay.com
25/06/2002

Where it all began...

It probably started with Beau, an 8th Birthday present from my parents --a beautiful Labrador puppy from the RSPCA -- sadly, she passed away 10 years later in '98 with cancer, but I will never forget her. Forming such a close relationship with such a remarkable animal was an amazing experience. I realised that animals aren't different. Humans are animals, in some ways better and in some ways worse than others...

Around age 9 I moved up to Coffs Harbour with my Dad & his new partner Kerri, a vegetarian. My sister soon turned vegetarian too. There was no pressure from family for me either way, but it didn't take me long to think about where meat comes from and realise that going vegetarian was definitely what I wanted to do. I decided that year's Christmas dinner would be my final non-vego meal. But the thought of meat quickly became unstomachable. Consequently, I stopped eating it quite some weeks or months before the decided date. I was happily vegetarian for the next 9-10 years or so...

But from around the age 18 onwards I started to become more curious and much more serious toward certain issues... I did a lot of my own research, mainly on the internet, into whatever issues interested (or disturbed) me. After finding out way too much information, not just about the meat-industry, but also about the dairy & egg industries, and many other areas of animal exploitation, I was convinced that going vegan was something I must do. When I looked at meat, milk, eggs, I no longer saw "food", rather I saw the pain of the billions upon billions of helpless animals suffering unimaginable horrifying conditions. Moving out of home, into a new city, gave me more freedom - it was time to make a new life - exactly the way I wanted it... I became vegan on my first day living away from home and it's one of the best things I've ever done.

Why am I vegan?

1. I am against the killing & exploitation of animals. (Animal Rights)

If I were to kill someone, even instantly and painlessly without them knowing, surely this would still be wrong? What about if I were to kill someone's so-called "pet"? What if I were to kill a possum? Surely there is a definite wrong in all of these acts. I see a serious ethical problem with killing or inflicting pain on any animal (human or non-human). I can hardly see the desire for a particular taste sensation as justification for murder.

Animals are not ours. What right do we have to kill & exploit them?

• "Because we can talk and solve complex problems."
  Animals have their own ways of communicating. Some primates can in fact learn hundreds of words in sign language to express themselves accurately. Many animals also have quite amazing problem solving abilities.
  Babies can't talk or solve complex problems, neither can some humans with unfortunate disabilities. Certainly this doesn't give us the right to exploit or eat them!
• "Because we're human. They're 'just' animals..."
  That is just like saying whites have the right to use blacks, or men have the right to use women. There is a strong correlation between Animal Rights and other social justice movements such as these.

Most animals show signs of very high intelligence, as well as emotions. They are not just 'things' or 'machines' that we should be free to exploit as we wish.

2. I am against the terribly cruel conditions animals suffer in. (Animal Welfare)

Many people believe it is fine to use animals if they are killed "humanely". I disagree with the whole concept of "humane slaughter", as outlined above. But even if one were to agree with such a concept, in a world where the demand for meat is so enormous that over 48 billion animals are killed every year, just so that humans can enjoy the taste of their cooked flesh, and in a world that is driven by capital and maximum profits, it will never be possible for animals to be exploited for meat & other products and not suffer unimaginable cruelties. The way in which the animals are generally slaughtered is far from humane. There have even been many documented cases, many even caught on video, of cows regaining consciousness while being strung up to bleed to death with their throats cut, or pigs regaining consciousness as they are lowed into boiling water. This kind of thing is all too common in the meat industry.

Most eggs do not come from nice open green fields where healthy chickens eat nice food and live long lives, where all they have to do is lay a few eggs... That's not even close... Even for "free range" eggs! Over 90% of eggs come from factory farms where several chickens are crowded into tiny wire cages less than the size of a piece of A4 paper. It is common practice for their beaks to be sliced off by a hot wire (without pain relief) to stop them from pecking each other to death in their tiny confinements. Diseases are common in the unclean conditions... For this reason they are pumped full of antibiotics, as well as hormones and other things to make them lay more eggs, or for broilers, to make them grow faster, & not die before they can be profited off. There are many other cruel tactics that are often used - such as 'forced malting' - which involves starving the birds for a period of time to 'trick' them into laying more eggs. Male chicks are usually crushed to death within a day of birth because they can't produce eggs, and don't they produce the best meat. 'Broiler chickens' live only very short lives (5-9 weeks -- they would naturally live around 7 years) - before they are killed for their meat.

The same sort of things go for the dairy industry... Dairy cows are impregnated regularly to keep them producing milk. Their calves are taken away from them often within just days of birth. The female cows themselves, many or most of which are confined tiny confinements in factory farms for much of their lives, live only a relatively short time before they are 'spent'. Their retirement reward is for them to be slaughtered and sold as cheap meat. Most male calves, once stolen from their mothers after birth, are then sentenced to solitary confinement in the dark, with no room to even turn around, for the entirety of their short miserable lives (3-16 weeks) before they are slaughtered and sold as veal.

And I haven't even touched on the cruelties of live transport... All of these kinds of atrocities are the reasons why I do not buy & consume animal products - I could never again take part in & support such cruel practices.

It is these kind of things that really made me realise that, yes being vegetarian is a great start, but I really only now see it as a kind of half-way point in reducing the cruelty and death we each contribute to... By buying milk or eggs one is still contributing to much cruelty and death.

3. I care about the environment.

Over a hundred tonnes of crap (literally!!) is produced by cattle every second, in the United States alone!! Add in animal waste from all the other animals and this equates to over 150 MILLION TONNES per year of animal waste in total! In Australia, pigs alone produce over 10,000 tonnes a day. All this stuff is not processed at sewerage plants like human waste - it all runs off into the environment, often with drastic consequences.

Anyone who is genuinely concerned about the environment really should carefully consider the damage and waste an animal based diet causes... For example, rainforest destruction on a massive scale - clearing land for cattle grazing is the leading cause of this loss - also, the loss of biodiversity and species extinction that goes along with this, as well as topsoil erosion, water quality depletion, acid rain, and so on. Meat production is also the second leading cause of global warming, at around 29%. We are already starting to see the problems caused by global warming, and this will only continue to get worse as time goes by.

In a world where so many people are starving to death it really does seem criminal to be feeding grains, needed for people, to animals to fatten them up for us to eat. Producing one pound of beef requires nearly 5 pounds of rice (not to mention the land, environmental damage, wastage, animal suffering, and so on!). Beef production also requires 40-100 times more water than does grains. One study suggests that to produce the food requirements of a vegan for 1 year, it'd require 1/6 of an acre. For a vegetarian this amount would increase 3 fold. And for meat-eaters this amount increases 20 fold. Although the problem is more in food distribution & economics/politics & lack of human compassion, rather than physical lack of food, I don't see why the 'people of the north', or the 'western world' have the right to use more of the world's resources than everyone else in the world. If everyone was to live at the average standard most of us do, we would probably need over 4 Earth's. The whole concept of environmentalism in my view is to tread as lightly as possible and you can't do that on an animal-based diet.

4. A vegan diet is very healthy.

Animal products are high in fat & cholesterol. The high cholesterol greatly increases risk of heart disease and the excessive amount of protein greatly increases risk of various cancers. It's also virtually impossible for the average vegan to ever have a heart attack due to low cholesterol levels.

It is much healthier to eat a varied meat-free diet. It is widely accepted (medically) and scientifically proven that you can easily get all the nutrients you need from a vegan diet. Too many people rely heavily on meat and dairy so much, that when taken away they really don't see what else there is left to eat. It is also worth noting that an average meat-eating Australian's diet, if you simply took out the meat, it would not leave a very sustainable or healthy vegetarian diet. So if anyone reading this is considering becoming vegetarian or vegan it is worthwhile to look into the health & diet issues to ensure you get all the key nutrients you need. There are thousands of great web sites & books that can help with this, so it really is not difficult at all.

The propaganda that we all grew up with, and our children continue to be taught in schools is really quite disturbing. Kids are taught from a very young age that meat & dairy is an important part of a healthy diet. But in fact you don't need to drink milk to have healthy bones at all. Milk does contain calcium, but so do a hell of a lot of other things. And milk also contains many things that actually damage your health (including fat & cholesterol as mentioned above). It is a proven fact that people in countries that drink little or no milk have much lower incidence of osteoporosis and bone breakages.

Another thing that pisses me off is vivisection - experimenting on animals. Especially when we create problems ourselves (such as a lot of cancers). Eg. we smoke cigarettes, cause pollution, eat meat and animal products and basically just live generally unhealthy lifestyles -- and then to attempt to find out how to fix the diseases we, as human beings, have caused, we poison millions mice, birds, rabbits, monkeys, dogs, cats, and other animals with dangerous chemicals and other things in a vein attempt to try and solve our problem!? In the area of drug development, the drugs and techniques developed from animal testing are very often not applicable to humans, as all animals function differently, and often these new drugs can have quite harmful effects on humans. The pharmaceutical giants are not interested too much in our health and well-being - it's the enormous profits that they are worried about. It's even worse when people are torturing and killing those animals just so that we can have one more deodorant or perfume. Killing an animal for it's fur or skin/leather is also totally unacceptable... But I will have to leave all these areas to another essay...

There are many other reasons for veganism, but what I've mentioned above are some of the most important issues to me personally.

Those that choose to purchase meat are in effect paying somebody to kill the animal, supporting the unethical "farming techniques" used, and are helping to ensure that atrocities like those mentioned above continue to take place. Everyone must take responsibility for their own actions and act compassionately to reduce the suffering they cause to others. How far each individual chooses to go is really up to them, but every bit helps...

I personally don't hold meat-eating against people... It's the lies of the government, media, and companies that profit from exploiting animals that my anger is focussed on. And I'm not insisting that everyone reading this become vegan. But please don't close your mind and ignore the reality of what goes on...

If you do eat meat, think about what you are contributing to and seriously consider going vegetarian, or at least cutting down how much meat you eat. If you're already vegetarian, especially if for Animal Rights reasons, why not continue this philosophy and put an end to much more suffering by going vegan?

. Chay's Homepage! . Watching the J's . Animal Rights . Web Design .
Copyright © Chay Neal 1997-2001. All rights reserved.