Project 2 Draft 3
Tommy Jimenez
Mat Wenzel
Project 2 Final Draft
24 July 2017
Save Yourself. Save the World. Go Vegetarian
Ever since I was a young child meat was a part of every meal. There wasn’t any ethical or moral question as to the treatment of animals or whether I was leaving a huge ecological footprint or because I was eating meat I was condemning the planet to global warming; it was just lunch or dinner “Garne y Arroz,” meat and rice.
I have long been a meat eater eighteen years to be exact and as a child being raised in a culture where meat was food, something to be consumed, I believed it to be true. Every meal had it: Spaghetti and meatballs, chicken and rice, pork chops, chicken cutlets, steamed beef, burgers, eggs and ham, salami sandwiches, and every Thursday salad but not just salad… Chicken Cesar Salad. I went years in complete blissful ignorance that the delicious meals I was partaking in meant the horrible and inhumane slaughter of billions of animals on some assembly line.
I had to think long and hard about a community that I wanted to join but after going through a couple of topics there wasn’t any question, I would talk about the vegetarian community and making the transition. I have flirted with the idea of becoming a vegetarian for so many years now after being in the eighth grade and watching Food Inc. The film was an exploration of the meat industry and all the horrifying truths people tend to ignore. Watching this film as a young child really struck me but aside from all the important information one scene that really left its mark was where millions of cows were being loaded into chutes having employees shock them to keep moving forward and then being loaded into some mechanism where someone preceded to shoot the cow in the head and the machine would drop the cow on the floor lifeless. They were strung up on a hook, lifted in the air, and cut piece by piece showering the floor with blood.
Watching cows be eviscerated at a young age is probably why I have never been a big meat eater mainly eating chicken and never red meat. It has been four years since I had any red meat and there’s been no second thoughts but the next step is becoming a vegetarian. The vegetarian community is a big one, too big in fact. After researching this particular community, I have been consulting classmates and old friends to be a part of a small group where we can help one another with useful information, tips for becoming a new vegetarian, recipes, and why they for so long have been leading this lifestyle and if this is what I want. The main reason for me wanting to make the transition has always been because of the cruelty of animals and the pains they endure.
While interviewing Kaycee it was interesting to hear that her and I shared the same reason for wanting to pursue this lifestyle. One important piece of media that influenced Kaycee was a PETA public service announcement aptly named If Slaughterhouses had Glass Walls. In the beginning becoming a vegetarian at the age of twelve a primary reason for the transition was the inhumane treatment of animals with the organization of PETA having an influence. It was through actions taken by PETA and other affiliated organizations that she became aware of where and how the meat that was on her plate came from and what the terrible conditions and actions that were taken to kill and process that animal. When starting out many people are drawn into choosing a vegetarian diet over animal rights and ethical violations. As time goes on most people continue for religious convictions and health considerations. (Jordan) Due to PSA’s like If Slaughterhouses had Glass Walls people are informed to the inner working of the meat industry giving people a choice to do something. In If Slaughterhouses had Glass Walls they have a spokesperson, Paul McCarthy, famous for being in The Beetles and having a solo career talking to us about the appalling and horrific conditions animals are put through saying “If slaughterhouses had glass walls, everyone would be a vegetarian.” Having been a vegetarian for the better part of forty years Paul McCartney adds a real sense of ethos to the PSA’s importance by showing people there’s a better way through becoming a vegetarian. The video follows typical conventions of informative PSA’s by having a spokesperson of a certain caliber and showing incredibly graphic materials of animals being murdered and packaged for mass consumption. Throughout the video they focus in on animals being shoved away and the pain the animals are feeling being herded in small slaughterhouses having no room to roam and being kept in unsanitary conditions eating and excreting all in the same place. These atrocities are then accompanied by a sad melancholic music to evoke a response in the viewers. There is a logical assumption the video wants its viewers to realize and that is if you want to stop these routine killings of cows, chickens, turkeys, and pigs stop eating them and leave them off of your plate. The video suffers from a bit of Kairos with Paul McCartney not being as popular as he was and with everyone knowing the interworking’s of slaughterhouses the standards of animal health care have since improved. (Singer) This raises certain complications now because while the message is timeless more people may not feel that they need to be vegetarians because of improvements in the meat industry. This has led to an evolution of the genre with organizations like PETA having to become more ruthless in showing the brutalities leaving sad music and spokesperson and showing the carnage to remind people that this is still a problem and there needs to be a change. This is what makes videos like If Slaughterhouses had Glass Walls be so moving and influencing so many like Kaycee to cut out meat from her diet.
Kaycee, like many of us, was accustomed to eating meat regularly. It wasn’t until she became a vegetarian that she picked up all of her new dietary habits. As she said, “I was a meat and potatoes kinda girl.” Every meal was centered around some sort a meat. (Hair) When becoming a vegetarian Kaycee spent no time making a transition and instead implored taking a yoyo diet where she went cold turkey and cut meat out of every meal. This was hard on Kaycee physically causing her to lose ten pounds almost immediately and having been already underweight her family did not approve of the diet. With time Kaycee learned to implement different types of protein to evenly balance out her diet with eating peanut butter, darker leafy greens, and beans. Doing some research in the Vegetarian Times, I found an article discussing why a plant based diet is good for you. One of the reasons said that it keeps weight down and while that may be a great reason to make the transition this explains why Kaycee had a hard time with losing weight seeing as she was already underweight it took time to balance the diet and acclimate it to her. This gives me insight into how, if I ever make the transition, I’ll approach cutting meat out of my diet because it’s a process and requires research and knowledge of your own body.
A vegetarian diet is a rigorous one requiring you to be creative with your meals and effectively balance your nutrition but the benefits are so plentiful. Blood pressure, diabetes, cancer, and heart disease are the biggest killers and one sure fire way to reduce all those risks is by simply eating plants. (8 Reasons Why a Plant-Based Diet is Good for You) . As time went on and she grew older Kaycee developed stomach ulcers which when untreated eat the lining of the stomach. So, after receiving this diagnosis her doctor prescribed a more plant based diet reinforcing her vegetarian ideals. Wanting to become a vegetarian be for the animals I have started to see that so many vegetarians talk about the health benefits and that be the reason why they continue the lifestyle. Having a family background of diabetes with my seven-year-old cousin developing type two diabetes while as an infant I want to stay healthy and move my family in a better direction and be twice more likely not to develop diabetes than twice more likely. (3 Things That Happen When You Stop Eating Meat)
One thing I found particularly interesting was that when asked if everyone should do this [Become a vegetarian], Kaycee denied vehemently claiming “…it’s not for everyone and there isn’t enough land to grow the plants everyone would need.” I did some research and found that in the world the large majority of the worlds arable land is used for pasture equating to the size of Africa, approximately thirty-three kilometers wide and that another large percentage that grows crops is exclusively for animal feed. (AGA) If everyone were to go vegetarian that would free up a lot of land and replace the land used for animals and well probably be enough to support everyone being a vegetarian. It does more than offer more arable land it offers food security to people around the world. Turning to vegetarianism ensures sustainability of earth’s resources with conservation of water. The impact animal industries have on the worlds fresh water and land is enormous often being a contributing reason to malnutrition in developing nations; vegetarianism has the ability to replace meat nutritionally while serving a positive impact environmentally. (Clarke)
According to the Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations the major cause of CO2 levels rising is because of deforestation of carbon dioxide absorbing trees being cut down for livestock. Cows and other animals have an effect on the world environment by producing large amounts of methane a greenhouse gas capable of warming the earth and responsible for fifth-teen percent of the world greenhouse emissions when combined with CO2 lost from deforested trees. (Global Greenhouse Gas Emissions Data) Once juxtaposed to the EPA’s percentage of greenhouse gas emissions of transportation with fourteen percent you see that the food industry is responsible for more climate changing pollutants than all planes, trains, and automobiles. Ever since the agricultural revolution the advancement of technology has allowed for improved machinery leading to farmers growing more and more yields and in turn food production and worldwide food consumption has increased. This has affected modern agricultural practices with increased pesticide use and degrading the environment. (Baroni, Cenci and Tettamanti) In their article, “Evaluating the Environmental Impact of Various Dietary Patterns Combined with Different Food Production Systems” authors Baroni, Cenci, Tettamanti, and Berati held an experiment to view the different ecological impact of certain diets including one of an omnivore, vegetarian, and vegan. They made sure that all three of the eating habits were nutritionally equal and found that overwhelmingly transitioning to vegetarian and vegan diets are more environmentally sustainable using less land and less fresh water when compared to the water usage for animal feed. It’s safe to say that the world can sustainably grow enough crops to support everyone being vegetarian proving Kaycee to be wrong and even would even help with climate change probably being a future endeavor.
Speaking to Kaycee, a member of eight long years I have gained some really important knowledge on this lifestyle. I’ve heard the pros and cons with some of the pros being relative expense and in this case saving money and not having to buy a ten-dollar steak. I’ve also heard that a really hard part of being a vegetarian is variety of foods and places to go out and eat. (Hair) For me the greatest piece of advice and information I found was to go at my own pace and more importantly know why I was doing this; it can be because I want to stop animal abuse, or to help save the world environmentally by having the smallest ecological footprint, or as personal as being healthier. Overall there are so many reasons and everyone has their own and with the support of my friends and a whole lot of Pinterest recipes I can make this change.
Works Cited
"3 Things That Happen When You Stop Eating Meat." Prevention 67.10 (2015): 24.
"8 Reasons Why a Plant-Based Diet is Good for You." Vegetarian Times 42.8 (2016): 26.
AGA. Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. 21 Ocober 2014. 18 July 2017. <http://www.fao.org/ag/againfo/resources/en/publications/tackling_climate_change/index.htm>.
Baroni, L, et al. "Evaluating the environmental impact of various dietary patterns combined with different food production systems ." European journal of clinical nutrition 61.2 (2007): 279-286.
Clarke, Alexis. "Vegetarianism and sustainability." Journal of the Australian Traditional-Medicine Society 21.2 (2015): 106-111.
Greenhouse Gas Emissions. 13 April 2017. Environmental Protection Agency. 18 July 2017. <https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/global-greenhouse-gas-emissions-data>.
Hair, Kaycee. Interview Tommy Jimenez. Tallahassee, 12 July 2017.
Jordan, Jeff. "Why Friends Shouldn't Let Friends Be Eaten: An Argument for Vegetarianism." Social Theory & Practice 27.2 (2001): 309-322.
Singer, Peter. "Look your dinner in the eye." New Scientist 191.2572 (2006): 22.