Today the World is divided into two groups: those who eat meat and those who do not eat animal meat. There are many reasons why people become vegetarians but the main ones why people quit using animal meat as a food are some ethical, budget, environmental and health reasons. However, from the ancient times since people had no idea about vegetables, they had to hunt to animals and eat animal meat in order to survive. Therefore, people are genetically used to eat meat in a daily life. Nowadays, human beings are asked if it is moral to eat animal meat. The answer is that eating meat always considered moral. Then why using animal meat is moral? There are many reasons why people eat animal meat but the important ones are that we get many nutrients and vitamins from animal meat, the second one that if people would stop eating meat there would be a global chaos in the World, and the finally people should not compare themselves to animals.
From the ancient times meat is our necessary product of daily life, our ancestors ate meat in order to survive, get energy and full fill the hunger. Therefore, the advent of civilization allowed the domestication of animals such as chickens, sheep, rabbits, pigs and cattle. This eventually led to their use in meat production on an industrial scale with the aid of slaughterhouses. According to E. Boyle (1994) meat is a source of rich nutrients, especially protein, B vitamins, iron and zinc. “Meat is a major dietary source of thiamin, riboflavin, niacin, vitamin B6 and vitamin B12. A 3 ounce cooked portion of pork provides more thiamin than most other foods commonly consumed” says Doctor Elizabeth Boyle (The Nutritive Value of Meat, 1994).
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P. Singer (2011) says “People living in industrialized societies can easily obtain an adequate diet without the use of animal flesh. Meat is not necessary for good health or longevity” (p.54). Also the author mentions about situations when some people or countries have no access to vegetables and need to eat meat in order to survive countries in western side of Earth. However, if to consider that countries, where vegetables are all year around does that mean that those countries should not use animal meat? Most likely no, Why? In case of that countries where the winters are not that much cold, where vegetables and fruits are growing in their own countries, will it be enough to eat them and get energy from it? Singer says that industrialized cities can live without meat and live quite healthy eating vegetables, fruits and other non-animal products. But does he consider the vegetables and fruits that countries have? Most of them have poor agricultural products, the variety of non-animal product is poor , and many of nutritional fruits and vegetables come from other countries for import. In fact, that imported products are very expensive, and unfortunately, middle class society can not afford buy them daily. For the developing countries it would lead to decreasing their economy, there would be health issues because of lack of nutrients. That is why eating meat in those countries would be much cheaper than buying imported nutritional vegetables and fruits.
Author emphasized that “Castration, the separation of mother and young, the breaking up of herds, branding, transporting, slaughterhouse handling and finally the moment of slaughter itself – all of these are likely to involve suffering and do not take the animals’ interests into account” (P. Singer, 2011, p.55). All of these activities against animals are immoral indeed, however not all animals are grew up like this, animals do not have to be tortured, we should take into consideration that many countries have humanely raised livestock, animals are raised happily in mountains or the meadows eating green and tasty grass. Where people place themselves – above or equal to animals? For me, eating meat is morally right as long as I believe that human beings should not place themselves into a level of species of animals which were grew up and domesticated for people from a long time ago. People are above of animals, people have high intellect, consciousness ability to analyze and think, whereas animals are living by their instincts. Many people argue that new born human baby is also lives by instincts till some period, but the main thing is that new born baby is a potential person, whereas animal is not, and will stay in that level and condition till death. That is why people are not equal to animals and should not consider themselves as they are killers, because it is a system of nature – the one who is weaker dies.
Global Livestock Counts emphasized “The world's average stock of chickens is almost 19 billion, Cattle are the next most populous breed of farm animal at 1.4 billion, with sheep and pigs not far behind at around 1 billion” (Where the world's livestock lives, 2011). what would happened to the world if people would stop eating animal meat? Definitely there would be a chaos; disruption of ecosystem, there would be more ecological problems than now when people still eat meat, ruining of centuries old traditions of many nations and cultures. Probably all domesticated animals would die for no reason; processed or not procced meat would become waste, for those who died would need a place to be buried, or people would anyway burn them. People would burn over 21 billions of animals? In this case there would be real air pollution, lot of energy would be wasted to get rid of that domesticated animals, it would not be moral anyway. We would harm ecosystem. Even if people would not kill the, imagine that these animals would be free and out of farms and would walk on streets, do a crap everywhere, anti-sanitaria would be everywhere, mousses and insects would appear in the cities. Maybe there would be black markets where animal meat would still sell as something illegal, because people can not quit eating animal meat that fast. Also the countries would need to increase their food production based on plants, lot’s of land would be needed for agricultural reason which would lead to deforestation and decreasing of natural habitats. Plants would need to be growing all the year round, for this purpose people would need put chemicals to plants in order to grow faster and more, countries would be fighting with each other for more lands and recourses such as water, place where is sunny and rich nutritional soil. Many cultures, countries, nations would loose their centuries old traditions, such as Aid Kurban, meaning sacrifice to God, when cow or sheep is given to God as a sacrifice. “Henceforth, nature too has had millions of years to build a cycle of energy transfer- the food chain and any disruption would not treated kindly. The results would wreak disaster on the humans, institutions built by humans (economy, government etc.) and earth itself. It would be one way of triggering what could become the mother of all dominoes effects” says M. Strivastava (2017).
Eating meat can be from both sides healthy and unhealthy but the only thing that people always forget about is a balance. We should learn keep balance in the World in order to not harm nature. Without livestock, life for people living in certain natural conditions will be impossible, but eating everyday meat will lead us to health issues. Eating meat is moral and natural as much as death. All of life creatures die one day, but the death is different. People should not feel guilty themselves for eating meat, cause our domesticated animals, livestock, were meant for us from a long time ago, thousand years ago. that is why people should not compare themselves with those animals. In pursuit of profit we forget about other problems such as harming ecology, and only thing we need is a balance. Balance in everything.
Bibliography
- P. Singer (2011) “Practical Ethics” Retrieved from https://ecourse.auca.kg/pluginfile.php/149961/mod_resource/content/1/0.%20Peter%20Singer%2C%20Practical%20Ethics%2C%203rd%20edition.pdf
- E. Boyle (1994, August) “The Nutritive Value of Meat” Retrieved from https://www.asi.k-state.edu/doc/meat-science/the-nutritive-value-of-meat.pdf
- Global Livestock Counts (2011, July 22) “Where the world's livestock lives” Retrieved from https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2011/07/27/counting-chickens
- M. Srivastava (2017, January 10) “What would happen if everyone, including animals, stopped eating meat?” Retrieved from https://www.quora.com/What-would-happen-if-everyone-including-animals-stopped-eating-meat
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