I love the taste of a good steak and a Chicken Caesar Salad. Cheese was the hardest thing to give up by far.
I can't eat meat or dairy, however, not the way that they're mass produced in factories today.
Factory farms have all but replaced family farms in America today. Family farms allow animals to graze in a pasture, eat whole grain, not exposed to harmful antibiotics and are slaughtered humanely.
Animals on factory farms are treated like machines. Chickens and turkeys have their beaks seared off with a hot blade, and male cows and pigs are castrated and have their horns sliced off — without painkillers. All farmed chickens, turkeys, cows and pigs spend their short, miserable lives in dark and crowded warehouses, many of them so cramped that they can't even turn around. They are mired in their own waste, and live in their own filth.
- Animals raised for food like this are bred and drugged to grow as large as possible as quickly as possible — many are so heavy that they become crippled under their own weight and die within inches of their water supply.
- Cows that are injured or become sick during transport to the stockyards or slaughterhouse often become unable to stand. They are referred to as "downed." They are often pushed around with bulldozers into piles and are left to die a painful and horrific death.
- Animals on factory farms do not see the sun or get a breath of fresh air until they are prodded and crammed onto trucks for a nightmarish ride to the slaughterhouse, often through extreme weather and always without food or water. Many die during transport, and others are too sick or weak to walk off the truck after they reach the slaughterhouse. The animals who survive this hellish ordeal are hung upside-down and their throats are slit, often while they're completely conscious. Many are still alive while they are skinned, hacked into pieces, or scalded in the defeathering tanks.
Learn more about the factory-farming industry
There are other thing to consider as well, such as:
Factory farms produce huge amounts of waste — often generating the waste equivalent of a small city. While a problem of this nature — and scale — sounds almost comical, pollution from livestock farms seriously threatens humans, fish and ecosystems.
By switching to a vegetarian diet, you can save more than 100 animals a year from this misery.
By switching to a vegetarian diet, I can live with myself. There's enough pain and misery in this world that I am powerless to do anything about. This is one thing I can do. I can live without my steak and chicken in my Caesar salad, and that's why I went veg.
There are tons of great veg cookbooks and products on the market today, many sold at regular supermarkets.
Here are some resources:
