There have been very
few human societies in which no meat or fish are eaten, although in some parts
of the world the normal diet is made up largely of staple foods such as rice,
with meat and fish being relatively rare additions; this has often been due to
poverty rather than choice. In modern Western societies, however, 'voluntary'
vegetarianism is on the increase. Currently in 2009 in the UK alone, there are
approximately 3 % of the population (1.8 million individuals) are vegetarians,
5 % of the population is partly vegetarian, not eating some types of meat or
fish. There are different types of vegetarianism. People who make a choice never to eat meat
are vegetarians, although some vegetarians eat fish if it has been caught in
the wild, many will not eat flesh of any sort. Some people are vegans, choosing
not to eat any animal product, include eggs and dairy (milk) foods such as cheese,
butter and yoghurt. Vegans and many vegetarians also refuse to wear leather or
fur because it comes from animals.
This debate is about whether it is right for human beings to eat other
animals (including fish). To take an even more absolute line, the proposition
could argue for veganism - this means eating no dairy produce or eggs (as well
as no meat or fish).
Pros
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Cons
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It is immoral to kill animals. As evolved human
beings it is our moral duty to inflict as little pain as possible for our
survival. So if we do not need to inflict pain to animals in order to
survive, we should not do it. Farm animals such as chickens, pigs, sheep, and
cows are sentient living beings like us - they are our evolutionary cousins
and like us they can feel pleasure and pain. The 18th century utilitarian
philosopher Jeremy Bentham even believed that animal suffering was just as
serious as human suffering and likened the idea of human superiority to
racism. It is wrong to farm and kill
these animals for food when we do not need to do so. The methods of farming
and slaughter of these animals are often barbaric and cruel - even on
supposedly 'free range' farms
Further on Tom Regan explains that all duties regarding
animals are indirect duties to one another from a philosophical point of
view. He illustrates it with an analogy regarding children: “Children, for
example, are unable to sign contracts and lack rights. But they are protected
by the moral contract nonetheless because of the sentimental interests of
others. So we have, then, duties involving these children, duties regarding
them, but no duties to them. Our duties in their case are indirect duties to
other human beings, usually their parents.” With this he supports the theory
that animals must be protected from suffering, as it is moral to protect any
living being from suffering, not because we have a moral contract with them,
but mainly due to respect of life and recognition of suffering itself.
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There is a great moral difference between humans and
animals. Unlike animals, humans are capable of rational thought and can alter
the world around them. Other creatures were put on this earth for mankind to
use, and that includes eating meat. For all these reasons we say that men and
women have rights and that animals don’t. This means that eating meat is in
no way like murder. It is natural for human beings to farm, kill, and eat
other species. In the wild there is a brutal struggle for existence. The fact
that we humans have succeeded in that struggle by exploiting our natural
environment means that we have a natural right over lower species. In fact
farming animals is much less brutal than the pain and hardship that animals
inflict on each other naturally in the wild.
Eating meat does not need to mean cruelty to animals. There
are a growing number of organic and free-range farms that can provide meat
without cruelty to animals. Similarly, it might be reasonable to argue for an
extension of animal welfare laws to protect farm animals - but that does not
mean that it is wrong in principle to eat meat.
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Being vegetarian helps the environment. Becoming a
vegetarian is an environmentally friendly thing to do. Modern farming is one
of the main sources of pollution in our rivers. Beef farming is one of the
main causes of deforestation, and as long as people continue to buy fast food
in their billions, there will be a financial incentive to continue cutting
down trees to make room for cattle. Because of our desire to eat fish, our
rivers and seas are being emptied of fish and many species are facing
extinction. Energy resources are used up much more greedily by meat farming
than my farming cereals, pulses etc. Eating meat and fish not only causes
cruelty to animals, it causes serious harm to the environment and to
biodiversity. For example consider Meat production related pollution and
deforestation
At Toronto’s 1992 Royal Agricultural Winter Fair,
Agriculture Canada displayed two contrasting statistics: “it takes four
football fields of land (about 1.6 hectares) to feed each Canadian” and “one
apple tree produces enough fruit to make 320 pies.” Think about it — a couple
of apple trees and a few rows of wheat on a mere fraction of a hectare could
produce enough food for one person!
The 2006 U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) report
concluded that worldwide livestock farming generates 18% of the planet's
greenhouse gas emissions — by comparison, all the world's cars, trains,
planes and boats account for a combined 13% of greenhouse gas emissions.
As a result of the above point producing meat damages
the environment. The demand for meat drives deforestation. Daniel Cesar
Avelino of Brazil's Federal Public Prosecution Office says “We know that the
single biggest driver of deforestation in the Amazon is cattle.” This
clearing of tropical rainforests such as the Amazon for agriculture is
estimated to produce 17% of the world's greenhouse gas emissions. Not only
this but the production of meat takes a lot more energy than it ultimately
gives us chicken meat production consumes energy in a 4:1 ratio to protein
output; beef cattle production requires an energy input to protein output
ratio of 54:1.
The same is true with water use due to the same
phenomenon of meat being inefficient to produce in terms of the amount of
grain needed to produce the same weight of meat, production requires a lot of
water. Water is another scarce resource that we will soon not have enough of
in various areas of the globe. Grain-fed beef production takes 100,000 liters
of water for every kilogram of food. Raising broiler chickens takes 3,500
liters of water to make a kilogram of meat. In comparison, soybean production
uses 2,000 liters for kilogram of food produced; rice, 1,912; wheat, 900; and
potatoes, 500 liters. This is while there are areas of the globe that have
severe water shortages. With farming using up to 70 times more water than is
used for domestic purposes: cooking and washing. A third of the population of
the world is already suffering from a shortage of water. Groundwater levels
are falling all over the world and rivers are beginning to dry up. Already
some of the biggest rivers such as China’s Yellow river do not reach the sea.
With a rising population becoming vegetarian is the
only responsible way to eat.
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You don’t have to be
vegetarian to be green. Many special environments have been created by
livestock farming – for example chalk down land in England and mountain
pastures in many countries. Ending livestock farming would see these areas go
back to woodland with a loss of many unique plants and animals. Growing crops
can also be very bad for the planet, with fertilisers and pesticides
polluting rivers, lakes and seas. Most tropical forests are now cut down for
timber, or to allow oil palm trees to be grown in plantations, not to create
space for meat production.
British farmer and
former editor Simon Farrell also states: “Many vegans and vegetarians rely on
one source from the U.N. calculation that livestock generates 18% of global
carbon emissions, but this figure contains basic mistakes. It attributes all
deforestation from ranching to cattle, rather than logging or development. It
also muddles up one-off emissions from deforestation with on-going
pollution.”
He also refutes the statement of meat production
inefficiency: “Scientists have calculated that globally the ratio between the
amounts of useful plant food used to produce meat is about 5 to 1. If you
feed animals only food that humans can eat — which is, indeed, largely the
case in the Western world — that may be true. But animals also eat food we
can't eat, such as grass. So the real conversion figure is 1.4 to.” At the
same time eating a vegetarian diet may be no more environmentally friendly
than a meat based diet if it is not sustainably sourced or uses perishable
fruit and vegetables that are flown in from around the world. Eating locally
sourced food can has as big an impact as being vegetarian.
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Vegetarianism is healthier. There are significant health benefits to 'going
veggie'; a vegetarian diet contains high quantities of fibre, vitamins, and
minerals, and is low in fat. (A vegan diet is even better since eggs and
dairy products are high in cholesterol.) The risk of contracting many forms
of cancer is increased by eating meat: in 1996 the American Cancer Society
recommended that red meat should be excluded from the diet entirely. Eating
meat also increases the risk of heart disease - vegetables contain no
cholesterol, which can build up to cause blocked arteries in meat-eaters. An
American study found out that: “that men in the highest quintile of red-meat
consumption — those who ate about 5 oz. of red meat a day, roughly the
equivalent of a small steak had a 31% higher risk of death over a 10-year
period than men in the lowest-consumption quintile, who ate less than 1 oz.
of red meat per day, or approximately three slices of corned beef.” A
vegetarian diet reduces the risk of serious diseases and, because it is low
in fat, also helps to prevent you becoming overweight. There are plenty of
vegetarian sources of protein, such as beans and bean curd; and spinach is
one of the best sources of iron.
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The key to good health is a balanced diet, not a meat-
and fish-free diet. Meat and fish are good sources of protein, iron, and
other vitamins and minerals. Most of the health benefits of a vegetarian diet
derive from its being high in fibre and low in fat and cholesterol. These can
be achieved by avoiding fatty and fried foods, eating only lean grilled meat
and fish, and including a large amount of fruit and vegetables in your diet
along with meat and fish. In general, raw, unprocessed meat from the muscle
is made up of the following: protein 15 - 22 % Fat 3 - 15 % Minerals,
carbohydrates 1 - 5 % Water 65 - 75 %, all things that we need in moderation.
A meat- and fish-free diet is unbalanced and makes it more likely that you
will go short of protein, iron and some minerals such as B12 for which we are
primarily dependent on animal foodstuffs. Also, a vegetarian diet, in the
West, is a more expensive option - a luxury for the middle classes. Fresh
fruit and vegetables are extremely expensive compared to processed meats,
bacon, burgers, sausages etc.
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Being vegetarian reduces risks of food poisoning. Almost all dangerous
types of food poisoning are passed on through meat or eggs. So Campylobacter bacteria, the most common
cause of food poisoning in England, are usually found in raw meat and
poultry, unpasteurised milk and untreated water. Salmonella come from raw
meat, poultry and dairy products and most cases of escherichia coli (E-Coli)
food poisoning occur after eating undercooked beef or drinking unpasteurised
milk.
Close contact between humans and animals also leads to
zoonosis – diseases such as bird ‘flu which can be passed on from animals to
humans. Using animal brains in the processed feed for livestock led to BSE in
cattle and to CJD in humans who ate beef from infected cows.
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Food safety and
hygiene are very important for everyone, and governments should act to ensure
that high standards are in place particularly in restaurants and other places
where people get their food from. But food poisoning can occur anywhere
“People don't like to admit that the germs might have come from their own
home” and while meat is particularly vulnerable to contamination there are
bacteria that can be transmitted on vegetables, for example Listeria
monocytogenes can be transmitted raw vegetables.
Almost
three-quarters of zoonotic transmissions are caused by pathogens of wildlife
origin; even some that could have been caused by livestock such as avian flu
could equally have come from wild animals. There is little we can do about
the transmission of such diseases except by reducing close contact. Thus
changing to vegetarianism may reduce such diseases by reducing contact but
would not eliminate them.
Just as meat production can raise health issues, so
does the arable farming of plants – examples include GM crops and worries
about pesticide residues on fruit and vegetables. The important thing is not
whether the diet is meat based or vegetarian; just that we should ensure all
food is produced in a safe and healthy way.
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Human evolved as omnivores over thousands of years. Yet
since the invention of farming there is no longer a need for us to be
omnivores. Even if we wished to we could no longer collect, hunt and eat our
food in the same way as our ancestors as we could not support the human
population. We have outstripped the pace of our evolution and if we do not
want to be turning ever more land over to farming we have get our food from
the most efficient sources, which means being vegetarian.
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Humans can choose their own nutrition plan. Humans are omnivores – we are meant to eat both meat
and plants. Like our early ancestors we have sharp canine teeth for tearing
animal flesh and digestive systems adapted to eating meat and fish as well as
vegetables. Our stomachs are also adapted to eating both meat and vegetable
matter. All of this means that eating meat is part of being human. Only in a
few western countries are people self-indulgent enough to deny their nature and
get upset about a normal human diet. We were made to eat both meat and
vegetables - cutting out half of this diet will inevitably mean we lose that
natural balance. Eating meat is entirely natural. Like many other species,
human beings were once hunters. In the wild animals kill and are killed,
often very brutally and with no idea of “rights”. As mankind has progressed
over thousands of years we have largely stopped hunting wild animals. Instead
we have found kinder and less wasteful ways of getting the meat in our diets
through domestication. Farm animals today are descended from the animals we
once hunted in the wild.
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The problems with fatigue, apathetic behaviour and
concentration are mostly a result from a lack of iron in the diet. However as
with any diet this is only a problem when not eating the right things, this
regularly means that such iron deficiency can be a problem in the developing
world where vegetarians have little choice – usually eating little else
except what they grow, normally just cereals.
“Although the iron stores of vegetarians are sometimes reduced, the
incidence of iron-deficiency anaemia in vegetarians is not significantly
different from that in the general population”, there are plenty of sources
of iron that can be eaten by vegetarians such as legumes and whole grains
that are a substantial part of most western vegetarian’s diets meaning it is
not a problem. Research done in Australia concludes that "There was no
significant difference between mean daily iron intakes of vegetarians and
omnivores".
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There are problems with being vegetarian. A vegetarian or vegan diet may result in a person not
getting enough iron. This is because, although you can get iron from foods
such as pulses, green leafy vegetables and nuts, the iron in these foods
isn't absorbed so easily. The symptoms of this feeling breathless after
little exercise, feeling tired and a short attention span and poor
concentration. These symptoms could negatively affect proficiency in school
and the ability to perform well at work ultimately leading to a loss of
productivity which has both personal effects and broader effects for the
economy. Other conditions include frequently becoming ill, frequently
becoming depressed, and malnourishment.
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To suggest that battery farms are in some way 'natural'
is absurd - they are unnatural and cruel. To eat meat is to perpetuate animal
suffering on a huge scale - a larger, crueler, and more systematic scale than
anything found in the wild. Furthermore, the very fact of humanity's 'superiority'
over other animals means they have the reason and moral instinct to stop
exploiting other species. If an alien species from another planet, much more
intelligent and powerful than humans, came and colonized the earth and farmed
(and force-fed) human beings in battery farm conditions we would think it was
morally abhorrent. If this would be wrong, then is it not wrong for we
'superior' humans to farm 'lower' species on earth simply because of our
ability to do so?
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Survival of the fittest. It is natural for human beings to farm, kill, and eat
other species. In the wild there is a brutal struggle for existence as is
shown by Darwin’s On the Origin of the Species. The fact that we humans have
succeeded in that struggle by exploiting our natural environment means that
we have a natural right over lower species. The concept of survival of the
fittest may seem outdated but it is still the defining order of nature. In
fact farming animals is much less brutal than the pain and hardship that
animals inflict on each other naturally in the wild.
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