Becoming Vegetarian

On Friday I decided to become a vegetarian. This isn't a really hard decision for me, because while I enjoy meat, I'm not that picky about what I eat - so I won't miss it. I still plan to eat eggs and dairy, at least for now!

So why make the change? Well there are a number of good reasons. I picked up a book on becoming vegatarian, and I was sold by page four! And I'm not even particularly bothered about the mass killing of animals. Maybe if I toured an abattoir, I would have stronger feeling on this one... anyway, here are the biggest factors for me in making this decision.

1. We've got to save the planet. Raising crops like corn and wheat and feeding them to cows, pigs and chickens to eat is an extremely inefficient way to get calories. Like ten times less efficient. Consequently this meat eating habit of ours is costing us dearly in terms of fresh water, arable land, fossil fuels, etc. The most alarming for me was the farmland we're losing to desertification every year, because of overgrazing. If we keep losing farmland at the present rate, we'll run out in 44 years. Of course that can't happen, but the phenomenon will put enormous pressure on human existence for the rest of my life.

2. Health. It seems that heart disease, cancer, and a whole slew of other less serious illnesses are due in part to eating too much meat. Vegetarians live, on average, 7 to 9 years longer than the general population. I'd like to be healthy! And again, I don't much care if I eat meat or not, so there's not much of a downside. There was even a study that correlated IQ with vegetarianism. It doesn't make you smarter, but if you have a high IQ when you're young, you are much more likley to be a vegetarian by the time you're 30. :)

3. The meat industry is corrupt. Read "Fast Food Nation" if you want to understand this more. But in a nutshell, the meat packers in North America are profit-driven corporations, and this leads them to speed up production lines. Faster production lines mean more injuries for basically powerless and exploited workers, and it means an increase in the amount of feces in the meat. No wonder we can't have rare hamburgers over here, while the Europeans can eat it raw. Their beef doesn't have quite so much feces!

That's enough of a reason for me. Add to that any shred of compassion you might have for animals, and it might even be a no-brainer decision for you.