Except for seafood, I have been avoiding meat for many years. The more I think about what I am eating, the less I feel inclined to eat meat. I’m not avoiding meat altogether, but I find I eat mostly plants. Today I heard someone talk about eating meat in a way that makes meat even more unattractive. Actually, I am motivated to avoid it even more.
Meat is a cause of suffering that touches the world today and into the future. The amount of agricultural land dedicated to raising meat for eating is huge. Meat demands that about 80% of agricultural land be used for feeding and raising animals for humans to eat. This is a double edged effect. Meat demands hoarding a huge amount of earth’s resources for meat production today. It also means that many people suffer because that agricultural land is not useful to them for plant-based food. Because some people are meat eaters, other people starve.
The future is affected because land used for meat production is much less likely to be nurtured and regenerated for future plant production. Care of the land is mostly based on plant growth, and that is much less likely to happen if the land is dedicated to growing meat.
The suffering of animals is essential to the eating of meat. Animals suffer because of how many of them are raised and because they are killed so that people can eat meat. It is a price paid by animals the more they are asked to suffer so that they can be a source of meat.
I am not yet prepared to say that I will eat no meat. I will likely continue to a very small amount of meat. But I am becoming more aware that eating any meat is asking animals to suffer and is a hoarding of current and future earth resources. I will be eating less and less meat.