The animals of the world exist for their own reasons. They were not made for humans any more than black people were made for white, or women created for men.
Alice Walker - writer, poet, activist
The Truth
Most of us are opposed to violence and oppression. We go out of our way to avoid it and protect ourselves and others from it. Many will even bravely speak up to stop it when they see someone hurting another. Yet, when it comes to other animals - especially the ones that we eat - we are encouraged to look away. We know that animals have to be killed for that neatly wrapped piece of meat at the grocery store but most will turn away when they’re shown how it got there. The bloody reality of killing and eating animals is innately repulsive to us. We don’t want to see it. We don’t want to know. If it’s natural then why does it make us feel so uncomfortable? Does slicing an apple repulse us? We’re conditioned from childhood to believe that using and killing animals is a necessity and to accept this belief of normalized violence uncritically. But is that even true? Where does this belief stem from?
The Root
Speciesism is the assumption of human superiority leading to the exploitation of non-human animals. It is a human-held belief that all other animal species are inferior to us. Speciesist thinking involves considering animals—who have their own desires, needs, and complex lives—as means to human ends. This supremacist line of “reasoning” is used to defend treating other living, feeling beings as property, objects, sources of entertainment, or even recipe ingredients. It’s a bias rooted in denying others their own agency, interests, and self-worth, often for personal gain.
The 3 Ns of Justification
“There is a vast mythology surrounding meat, but all the myths are in one way or another related to what I refer to as the Three Ns of Justification: eating meat is normal, natural, and necessary. The Three Ns have been invoked to justify all exploitative systems, from African slavery to the Nazi Holocaust. When an ideology is in its prime, these myths rarely come under scrutiny. However, when the system finally collapses, the Three Ns are recognized as ludicrous.”
Melanie Joy, PhD
Harvard educated psychologist, Author of Why We Love Dogs, Eat Pigs, and Wear Cows: An Introduction to Carnism
Are Humans Meant to Eat Animals?
During most of our evolutionary history, we were largely vegan: Plant foods, such as yams, made up the bulk of our ancestors’ diet. The addition of modest amounts of meat to the early human diet came with the discovery of fire, which allowed us to lower the risk of being sickened or killed by parasites and bacteria in meat. This didn’t turn our ancestors into carnivores but rather allowed early humans to survive in areas and during periods in which plant foods were unavailable or scarce. Worldwide, an estimated 2 billion people currently live primarily on a meat-based diet, while an estimated 4 billion live primarily on a plant-based diet.
Numerous studies have shown that animal flesh is not healthy for the human body and may actually be making us sick, even killing us. The human body is designed to function on plant-based foods that are full of fiber, antioxidants, unsaturated fat, essential fatty acids, phytochemicals, and cholesterol-free protein. Many human illnesses including certain types of cancer, heart disease, diabetes, osteoporosis, and more often or always stem from our eating of animals.
Humans have long intestinal tracts, like those of our plant-eating animal cousins. This gives the body more time to break down fiber and absorb the nutrients from plant-based foods. Animal flesh sits and rots in our intestinal tracts, contributing to diseases such as colon cancer. True carnivores, such as lions, have short intestinal tracts that allow meat to pass quickly through their digestive tract.
Tortured Flesh
“Perhaps in the back of our minds we already understand, without all the science I’ve discussed, that something terribly wrong is happening. Our sustenance now comes from misery. We know that if someone offers to show us a film on how our meat is produced, it will be a horror film. We perhaps know more than we care to admit, keeping it down in the dark places of our memory— disavowed. When we eat (animals) we live, literally, on tortured flesh. Increasingly, that tortured flesh is becoming our own.”
Jonathan Safran Foer
Author of Eating Animals
What About Protein?
We’ve been programmed to believe that meat and other animal foods are the only and/or ideal source of protein, these foods are what most people eat to make sure they get enough. What most people don’t realize is that the animals they are eating are really just middlemen, since the majority of these animals get their protein from plants, where all protein originates. In fact, most of the largest and strongest animals on the planet, like elephants, rhinos, horses, and gorillas — are herbivores. And yet they get more than enough protein to build large muscles and maintain good health.
Contrary to popular belief, the largest study comparing the nutrient intake of meat-eaters with plant-eaters showed that the average plant-eater not only gets enough protein, but 70% more than they need. Somewhat ironically, even meat-eaters get roughly half of their protein from plants. This should come as no surprise if you’re aware of the fact that a peanut butter sandwich contains about as much protein as three ounces of beef or three large eggs.
Another common misconception about protein, paid for again by marketing and lobbying dollars, is that the quality of plant protein is inferior, because plants apparently don’t contain all of the essential amino acids. This is also patently false, since every single plant contains all of the essential amino acids, in varying proportions. While it is true that some plant foods are lower in certain amino acids than others, our bodies break protein down into individual amino acids so that the appropriate proteins can be built at the necessary times. This would explain why, when it comes to gaining strength and muscle mass, research comparing plant and animal protein repeatedly demonstrates that as long as the right amount of amino acids are consumed, the source is irrelevant.
Since we know that getting enough protein from plants needn’t be an issue, the far more important issue now comes into play: the package this protein comes in. [ Learn more ]
Eating too much protein may also increase your risk of developing heart disease and may worsen kidney function in people with kidney disease because the body can have trouble eliminating all the waste products of protein metabolism.
Strong as an Ox
“Someone asked me, ‘How could you get as strong as an ox without eating any meat?’ and my answer was, ‘Have you ever seen an ox eating meat?’”
Patrik Baboumian
Vegan, World-Record Holding Strongman
Eating Animals and Human Disease
Everywhere you look, meat is being actively encouraged for us to eat - billboards, radio ads, magazines, newspapers, every restaurant menu. But breaking the meat habit gives you more power than any other diet shift you could think of. From the first rumblings in cardiovascular research to the modern day studies that link animal fats to cancer, diabetes, and Alzheimer's disease, evidence has steadily mounted showing that meat is a problem.
And a recent comprehensive study carried out by researchers at Harvard and Massachusetts General Hospital makes things abundantly clear. The study was huge--131,342 participants--and the research methods were meticulous. The study analyzed health outcomes based on protein sources, and the results were striking: Participants who consumed more plant-based protein not only live longer, but are healthier longer than their meat-eating counterparts.
Red meat has long been the black sheep of the food world because of its links to heart disease. But new research shows that the problems don't end there: Red meat has also been linked to kidney failure, cardiovascular disease, and type 2 diabetes. And the new Harvard study showed that all forms of animal protein--including poultry, fish, dairy products, and eggs--are part of the problem, clearly increasing the risk of disease and mortality.
For parents, a particular red flag comes from the World Health Organization's recent determination of processed meat as a carcinogen. Processed meat means everyday sausages, bacon, and hot dogs, as well as deli meats, certain kinds of rotisserie chicken, and packaged lunch meats. That means even buying the "all natural" turkey sausage isn't doing your body any good, and that goes double for children.
A recent book, aptly titled Meathooked, makes the case not only that meat poses health problems but also that we seem culturally stuck on meat--turning a blind eye to the problems it causes. Author Marta Zaraska delves into the industry-funded studies that downplay meat's risks. She shows that it takes a watchful eye and wary consumer to be able to seek out unbiased research.
Marion Nestle, Ph.D, M.P.H., of New York University, has been keeping tabs on this phenomenon, finding that industry's influence is ever present, from targeted online campaigns to increase meat consumption among millennials, to shaping government organizations. Nebraska Rep. Adrian Smith introduced an amendment that would block the military from adopting Meatless Mondays. Coincidentally, Rep. Smith hails from Nebraska's 3rd District, which happens to rank as the country's top meat-producing congressional district.
By breaking the meat habit, we will be able to avert the next health disaster. It's a simple move with an enormous impact, and it's the first step in building a healthier, more sustainable future. [ Learn more ]
Toxic Protein
“In the next ten years, one of the things you’re bound to hear is that animal protein is one of the most toxic nutrients of all that can be considered.”
Dr. T. Colin Campbell
Director of the Cornell-China-Oxford Project on Nutrition, Health, and Environment and author of The China Study