Why to Go Vegetarian

Next time you eat a burger, or have bacon on a Sunday morning, remember that the meat you’re eating probably came from an animal living in a factory farm. This meat is a massive contributor to worldwide greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and precious forests were destroyed to make grazing land for this animal prior to slaughter. By becoming a vegetarian, you will greatly reduce your environmental footprint.

On factory farms, animals bred for meat are treated very cruelly, sentenced to terrible living conditions they do not deserve. Billions of factory-farmed animals worldwide are living locked away in cages, mutilated, and covered in their own urine and excrement with broken bones from attempts of escape and festering sores from a lack of the human care that they deserve. In these terrible places, cows have their tails cut off, chickens are de-beaked and piglets have their teeth pulled out without anesthetic. This is not to mention the fact that people living in the surrounding areas get sick more often and the runoff from these farms contaminate water supplies and the environment. Although people who are in favour of factory farming say that treatment of the animals has improved significantly over the past decade, why is it that these animals need a constant dose of antibiotics just to stay alive? Conditions on these farms are so bad that factory farming corporations such as Tyson, Schneider’s and Smithfield line their fences surrounding their factory farms with barbed wire just to prevent people from entering and taking photographs. “Begun by Satan’s malice and perpetuated by man’s desertion of his post” —C.S. Lewis: Description of animal pain. To avoid buying from factory farms, always buy organic or farm raised products. By becoming a vegetarian, you will reduce the demand for factory-farmed meat.                                                                                         

Meat production creates a tremendous amount of greenhouse gas emissions and other pollutants. As a result of a large appetite for bacon, large ponds of pig manure that emit Nitrous Oxide (a gas with the potential to be very harmful) now contaminate the countryside. Although pigs are bad, cattle are even worse. They produce high amounts of a harmful GHG called methane, which is about 20 times worse than carbon dioxide in terms of the greenhouse effect. Cattle production is the worldwide leader in deforestation and GHG emissions. An overproduction of cattle is causing the Amazon and other forests to be logged to create grazing land, which contaminates the surroundings with agricultural runoff and air pollution. A study estimates that a whopping 51% of world emissions are created by the meat industry. Scientists say that a single kilogram of beef creates an equivalent of 32 kilograms of carbon dioxide, which is equivalent to going for a three-hour drive and leaving every light on at home. “Please eat less meat” — UN. People may eat meat for its availability and taste, but that’s no reason to destroy the earth.


Many are opposed to the idea of people being vegetarian. They say that humans are naturally omnivorous, therefore, it is in our nature to eat meat, but were there ever meant to be almost 7 billion humans, creating a tremendous demand for meat? The meat that we eat cannot be considered “natural.” With all of the antibiotics and growth hormones that are given to livestock, in no way is it natural. “If anyone wants to save the planet, all they have to do is stop eating meat” —Sir Paul McCartney.


By becoming a vegetarian, you will greatly reduce your environmental footprint. If you are unable to become a vegetarian, try to reduce the amount of meat you eat. Buying organic is extremely important, because non-organic or farm grown foods are most likely factory farmed. Think about it: Is it fair that we assume rights over other animals?