Keilanna campagna

English 101

Holly batty

What are we really supporting when we eat?

For many people, meat has been presented to them as a meal all their lives. Others see

meat as a source of nutrients that humans can not live without. Some people however straight

away from that way of life due to the realization that they would opt in for veganism, but why?

Meat has always carried cultural and even social effects through how it’s made, but with recent

health fads, rising interest in the foods we eat, and rising interest in how we get it, we see that

many forms of meat production is the most harmful kind of production in the world

The billions of livestock produced every day produce harmful gases such as ammonia,

carbon dioxide and methane. All of these gases affect our O-Zone layer creating a greenhouse

effect causing global warming. The way these gases are created is by the animals

breathing(taking oxygen and converting it into carbon dioxide), and their waste(creating methane

and ammonia). According to Singer, “ The level of ammonia in the air from their accumulated

droppings stings the eye and hurts the lungs,” when on the topic of chicken farming, showing

how dangerous the world of agriculture can be. THis is just one of many examples of the

different effects this farming system has on our ecosystems. They usually create a more

hazardous ecosystem within meat farms and this where disease can spread within small,

confined, and unsanitary farms. Many have sided with organizations such as PETA to stand up
for these animal rights and hopefully stop people from eating meat overall, but many would

rather compromise with more responsibly sourced meats rather than the pure veggie diet.

They hurt society in a myriad of ways. One example would be just how economically

straining agriculture, especially raising animals in slaughterhouses, has become. Our social eco

structure has food as its base and animals are one of the most expensive parts of society , Taking

care of one animal is costly so one can only imagine how much it takes to run a whole animal

farming factory. The amount of cornmeal and grain given to cows pigs and chickens can feed

city filled with humans just as efficiently for a cheaper cost. In order to keep their efficiency,

they keep cutting even more cost.

The most common known fact about these factory farms is the circumstances that these

animals are forced to live in. I have seen with my own eyes the horror of pigs breeding and the

conditions inflicted. Most would bring up “there are free range farms “which is true however not

many places except free range farming because it takes more work and money to run. With a

factory farm however several hundreds to thousands of animals can be thrown into a warehouse

to be brought up and killed for a cheaper price. There’s just so much variation in the market that

wholesalers are flooding it with more, contributing to the issue.

The issue? That our methods of how we get our food is quite bad, but by eating them we

support and fund their standards to keep functioning in this way.It is understood that with a

growing population the demand for food will increase but the need for meat doesn’t have to

many have switched to plant-based lifestyles to show it is possible to live without me and to put

an end to the animal suffering. This is only a small step towards the future of food however it is
proof that meat is not necessary for survival. We can solve the issue of the kinds of messages we

send with what we eat by taking the extra second to look into what you’re eating and the long

journey it had to get from farm to table.