You love bacon. Your grandma makes the best roast beef, and you don’t know what you’d eat most nights if you couldn’t have pizza. I’ve been there. All I ask is that you hear me out and consider what could have turned an ice-cream-loving, pizza-gobbling college student like myself into a crazy vegan.
Many don’t realize how wasteful animal products are. According to Rosamond Naylor, an associate professor of economics at Stanford University, it takes two to 10 times as much grain to produce the same number of calories in meat versus direct grain consumption. Princeton University bioethicist Peter Singer reports that, if the grain fed to livestock was given to the 1.4 billion starving and malnourished people, there would be enough grain for everyone to have about three pounds of grain daily — twice the amount needed for survival.
Because it takes two to 10 times as much land, water and labor just to grow the grain necessary for every calorie of meat, animal products have a huge environmental impact. Richard Schwartz, a mathematics professor at the College of Staten Island, reports the standard diet of a meat-eater in the US requires 4,200 gallons of water daily, while the diet of a vegan requires 300. I know you’re sick of being reprimanded for the environmental impact of every little thing you do, from using the wrong kind of showerhead to leaving the lights on, but let’s put this in context. The EPA says the average U.S. family uses about 3,650 gallons showering in three months. You save more water going vegan for one day than your entire family would by not showering for three months. The Environmental Defense Fund reports, “if every American skipped one meal of chicken per week and substituted vegetarian foods instead, the carbon dioxide savings would be the same as taking more than half a million cars off of U.S. roads.”
This is all to say nothing of the suffering farm animals endure. I know people love making cracks about the food chain, and honestly, if I was stranded on a desert island with a cow, I’m not making any promises. However, that’s not relevant to the issue at hand. According to the USDA and EPA, more than 99 percent of animal products consumed in the U.S. come from factory farms, where much unnecessary abuse occurs. The Humane Society writes that birds are “shackled upside down, paralyzed by electrified water and dragged over mechanical throat-cutting blades…all while conscious.” According to the ASPCA, beef cows are castrated, branded and dehorned without anesthesia and the male calves of dairy cows are ripped from their mothers immediately after birth and raised for veal, where they spend their only few months of life in small dark boxes, restricting their muscle development to produce a more “tender” meat. The United Egg Producers confirm it’s standard practice to grind up live male chicks hours after birth, as they are no use to the egg industry. A group at Wesleyan University reports that birds are kept in cages so small their feet often grow around the wire floor.
This is just the tip of the iceberg. Rape racks, mastitis, gestation crates and debeaking are all realities billions of animals annually suffer and die facing because consumers pay farms to engage in them. You don’t have to go vegan cold turkey (no pun intended). That is an admirable goal, but don’t beat yourself up if you just can’t see yourself breaking it to grandma that you can’t have her famous roast beef anymore. But that doesn’t mean you can’t do anything. Every meal counts. Every time you opt for a PB&J or veggie burger instead of a chicken sandwich, you’re decreasing demand by one more chicken who will suffer and die in agony and the two to 10 times as many calories of grain used to produce the chicken, making it cheaper for those who desperately need those calories. According to PETA, the average vegan decreases demand by 200 animals every year, and a vegetarian decreases demand by 100. It’s not about the food-chain or human superiority. It’s about the power to end a tangible amount of suffering at very little inconvenience to yourself.
Guest columnist Sydney Doe is a Weinberg sophomore, as well as the treasurer and activism chair of the NU Veg Society. She can be reached at [email protected]. If you would like to respond publicly to this column, leave a comment or send a letter to the editor to [email protected].
