Animals & Us - A must listen

Click here to Listen to "Animals & Us"
A documentary from the BBC

I encourage everyone to listen hard to this special documentary from the BBC. Pay attention, folks. I usually refrain from preaching vegetarianism to people who eat animals, but it's time for the real cruelty involved in eating the flesh of slaughtered animals is put square in the faces of those who continue what amounts to cannibalism.

I'm tired of tempering my feelings on this issue. I stopped eating meat 25 years ago when I began seeing beyond the disguised pieces of carcase on my plate to the living animal who suffered a horrible life and death to end up there. Since then, I can honestly say I would starve before eating an animal again. But I don't have to starve, and anyone who stops eating animals won't either. In fact, I have never eaten as well since eliminating meat from my diet.

The sight of a meat counter in a grocery store turns my stomach, and I am grateful for that. It reminds me that I am still human enough to appreciate the suffering of all living creatures and haven't conveniently distanced myself from this fact. There is simply no excuse to continue eating animals.. not the way our society raises them. It is a disgusting, selfish, inhumane habit. I am also sick and tired of people saying they can feed a family for less by stuffing their faces with burgers at fast food joints. You can feed a family on a sack of rice and beans for an entire week for a few bucks. You don't need a certificate from Le Cordon Bleu to learn to cook rice and dal..

The only thing I would add to this piece is to recommend that people place a colored picture of animals in a factory farm, slaughter house, etc. next to your plate every time you chose to eat a murdered animal. Be aware of what you are putting into your mouth to sustain your body- the muscle tissue of an animal raised in filthy, horrific conditions, and killed the same way. Keep this in mind while you chew its cooked flesh. Would you eat your pet dog or cat?

There's plenty to eat without choosing meat.

Watch the trailer of HBO's "Death on A Factory Farm"