Monday, February 15, 2010

Why Vegetarians are Eating Meat

Traditionally vegetarians have decided to abstain from meat for three major reasons. First, in the industry today there are some questions raised about the ethical treatment of livestock. In laymen’s terms the question is “How are animals that are being raised for human consumption being treated during life as well as death?” The second major reasons that people abstain from meat consumption are health reasons. Health concerns can be associated with the amount of fat that most meat has, or it can also be related to questionable use of antibiotics and genetically modified crop to insure the health and weight of the product. Finally there are some people who just don’t believe that meat should be eaten because it means killing a living animal.

This essay discusses two of the three major reasons that people become vegetarians as well as how purchasing local and organic meat may be an answer to these concerns. As stated in the article, unlike conventional farming animals are allowed to roam free as well as are fed a diet more in line with their natural diet. Furthermore because organic farming does not allow the antibiotics and growth hormone, the product is considered to be lower in fat and all around better for you. For these reasons the author argues that people should consider giving organic meat a chance. They may be delightfully surprised.

Discussion Questions

With the recent move towards healthy green living where does organic meat fit into the spectrum?

1 comment:

  1. Good job summarizing the article from Best Food Writing. Can you relate it to the larger context that Pollan has set out in his chapter? As a reminder, the blog posts are intended to focus on any readings except those out of Best Food Writing, because those essays are shorter and address smaller points brought out in the longer readings.

    ReplyDelete