I’ve been conditioned all my life that eating meat is normal. And, sure there have been phases of my life when I stopped, thought about it and drastically minimized my intake. However, something always came about when I introduced it to my nutrition again. Though I maintain a plant-based nutrition for the vast majority of my meals. Sometimes it seemed more difficult to me to explain my choices to those around me than it did to swallow my words and the meat itself, literally. I also never really enjoyed the taste of it.
As free individuals, we don’t have to eat meat. We might not even wish to eat it, but it became some sort of a norm. We have deep-rooted beliefs that it is OK to eat certain animals, but have you ever thought why we wouldn’t indulge in others, too?
As with any form of belief, I obviously feel partial to the individuals who are not sure of their why. I then wonder if what they are doing and saying really comes from a genuine place. But that’s just me, and I shouldn’t worry about it for the purpose I’m trying to convey here. However, I’d like to share one more word on why it is so important. It is the driving force to achieving your goals. Let that be better well-being, losing weight, fitting in or adding your mosaic piece to creating a better world.
Here’s a fact: meat cannot be procured without violence. But the meat-producing industry and its marketing are very skillful at keeping it invisible because it is not talked about and we perceive eating meat as something that is a given. When it is actually not so. Keeping animals away from our sight also keeps them away from people’s inner consciousness.
You are probably aware that animals are in fact sentient conscious beings. But did you know that pigs are as intelligent as three-year-old humans? That cows develop feelings and lasting bonds with their family and friends. They might cry for weeks when their babies are forcefully taken away from them. And that chickens are able to distinguish between 100 different faces between the number of their species. Fish have intelligence, too. In some countries, it is even illegal to keep them in small bowls and boil lobsters alive.
Did you know that 124,000 animals are slaughtered across the world every minute? Not in a day, not in an hour, but every minute!
Is carnism than normal? Is it natural at all? And necessary?
Those are the questions each of us needs to ask ourselves, and I’m no one to judge. I, too, have eaten my fair share of animals that I know I could not if I had met them eye to eye. It comes down to the question of our priorities. It ultimately is the question of awareness that brings about free choices. Compassion in place of cruelty, and empathy in place of apathy.
