Not Eating Animals
All those years I never thought of you
I used my knife and fork to cut up your cooked flesh
And put it in my mouth as if it was food
Why didn’t I ask how life was for you?
Why didn’t your life matter as much as mine?
Why was I ok with most of us paying others to kill you?
Why didn’t I ask why killing animals was even a job for
someone?
Now that I know what happens to you – the conditions you live
with,
Your fear
and pain, the male chicks immediately killed,
The male
calves ripped away from their mother to become
‘veal’
and the females to become suppliers just like their mothers.
Pregnant
pigs in gestation cages without room to move.
All of this slaughter and cruelty just so I can have a
hamburger (a cow
had to
be killed and ground up), chicken nuggets (a chicken had
to be slaughtered
and sliced up), bacon (a pig had to be drained of
blood
and cut up), cheese (a cow was not allowed to be a mother to
her
newborn – her baby was meant for us, not her)
I could no longer ignore these things.
I have always loved animals and I feel compassion for those living
among us
who are disadvantaged both human
and non-human animals.
So, after much soul-searching and finding out what I could
eat that would not
Be part
of the exploitation and cruelty to other species that
Share this
planet with us, I became a vegan.
Now when I see dairy products, all I can think of is the
sadness the mother cow feels
When her
baby is ripped away so we can consume the milk, the cheese, the
Ice cream, the creamer meant for
her baby.
When I see the pieces of meat in the grocery store, all I
can see is the clever
Packaging
designed so that we won’t think about how that meat from a
Cow, a
pig, a chicken, a duck ended up on that grocery shelf.
I have seen the truth
I have acknowledged my ignorance
I can never go back.
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