American Meat Industry Writing Assignment Essay

Three main reasons why my feelings towards meat have changed is that I now know that the meat that is supposed to be ‘better for you, isn’t really better, the animals we eat are treated so badly before they are slaughtered, and that we are depleting our resources. For a long time I thought that eating grass-fed beef was a healthy alternative to eating feed-lot beef, which according to the article “What are Feedlot Beef, Organic Beef, and Grass-fed Beef’s” explanation in the section “What is Feedlot Beef”, treats the animals badly and gives them growth hormones and antibiotics.

Eating grass-fed beef, which normally doesn’t use antibiotics and treats their animals better, still isn’t a good replacement though. It takes up too much land and causes around 50% more greenhouse gases according to “What’s Wrong with Grass-Fed Beef” in the section “Land Use” and “50% more Greenhouse Gases. Now that I know that there isn’t a healthy, safe type of meat, I no longer think eating it meat is a good idea.

Another reason I now believe meat isn’t a wise choice is that animals are put in such awful conditions just so people can eat meat.

The article “Factory Farming Facts” says “A majority of the animals that are raised for food live miserable lives in intensive confinement in dark, overcrowded facilities” in its first paragraph. In the paragraph “Broiler Chickens” it talks about how chickens are put in things called factory farms that do gruesome things like cut off chickens beaks in toes. The article “Factory Farming” even said that 99% of animals we eat come from factory farms. After hearing that most of our meat could have been treated like that, I don’t think eating meat is worth hurting so many animals.

The third reason my opinion on meat has changed is that I learned how much our animals are being killed for meat. We are depleting the world of so many animals by eating meat. The article “What’s Wrong With Eating Fish” in the section “Overfishing”, said that by 2048 we may have completely ran out of seafood because of overfishing. They also talked about the Chesapeake Bay and how its oyster population is depleted and that has affected the Bay’s health overall.

Learning that really changed my mind about eating meat and seafood because the Chesapeake Bay is something that can actually affect me and hits close to home. I used to think that eating farmed animals was normal and completely okay. I never knew any better so I never questioned it, until I learned about what I was eating. When I learned that I was hurting the environment and my body, hurting animals, and hurting animal’s populations, my opinions on meat changed drastically. Now I know to not eat as much meat, if any, and to be much more aware of any meat that I do eat.