Eathing Ethically

I have been a lacto-ovo vegetarian for almost fifteen years. I abstain from eating meat, although I’ll eat eggs, milk, and the products of animals, generally. Oddly, enough, I made this decision when I was around four years old—obviously, it wasn’t a logical one, at the time, but I found that as I grew older, I created reasons for myself after the fact; they weren’t half bad.

Going vegetarian is pretty much the single greatest impact you can make for the sake of the environment. Methane is over twenty times as powerful as any other greenhouse gas; it’s responsible for more global warming than all other greenhouse gases combined. Concentrations of animal waste and cattle farms contribute over one hundred million tons of methane per year. Water tables are polluted from the nitrogen in the cattle’s urine. The nitrates could contaminate wells and drinking water. An individual cow wouldn’t contribute anything too terribly serious; however, farming has grown from a small-scale and personal experience into a giant process. We’ve taken America’s fast-food mentality and applied it to a noble profession. In our attempts to make food available cheaper and faster, we’ve neglected some pretty serious long term effects. We’ve become obsessed with ‘the system’; even when it’s flawed!

America’s drive-through ideals have skewed how we view food. Why do we insist on staying in the dark when it comes to the things we eat? We’ll take whatever processed, mutilated, and treated meat is available in our closest mega-mart. We’re given the illusion of choice when it comes down for our weekly trip to the supermarket. As of 2005, the top four meat processing companies produced 84% of the beef available to the public. Beef Production provides hamburger filler to over 80% of the country. Tyson Foods is the second largest producer of meat in the world. Smithfield Foods controls over a quarter of the pork market. We’re tricked into thinking that we could have the world in our shopping carts, but in reality, we’re victims to whatever these companies want to feed us. We’ve turned honest work into an assembly line; quality is defined by conformity. These companies are more manipulative than we think; to keep costs in check, Tyson frequently advertises on Mexican radio and in newspapers. They offer to bus illegal immigrants to and from the plants in exchange for cheap labor. When it’s time to deal out punishments, the corporation walks away with clean hands. The ones doing the work are the ones left holding the bag and facing the law. Beef Production soaks their beef filler with ammonia in order to cleanse it. What kind of condition was it in, in the first place, to require such extensive measures? Rather than spend the money to find the problem as to why their meat is so riddled with E. coli and salmonella, they just add steps to the process so they can keep the system going.

I’m not saying that these are evil Mega-corporations and we should form a lynch mob or anything. If the surgeon general and the FDA require tobacco companies to label cigarettes as dangerous carcinogens, is it really too much to ask for some regulation regarding something as vital as our food? I’m all for the individual’s responsibility to educate themselves, but it’s undeniable that the conditions regarding our food are kept, for the most part, in the dark. If we’re staying for dinner, is it really too much to ask to just have a peek in the kitchen?