Meat: Bad for Your Life
Running head: MEAT: BAD FOR YOUR LIFE
Meat: Bad for Your Life…And Theirs
Herb Josey
HU305 - Critical Thinking:
Art Institute of Virginia Beach
4/30/13
Meat: Bad for your Life …And Theirs I know pork, beef and chicken look, smell and taste good. Who doesn’t like the smell and sizzle of fried bacon? The juicy steak? Crispy fried chicken? Umm, good – right? Wrong. Meat is disgusting. Did you know people who eat lots of meat have higher rates of obesity? Higher rates of heart disease? Diabetes? One study by the Mayo Clinic showed that people who ate more than 50g of processed meat a day (think two quarter pounders) had 42% higher risk of heart disease, a 17% higher risk of diabetes. In addition to the health risks, meat also carries risk of disease. E. coli is the leading cause of bloody diarrhea, and people have died from the gastrointestinal illness. Also Salmonella poisoning infects raw chicken. And mad cow disease, which can be caught only through eating meat, is often fatal. Finally, have you heard some of the conditions farm animals live in? Some meat processors keep animals in cages so small, the animals can’t move or sit or lie down. Cows are forced to spend their final months before slaughter standing in their own filth – think about that when you eat a big mac – in a feedlot with no pasture or shelter, with thousands of other cows. The animals are force feed unnatural grain and growth hormones so they grow bigger, faster – this grain causes illness and death in some animals, according to the ASPCA. And what about the hormones given to cattle and chickens to make them grow faster? What do you think happens to those hormones when you take a bite of fried chicken? Enough said. When you consider the health risks associated with eating meat – whether obesity or heart disease, mad cow or E coli, and combine those risks with the horrific conditions feed animals are raised in, If you knew the health risks associated with
Meat: Bad for Your Life…And Theirs
Herb Josey
HU305 - Critical Thinking:
Art Institute of Virginia Beach
4/30/13
Meat: Bad for your Life …And Theirs I know pork, beef and chicken look, smell and taste good. Who doesn’t like the smell and sizzle of fried bacon? The juicy steak? Crispy fried chicken? Umm, good – right? Wrong. Meat is disgusting. Did you know people who eat lots of meat have higher rates of obesity? Higher rates of heart disease? Diabetes? One study by the Mayo Clinic showed that people who ate more than 50g of processed meat a day (think two quarter pounders) had 42% higher risk of heart disease, a 17% higher risk of diabetes. In addition to the health risks, meat also carries risk of disease. E. coli is the leading cause of bloody diarrhea, and people have died from the gastrointestinal illness. Also Salmonella poisoning infects raw chicken. And mad cow disease, which can be caught only through eating meat, is often fatal. Finally, have you heard some of the conditions farm animals live in? Some meat processors keep animals in cages so small, the animals can’t move or sit or lie down. Cows are forced to spend their final months before slaughter standing in their own filth – think about that when you eat a big mac – in a feedlot with no pasture or shelter, with thousands of other cows. The animals are force feed unnatural grain and growth hormones so they grow bigger, faster – this grain causes illness and death in some animals, according to the ASPCA. And what about the hormones given to cattle and chickens to make them grow faster? What do you think happens to those hormones when you take a bite of fried chicken? Enough said. When you consider the health risks associated with eating meat – whether obesity or heart disease, mad cow or E coli, and combine those risks with the horrific conditions feed animals are raised in, If you knew the health risks associated with
References: 57 Health Benefits of Going Vegan. (n.d.) Retrieved from http://www.nursingdegree.net/blog/19/57-health-benefits-of-going-vegan/ Cows on Factory Farms (n.d.) Retrieved from http://www.aspca.org/Fight-Animal-Cruelty/farm-animal-cruelty/cows-on-factory-farms Mayo Clinic (n.d.). Meatless meals: The benefits of eating less meat Retrieved from http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/meatless-meals/MY00752