Nataly Caulder

Fender
English IV Honors
06 October 2016
Compassionate Eating: The Case for Veganism
Why is it legal to slaughter and make a meal out of animals like pigs, cows, or chickens,
but it is illegal to do the same for a cat or a dog? Where do eggs, meat, milk, and other dairy
products come from? All dairy and meat products come from defenseless animals, usually on
factory farms. Factory farms are large farms that keep animals which produce the products that
sell, such as meat and milk, so that they can keep their farm profits up. Farmers keep dairy cows
pregnant so that they can continuously produce milk, they also constantly keep pigs pregnant, but
pigs are usually on a four year pregnancy cycle, staying pregnant for a total of four years, before
being taken and slaughtered for their meat. Could anyone imagine being pregnant for the entirety
of their life? Calves that are raised for beef are usually dehorned, castrated, and branded, with no
pain relief. Its like having fingernails ripped off and being burned, with no pain medication and
no idea of what is happening. Chickens are cooped up in tight warehouses to produce eggs for
the farmers, and when eggs hatch, they keep the female chicks, and throw the male chicks away,
like they are garbage.
Many oppose the fact that animals have feelings and emotions similar to that of human
beings, but it has been scientifically proven. Although they cannot exactly express it, animals
have the same feelings as humans, they feel love, hate, pain, and anxiety, along with any other
feelings that humans feel. There have been many studies conducted, testing out the feelings that
animals feel. In his article, Yes, Animals Have Feelings, Jonathan Balcombe mentions a study

conducted on rats, about the nervousness and the anxiousness that rats can feel, just the same as
humans in the section, Animals and Complex Emotion, in the fifth paragraph. When they get
nervous or anxious, their body temperatures rise, due to the blood vessels constricting,
decreasing blood flow to the skin, causing the body temperature to decrease as well. When
conducting the experiment with rats, scientists had a human that the rat had never before seen
come into the room and hold the rat. While being held, the rats body temperature would go up
by one degree celsius. The scientists had the same human come in and do the same thing for five
days and after the fifth day, the rats body temperature stayed at its normal temperature. The
body temperature of the rat stayed the same because the rat was comfortable with the human by
this time. On the sixth day, they had a different stranger come in and hold the rat, and the body
temperature of the rat went up by one degree celsius once again. Animals all have a sense of
what is going on around them and most of them are highly intelligent. Pigs are deemed the fourth
most intelligent creature on Earth, they have a sense of direction and can even respond to their
own name at just seven days of age. Research from an article written by Jonathan Leake, called,
Cows Hold Grudges, Scientists Say, shows that cows can also feel emotions such as mourning
over their losses, they often shed tears when the ones they love are separated from them, such as
a mother cow having her calf taken away from her, the mother cows even search for their calves,
desperately calling out for them. Cows often socialize and make friends with the other cows that
are placed around them, they often times hold grudges against the other cows, as well.
Vegans are people who do not consume animal products or animal byproducts. They do
not eat dairy, eggs, meat, or anything made by or from animals. Opposing sides may say that
going vegan is unhealthy and dangerous for the body, but it is actually healthier for the body.
Meat eaters often complain about being constipated or feeling sick after they're finished eating,

but Vegans often have no trouble defecating and feel more energized after eating. Many people
say that when on a vegan diet, you feel hungry all the time and that you feel drained, but it's a
proven fact that when on a vegan diet humans feel more energized and less physically weighed
down. When eating fruits, vegetables, and beans with high protein, one tends to feel more mobile
after finishing eating. Whereas after someone has finished eating a non-vegan meal, the phrase,
I'm going to need someone to wheel me out of here with a wheelbarrow, is often times heard.
The phrasing means that they feel heavy or weighed down by the food that they have put into
their bodies. When eating a non-vegan diet, one normally does not know that they are full until
they start feeling bloated and when they can barely stand up. On a vegan diet one will feel full,
but will not have the same bloating effect as the person eating a non-vegan diet.
Someone who might disagree with being vegan might say that transitioning to a vegan
lifestyle is a waste of time and it would not help the animals or the Earth, because just a couple
of people aren't going to make a difference. But if every farmer were to stop raising animals for
meat industries, it would help prevent erosion to our Earth along with preventing the depletion of
nutrients found in soil. More than seventy percent of the Earths fresh water is used to produce
meat, the amount of water that it takes to produce one pound of meat is about one hundred to two
hundred gallons more than it would take to produce one pound of plant protein. By going vegan,
it could save thousands of gallons of water a day! A recent Cornell study showed that producing
animal-based protein uses eight times more fossil-fuel energy than producing plant-based
protein. Cows release a certain amount of methane when they flatulate and nitrous oxide is
released through their manure, these emissions play a large part in climate change. Whenever
farmers and ranchers clear rainforests to make pastures for their livestock, they are also releasing
carbon into the air. Agriculture takes on a huge role in greenhouse gas exposure. About 700

million tons of food that could be used to feed humans in third world countries or any humans in
general goes into animal agriculture each year, when the food could be used to end world hunger.
Going vegan could not only help out with environmental issues that our Earth is dealing with,
but it could also help end world hunger.
Some people who go vegan do not consume honey, but some do. Many people who say
that honey is vegan only say so because they do not image honeybees as being animals. But
when consuming honey, that is taking away from the honeybee, which is cruel to the bees. The
honey bees stock up on honey all throughout the summer so that during colder seasons, such as
winter, the honeybees only source of food would the honey that they had been collecting all
summer, so when consuming the honey that honey bees worked very hard on producing, that is
taking away the only source of food that they have during the colder seasons. Honey is also used
by the bees to maintain the stability and well-being of the hives that they live in. Taking away the
only food supply that bees have could result in a drastic decreasing of bees. If our Earth no
longer had bees,we would run out of almost all of our own resources. Honey bees are the ones
responsible for keeping our fruits, vegetables, and other plants pollinated. If honey bees
disappeared we would not have anyway of pollinating those crops, meaning over one third of our
crop supply would disappear, because there would be no way for it to flourish abundantly.
Therefore if honey bees had their food sources taken from them, the human population would
also lose a large part of their food source.
The number one question that vegans get asked always seems to be, Where do you get
your protein from? People do not realize that beans, nuts, fruits and vegetables all have about
the same, if not more protein in them than meat does. In about four ounces of ground beef there
are precisely twenty-four grams of protein and three hundred twenty calories, and in four ounces

of black beans there are approximately twenty-four grams of protein as well, but there are only
one hundred twenty calories. Just in one teaspoon of spirulina there is about four grams of
protein, in one cup of spinach there is about five grams of protein, two tablespoons of hemp
seeds have about ten grams of protein, and so on. Therefore anyone who says that vegans don't
get a good source of protein probably has done little to no research on the diet. Protein can be
found in almost any food that a vegan decides to eat, they just have to look for what items
contain the highest amount of protein and base their meals around those items. Finding protein
doesn't have to be a struggle, there are many websites and many phone applications that could be
used to find vegan food options with the most protein, they just need to put the right portion sizes
of the items that do contain protein and they are set.
Many people on a tight budget assume that going vegan is too expensive and they fear
that they would not be able to commit to it. They do not think that they would be able to obtain
the nutrients needed or the right foods to form to their dietary needs. But, cutting out meat and
dairy, leaves more money in the pockets of those deciding to transition into a vegan lifestyle. The
price of one gallon of dairy milk is about the same price as a gallon dairy free, plant-based milk.
It costs more money to buy meat products by the pound than it would cost to buy fruits and
vegetables by the pound. Vegans eat foods such as rice, grains, soybeans, wheat, and corn, these
five things are some of the cheapest things you could buy. The money that a non-vegan would
spend on meat and dairy products could go towards buying more fruits, vegetables, and
vitamins, and they could possibly end up even saving money by not buying the products made by
or from animals.
Many opposing members question how vegans get their source of vitamins without
consuming meat or dairy products and say that a couple things that vegans lack in their diets are

vitamins b12, and iron. While a vegan diet does lack a couple of essential vitamins, that could
easily be found in a supplement, vegan diets often times have high amounts of iron, folic acid,
and magnesium, and low amounts of cholesterol and saturated fats. But many vegans can obtain
the essential vitamins that their bodies require through vitamin supplements. They often times
take the vitamin supplements with a meal in the mornings, so that the supplements have time to
take effect. For breakfast vegans often have a fruit smoothie with loads of water or they have
oatmeal, so they do not go the entire morning hungry, and if you take the vitamins on an empty
stomach is will make you feel sick, so it is better to take them with a meal. For the vegans who
miss cheesy flavors when they have transitioned, they could purchase nutritional yeast, which
adds a more cheese-like flavor to any meal. Many vegans even add nutritional yeast to their
smoothies so that they can have it for the nutritional value that it holds. Plant-based diets can
reduce the risk of type two diabetes, cardiovascular diseases, and strokes. It can also help prevent
different types of cancer, along with preventing obesity.
There are many videos showing the truths about dairy farms and meat industries. They
show explicit videos exposing how the farmers or the ranchers care for and treat the animals.
Most of the videos exhibit the horrible actions that farmers take to raise and slaughter the
animals that they so-called care for. There are videos displaying the farmers smashing pigs
against poles and against the ground to knock them unconcious. They also do this with minks, so
that they can skin the minks to make fur jackets and clothing that is made with mink skin.There
are videos showing the farmers hanging cows up by their feet, while still conscious and with no
pain medication at all, and shocking them and slitting their throats, many of the cows even stay
alive moments after having their throats cut open, then the cows that still have some awareness
have to sit through watching the farmers torture and abuse the other cows that are hanging up

beside them. The pigs are all cramped into tiny spaces, full of feces and mud, hardly being able
to stand up. The chickens, cramped in spaces the size of a piece of paper, barely have enough
strength to stand up and walk around. The farmers keep many of the baby animals in tight, closed
off spaces, to keep them from producing too much muscle, which would result in tougher meat
once they are slaughtered, they keep them in a space to small to even stand up in, so that they can
have tender meat also known as veal. Many people claim to be lactose intolerant, but this claim
is just an excuse, because humans bodies were not made to digest the milk that comes from a
mother cow. The baby cows are made to drink their mothers milk, and we as humans have taken
away the baby cows only source of food when they are young. The dairy farmers take the
mothers milk, which contains hormones meant to help the baby cows grow, not humans, and
they take the baby cows and put them into the crates to make veal, after already taking them
from their mothers and torturing them by making them watch their mothers suffer, especially
when the mothers utters are swollen from lactating for four years consecutively.
Many people think that just because they buy organic meat or dairy, that it means that it is
a better alternative. They think that just because something is organic, there was no cruelty to the
animals when they were being raised. But killing an animal still counts as cruelty. The definition
of cruelty is a behavior that causes pain or suffering to a human or an animal, sometimes
resulting in death. So even if an animal is raised humanely and then slaughtered at the end of its
life cycle, it is still counted as cruelty. When buying products from the meat and dairy industries,
the person buying the products is contributing their money towards the cruelty of the animals,
though some may not realize this, they are spending their money to help dairy and meat industry
farmers, which means that they are contributing to animal cruelty actions.

Many diseases can come from eating meat. A lot of the time when someone has gotten
food poisoning it was contracted from a meat product, because meat carries so many different
diseases, one does not know what a cow or a pig or even a chicken has contracted when on the
factory farm that had very little to no sanitation. When eating meat, one is also eating what that
animal had eaten or what that animal had contracted. Chicken, duck, and turkey are three of the
dirtiest meats someone can eat. These birds often times carry salmonella poisoning, meaning that
there is a high risk of contracting the disease after eating one of these three meats. Eggs can also
carry salmonella, so when someone eats an egg that has been carrying the disease, it causes them
to vomit and have diarrhea.
When interviewing my mentor, Gordon Brown, I asked him many questions about how
he deals with and how he views being vegan. Gordon Brown usually only puts himself on a
vegan diet for the health benefits that the diet holds. When asking him what the hardest part
about being a vegan was he replied with, Not having good bread.
I asked Gordon, If it were possible, would you make schools offer vegan options in the
lunchrooms?
He answered with, Of course.
I also asked him about his favorite vegan recipe and his favorite vegan restaurant. His
favorite vegan recipe is guacamole, and his favorite vegan restaurant is Plant on Merrimon
Avenue.
Being vegan is not only better for our environment and our bodies, but is also a lot easier
than people tend to think, and to answer the all famous question that everyone seems to have for
vegans, the protein comes from any type of bean, nut, vegetable, or fruit that vegans decide to
consume.

Works Cited

"What Happens on Factory Farms?" Vegan Nutritionista. N.p., n.d. Web. 06 Oct.

2016.
"Farm Sanctuary." Farm Sanctuary. N.p., n.d. Web. 06 Oct. 2016.
Writer, By Karin Lehnardt Senior. "56 Interesting Facts about Vegetarianism |
FactRetriever.com." 56 Fresh Facts about Vegetarianism. N.p., n.d. Web. 12 Oct. 2016.
"The Truth About Factory Farms Infographic." Mercola.com. N.p., n.d. Web. 12 Oct.
2016.
@peta. "Pigs: Intelligent Animals Suffering in Farms and Slaughterhouses."PETA.
N.p., n.d. Web. 12 Oct. 2016.
http://www.livescience.com/49093-animals-have-feelings.html.
Dunham, Barbara. "Mini Pigs Show Emotion." Miniature Pigs Have Feelings Too.
N.p., n.d. Web. 13 Oct. 2016.
@peta. "The Hidden Lives of Cows." PETA. N.p., n.d. Web. 13 Oct. 2016.

By Whitney Lauritsen | February 18, 2016. "5 Ways Being Vegan Saves The Planet."

VegNews RSS. N.p., n.d. Web. 14 Oct. 2016.