Could You Forget? | Teen Ink

Could You Forget?

August 13, 2010
By indrani BRONZE, West Chester, Ohio
indrani BRONZE, West Chester, Ohio
3 articles 0 photos 1 comment

Could you forget watching your baby being taken away, tortured, even killed? Could you forget feeling your skin being torn off of your body? could you forget being hung by your foot and beaten, scalded alive, thrown into tiny wooden crates? If you had to go through this, if you sat on the frigid concrete floor, knowing that all you could trust was fate, could you forget? Right, no one can. Then why is it that millions of animals have to suffer through it every day?
When I was eleven years old, I realized what really happens behind fur and meat products. That was when I became a vegetarian! It was the greatest change I had ever made in my life for many reasons.
I recently did some research on non-vegetarianism and wow. I saw all kinds of awful things like health effects, animal cruelty, and even long-term effects on world economy and environment! Cancer, bone-loss, cholesterol. Pollution from animal waste, fast-spreading disease, vast waste of food and water. Why would ANYONE want that? I know I do not!
But one thing in particular seized my attention: the way animals are treated on fur and meat farms. It is simply one word- disgusting. Chickens are thrown into wooden crates and carried off to have their beaks cut off and be dipped in scalding water while still conscious. Animals are hung upside-down, beaten, verbally abused, crammed into unclean spaces, and much worse. The fur industry is much more extreme. Animals are beaten in unimaginable ways, hacked to death, or even skinned alive. We have all seen horrendous things, but I believe that nothing in this world could be more terrifying than a meat factory, or even more so, a fur farm.
So, what is this all for? Really nothing. After a few months of being vegetarian, I gave meat a taste and oh my, does it taste just awful! Fur coats, reptile skin bags? Really? They are not even that attractive! When you look deep into it, none of these frivolities are really worth it!
There are so many ways to be vegetarian, and feel like you are not missing out. Veggies are much healthier, and depending on the kind, much better tasting than meat. Obviously there are artificial materials that can be used to make clothes and accessories instead of using the hide of another animal. For me, being vegetarian has made me more educated of what goes on in the world. I have not been sick for a very long time, and I feel healthy and alive every day. And I know that my lifestyle does not hurt anyone else. I care and always have cared a lot about animals. Now I feel like I am actually helping them. I feel proud to call myself a vegetarian!



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Imagine. Could you forget the pain of being thrown down and stricken repeatedly? Could you forget being mortally sick or painfully crippled with no one to help you? Could you forget the fear in the air, and the longing for freedom that you know deep down will never be fulfilled?

Now think. Better health, a more plentiful world, and a cruelty-free way of living. Sounds nice, yes? Then maybe it is time to go veg. Because this is something not to forget.


The author's comments:
i have been vegetarian for two years and loved it. i respect animals and i do not believe that our happiness should cause their suffering.

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