Meat production is a multi-billion dollar industry infamous for its brutal and unethical practices, yet, according to market research company Ipsos, 89% of Americans still consume meat on a regular basis. People who can afford to be vegetarian must be conscious of the heinous process their diet demands and should abandon the immoral practice, instead opting for plant-based protein alternatives.
Cognitive dissonance, a phenomenon characterized by willful ignorance, is a reason many people neglect their own values in order to continue engaging in behavior that suits their interests. In the case of meat consumption, the deliberate indulgence in ignorance allows those who eat meat to disregard the brutality that factory-farmed animals endure and subsequently escape the discomfort they know they should feel.
While some do not have the privilege to eat a vegetarian diet, there are many with secure access to food and plant-based protein options that continue to eat meat regardless. This cognitive dissonance is a large reason for the resistance against vegetarian diets despite the severe ethical concerns raised by factory farming practices.
Although people may not think twice about eating meat, an animal has suffered through the majority of its life to end up on their plate.
Factory farming is a mechanized method of breeding and slaughtering animals that regularly employs inhumane practices to maximize meat companies’ production and profit. This blatant disregard for animals and their suffering is further reinforced by consumers’ engagement in the industry.
It is easy to hide behind the adage that insists there is ‘no such thing as ethical consumption under capitalism,’ but consumers cannot allow this to strip them of their empathy. People who eat meat should acknowledge the mass suffering their choices perpetuate and make a meaningful effort to consume less meat, supplanting it with more ethically sourced, plant-based options, such as tofu, nuts, pea-protein, tempeh or quinoa.
Despite countless studies from National Geographic articles to National Institutes of Health guidelines for lab animals that have proven animals’ capacity to experience pain as well as a spectrum of emotions, factory farming facilities employ unethical techniques, such as removing appendages and genetic engineering, to make these animals easier to breed, confine, slaughter and sell. These procedures are often performed on a mass scale and without anesthesia, causing chronic pain and health issues later on in the animals’ lives, all for the sake of a consumer’s short-lived meal.
While meat is a substantial component of many Americans’ diets, it’s not a necessary one, and in order to shift this paradigm, an apt understanding of nutrition is necessary to meet dietary needs in the absence of meat.
Although people may not think twice about eating meat, an animal has suffered through the majority of its life to end up on their plate. Being conscious of this unjustifiable abuse, those who eat meat should at the very least consider integrating more ethical plant-based options into their diet.
Widespread animal cruelty is further reinforced by the meat industry’s massive economic and political influence, which gives it powerful sway over legislation concerning regulations or transparency requirements. On an individual basis, cognitive dissonance makes it easier to justify eating meat. Companies perpetuate this delusion by taking purposeful action to hide their practices from the public. This heightens the dissociation between the food on consumer’s plates and the animals that were slaughtered to make it.
With the human and animal cost made apparent, the only logical reason many still consume meat is because they are deluded by the guileful actions of corporations.
Individuals should not have to bear responsibility for the actions of massive corporations. However, these entities’ egregious lack of consideration for ethics and consumer well-being have forced that duty onto their consumers. Due to the vast influence of buyers in the market, consuming consciously means adopting a vegetarian diet rather than allowing companies to continue to profit from your manufactured ignorance.
Beyond the animal cost required to sustain the diets of those who do eat meat, there are also very real consequences for the humans whose labor powers such enormous corporate entities.
According to the Economic Policy Institute, the factory farming industry is sustained by a workforce that comprises a disproportionately high number of people of color, immigrants and employees from low-income backgrounds. This pattern reinforces pre-existing systems of generational poverty, positioning these workers into some of the most dangerous workplaces in the nation while failing to provide them with sufficient pay and benefits.
With the human and animal cost made apparent, the only logical reason many still consume meat is because they are deluded by the guileful actions of corporations. The obvious moral choice is to resist this desensitization and denial of man-made human suffering, and the best way to do this is not only to be more aware of the extensive negative impacts of factory farming, but also to stop eating meat.
Moral offenses surrounding eating meat are mainly committed by the massive corporations that breed and slaughter animals, meaning we must recognize how our consumption reinforces and contributes to the unethical treatment of those animals. We cannot continue to ignore the influence that we have as consumers simply for the sake of our culinary pleasure.
In order to practice humanity which we hold so dear, it is our duty to consume consciously whenever possible and to be more aware of the culinary decisions we make. Refusing to eat meat is consumers’ greatest form of resistance against the massive corporations committing atrocious acts against animals, laborers and customers alike.
