The Importance of Understanding Carnism for Meat Eaters
An Animal Rights Article from All-Creatures.org
FROM
Carnism Awareness & Action Network
[Ed. Note: It is absolutely a question of violating our personal integrity when we eat animals. For more about this issue, read
Carnism - FAQ.]
Most of us who have grown up eating meat don’t
realize that every time we sit down to our food, we are acting in accordance
with an invisible belief system that has shaped our thoughts, preferences,
feelings and behaviors. We aren’t aware of how we have been conditioned to eat
animals without considering the implications of our choices on ourselves or on
others - or to even realize we are making choices at all.
If you eat meat, you need and deserve to know
the truth about carnism so that you can make your choices freely, because
without awareness, there is no free choice.
When we eat animals, we violate our personal integrity. Integrity is the
integration of our values and practices. For most of us, our core value
system does not condone gratuitous violence toward other sentient beings, so
when we consume the products procured by their bodies we are acting in
opposition to our deeper values.
Most of us who have grown up eating meat don’t realize that every time we sit
down to our food, we are acting in accordance with an invisible belief system
that has shaped our thoughts, preferences, feelings and behaviors. We aren’t
aware of how we have been conditioned to eat animals without considering the
implications of our choices on ourselves or on others - or to even realize we
are making choices at all. This invisible belief system, carnism, has created
the illusion that when we eat meat we are making our choices freely. But carnism
is structured to enable humane people to participate in inhumane practices
without realizing what they’re doing, to block our awareness so that we
unknowingly act against our own interests and the interests of others. If you
eat meat, you need and deserve to know the truth about carnism so that you can
make your choices freely, because without awareness, there is no free choice.
How Carnism Impacts You and Your World
Eating is one of the most frequent and meaningful behaviors that we engage
in. Our food choices have a direct and profound impact on our body, our mind,
other humans, billions of animals, and our planet:
- The consumption of animal products is a leading cause of some of the
most serious diseases in the Western world today, including heart disease,
diabetes, and cancer. The American Dietetic Association maintains that a
plant-based diet is both nutritionally sound and likely even more healthful
than a carnistic diet.
- The animal foods that make it to our plates contain dangerous chemicals
including arsenic, ammonia, and mercury; drugs such as synthetic hormones
and antibiotics that may cause drug-resistant infections; pesticides; and
high levels of fecal matter.
- Ninety-nine percent of the meat, eggs, and dairy that the average American
consumes come from CAFOs (concentrated animal feeding operations), in which
thousands of animals are crammed together in filthy and unhygienic
conditions. CAFOs are a leading cause of pandemic flues - including H1N1,
avian influenza, and mad cow disease - and potentially deadly food-borne
illnesses, such as e. coli, salmonella, and listeria.
- Animals whose bodies are used for meat, eggs, and dairy live and die in
misery. They are born into massive, filthy, overcrowded, often windowless,
factories; removed from their mothers shortly after birth; castrated,
debeaked, dehorned, and/or branded without anesthesia; and millions of
females are forcibly impregnated in “rape racks” throughout the course of
their lives. These animals are slaughtered on a relentless disassembly line
whose pace makes it impossible to stun them properly - so that many are
hung, shackled, and “bled” while fully conscious - and, if they survive
bleeding, boiled alive. Virtually every animal-based meal comes from someone
(a sentient being) who lived and died in agony.
- Though scientists have demonstrated that fish and other sea creatures feel
pain, every year billions of these beings - who have been packed into
overcrowded tanks rife with parasites, bacteria, and drugs and chemicals to
control disease - are brutally slaughtered for human consumption.
“Wild-caught” sea animals also suffer immensely, and overfishing is
responsible for the injury or death of nearly 30 million tons of
inadvertently caught sea animals (dolphins, birds, turtles, etc.) annually
and for the fact that 70 percent of the world’s fish populations are either
fully exploited or depleted.
- Animal agriculture is one of the most significant contributors to some of
the most critical environmental problems of the twenty-first century,
including water pollution, deforestation, erosion, species extinction,
oceanic biodiversity destruction, greenhouse gas emissions, fresh water
depletion, and chemical wastes. The United Nations recently issued a report
urging a global shift toward a vegan diet as a key measure to address the
environmental crisis.
- Conditions in U.S. meatpacking plants and slaughterhouses are so dangerous
and abusive that, according to Human Rights Watch, they violate basic human
rights.
- In order to eat the flesh or excretions of a once-living being, we need to
disconnect, psychologically and emotionally, from the truth of our
experience. We need to “numb” our authentic thoughts and emotions, to block
our awareness (i.e., we must think that we’re eating “meat,” rather than a
dead animal) and our empathy for the animal who became our food - and
awareness and empathy are integral to our sense of self.
- When we eat animals, we violate our personal integrity. Integrity is the
integration of our values and practices. For most of us, our core value
system does not condone gratuitous violence toward other sentient beings, so
when we consume the products procured by their bodies we are acting in
opposition to our deeper values.
Carnism is a dominant, entrenched system; for better or worse, we are all
participants in the system. Our choice is not whether we participate, but how we
participate. With an awareness of carnism we can choose to be active witnesses
rather than passive bystanders, informed consumers and empowered citizens. With
awareness we can make choices that are in the best interest of ourselves,
animals, and our planet, and live more authentic and freely chosen lives.
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