Vegetarian-turned-Omnivore: I raise meat because I love animals
Jenna Woginrich, vegetarian turned sheep rancher, shares her experience on why and how she converted to omnivorism. The entire article is wonderful, but here are highlights:
- When I found out I was surrounded by so much grass-fed meat and wild game it seemed ridiculous to keep eating tofu shipped in diesel rigs from California. Since my reasons for being a vegetarian were entirely about avoiding factory-farmed meat: I decided it was time to start supporting the farmers who were raising animals the way I wanted them raised.
- If every carnivore stopped eating its prey there would be nothing short of chaos and destruction to the entire system. This is a system that has been working for quite some time. … Our choice should not be “what” we eat, but “how” we eat.
- Growing food this way has forced me to live every day like it might be my last. If I love someone: I tell them. If I can give money, or time, or energy to make someone else’s life easier: I do. It has made me more compassionate in ways I could never imagine.
- Every dollar that goes into clean meat shows the folks making decisions about animal welfare in agri-business that people are appalled and distressed at the factory farm model. That we will no longer stand for assembly-line death and bacteria-filled carcasses. Until they notice their wallets getting thinner—and the organic meat sections growing larger in Wal-Mart—millions of animals will continue to suffer.
- A vegetarian’s money does support sustainable agricultural and sends a big message to the Conventional Vegetable and soybean business, but keeping your money out of the hands of small meat farmers isn’t making a dent in the treatment of those factory farm animals you are protesting.
(Source: The Huffington Post)
