3 Reasons Why Eating Meat is Moral

I support people who want to be vegans or vegetarians %100 but I don’t support the claim that meat consumption is inherently immoral. So I've decided to share my top 3 reasons why meat consumption is not only moral but an important piece of who we are.

3.       Meat is Healthy
Growing up many of us were told that meat is unhealthy, it makes people fat and will clog your arteries. Luckily, in recent years the studies which were thought to prove this have been largely debunked* and most all health professionals maintain that animal flesh is actually highly nutritious.* Meat contains high levels of protein, good fats and large amounts of vitamins B3, B6, A, D, K, Iron, Zinc, and Selenium just to name a few.* But by far the most important nutrient to be gotten from animal products is B12 which cannot be found in any vegetable source. B12 is so important that low levels can cause intense fatigue, mental depression, irreparable nerve damage and a myriad of other serious and debilitating symptoms.* So I ask you, how can something necessary for maintaining basic human health be essentially immoral?

2.       Meat is in Our Genes
What might likely be the strongest evidence in favor of meat consumption is that humans have been eating meat for over two millions years. Not only have we been consuming this product for more time than we can fathom, data also suggests that increasing meat consumption allowed early humans to develop a larger brain size and many other important evolutionary traits that we see in modern humans.* The fact that eating animals changed our basic physiology brings a whole new meaning to the phrase you are what you eat. Sure, if a person wants to be vegan all the more power to them, but to say that killing an animal for food is inherently morally unjust is not only contrary to nature it is antithetical to an intrinsic part of our humanity and evolution.

1.       Death is an Important Part of Life
Untold numbers of animals brutally consume each other each day, over 1 million people die weekly from a myriad of painful and excruciating conditions and despite this massive daily blood bath I only attended my first funeral at age 17.  I also never saw a dead body until my mom passed away at 25 and didn’t witness my first animal slaughter until about 1 year later. People in modern society have become extremely detached from death and I believe that this is heavily rooted in our near total alienation from animal slaughter, which used to be a commonly witnessed phenomenon. This extreme separation from death has created a cycle in which our detachment causes fear and disgust, people then push death further away which in turn creates greater and greater fear. Much of the problem I have with the vegan and vegetarian movements is that while teaching people about the horrors of the modern meat business they also intensify people’s ungrounded fear of death. These movements often use propaganda and lies to play on the people’s fears in order to guilt and scare them into a certain lifestyle which only perpetuates this cycle. Truly learning where my meat comes from and participating in the life and death process has helped me not only eat more morally but also to break the cycle of fear in my life. I truly do support individuals who choose to not eat meat but as a society I think it better to try to cope with and understand animal slaughter and consumption rather than reject and demonize this important part of our God given nature.