Today whilst driving to my
yoga lesson, I found myself held up by a slow-moving truck. As I looked up to
process the truck in more detail, I saw countless chickens staring back at me.
The cages were stacked on top of each other and side by side filling the whole
truck. There were hundreds of the poor things sitting there, all squashed in
with barely space for them to breathe.
As I
continued behind this truck I found myself distracted, thinking about the
chickens. At first I acknowledged that, at least the truck was driving slowly,
taking care because chickens were on board. But then it dawned on me that these
chickens were probably being taken to slaughter. My heart sank. The thought
troubled me and I felt like I wanted to help the chickens. I wanted to stop the
truck, open the cages and set them free. But instead, I sat there powerless.
And as I came to a roundabout, the truck drove off in one direction and I in
the other.
Thoughts
of the chickens have stayed with me. Hundreds of thousands of chickens get
slaughtered every day. They haven't done anything to deserve it. It just breaks
my heart.
I
don't eat chicken. Or any other meat. Or fish. It hasn't always been the case. Whilst
I was a vegetarian as a teenager and should have stayed true to my intuition, I
did return to eating meat for many years. But one day, I just couldn't do it anymore.
One day I decided that nothing needs to die for me to live.
I've
heard the arguments of evolution, nature's cycle of the food chain and was even
fooled for a while believing we were doing them a favour by 'giving them life'
because they wouldn't come here otherwise. But the conditions that most of
these animals are kept in is appalling. It's not a life. They are not living.
Some animals in animal agriculture never see sunlight. Some only get to live
outside but have their heads stuck between bars and can barely move. It's all
about cost saving at the animal’s expense.
Whilst
I admit, I am wholeheartedly an animal lover and I don't believe they should be
born into this world unless it is to live a fulfilled life, there are now many
other reasons being revealed as to why eating both meat and fish everyday
doesn't work! Consumption of meat has been linked to Cancer, the carbon
footprint of animal agriculture is hugely responsible for destroying our planet
and our oceans are emptying out, hugely impacting the ecosystem.
For
more info, please visit www.cowspiracy.com
There
are also several documentaries that you can watch to better educate yourself
such as Earthlings, Cowspiracy, Meat the Truth, Forks Over Knives, Food That
Kills, The End of The Line, Sea The Truth, Shark Water and more.
You
don't have to stop eating meat to make a difference. Whilst this is the ideal
solution to the problem, there are a lot of meat lovers out there that cannot
bare the thought of not eating meat. But, simply by reducing your meat
consumption, you will make a difference to both your health and the health of
the planet. One veggie day a week is all it takes. And, you can support
projects such as Supermeat who are working to produce
meat without killing animals! In addition, by eating Organic meat, you are
supporting animals to live better quality lives.
Together,
we are much louder, together, we are much stronger, together, we can change the
world!
In
honour of the beautiful chickens being slaughtered tonight, I'm so sorry I
couldn't save you but I hope writing this post may help your cause. 💜
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