"About one million animals are slaughtered for food every hour in the US"

Gluttony is one of the seven deadly sins, however many people in the states seem to forget this. Considering how important religion is to so many people in this country you’d think they’d put aside their own gluttony in order to save the  lives of animals. We need to go back to the days of raising and slaughtering your own animals because the disconnect between people and their food is ridiculous. We slaughter more than the entire population of the world in chickens every year and most of us have never even seen one in person. It is so easy to eat food when you don't know where it comes from or how it was made. I find myself more and more disgusted by meat on a daily basis, the more I learn about the treatment of animals and the conditions of these meat plants the less I want to consume meat. Another problem I have noticed is a lot of people also don’t prepare their own food. I know plenty of people who eat meat and love it but won’t prepare it or touch it when it comes down to dinner. It just seems a bit cowardly to me to not even give this animal that we’ve killed the respect of preparing it yourself. Of course it is not realistic to expect every human being to raise their own meat but there definitely needs to be more education on how and where food comes from. 

I believe there are ethical ways to consume meat and to go about farming it. Meat should be more of a treat or a luxury considering how much work has to go into producing it. These farm animals should at least be able to live a good full life before we consume them. A Lot of calories and resources are wasted trying to keep up with the demand for meat globally and I feel it's selfish to continue to take the stance of eating meat just for the fun of it. 

There are so many negative consequences to eating and farming meat that they outweigh just about any argument in favor of it. Along with animal cruelty comes climate issues caused by their emissions, less fresh water and food for people, stronger microorganisms due to antibiotics, increased chances of colorectal cancer and heart disease, i could go on but the point is that our infatuation with meat is bad for everyone, even ourselves. Making the switch to a more plant based diet is necessary for the survival of future generations and I hope through better education and government intervention we can start getting people to eat more healthy and sustainably, because there are ways to eat meat and fish sustainably if only we’d take the time and money to invest in these solutions.