How It All Vegan, part 2

Pigs were as edible as a bucket full of nails to me. Many people will say outwardly that vegetarians, vegans and environmentalists only care about the "cute" animals, but this is simply not true. Just yesterday I spotted a spider hanging in my shower, and my first instinct was to scoop him up and set him free outside. I didn't hesitate to think about it, I just did it. The thought of taking the shower head and washing him down the drain didn't even occur to me, and I'm glad it didn't.

Humans are animals, but for some reason we are under the belief that we are more relevant than a prairie dog or even our closest cousins - the orangutan. I continued to educate myself through the internet about the different ways our fellow earthlings suffer: Whaling, factory farming, circuses, scientific research. There are literally thousands upon thousands of ways that we exploit animals for our own personal gain, or for what I believe is for our "taste buds." It brings humans pleasure to put a bit of steak dipped in barbecue sauce into their mouths, but I can't help but question whether our taste buds are really worth the suffering of the cow that wound up on my plate.

It is a positive change, taking charge of what you are or are not putting into you mouth for the sake of something you believe in. I was doing well with being a vegetarian until I saw the movie Earthlings, which has changed the way I think about the human race, other animals, the wonderful planet that we live on. I've tried many times to share the movie with others, but all of the responses were the same.

"Oh I don't want to watch that."
"I'd rather not know how the steak became my dinner, thanks."
"I just don't want to know."

At first I was angry with these responses, and I'm still disappointed by them. For me it raised a lot of different questions. Are humans meant to consume to their hearts content but not to listen? Or maybe these responses were because there was a feeling of uncertainty. We know we are doing harm, but it's too frightening to witness the truth and it's more comfortable to be complicit.
The entire thing made me remember an old quote from a great book I read in high school, called Animal Farm by George Orwell.


"Man is the only creature that consumes without producing. He does not give milk, he does not lay eggs, he is too weak to pull the plough, he cannot run fast enough to catch rabbits. Yet he is lord of all the animals. He sets them to work, he gives back to them the bare minimum that will prevent them from starving, and the rest he keeps for himself." - George Orwell, Animal Farm, Ch. 1