Coquitlam Now
June 23, 2006

Could you kill something? If it meant saving yourself or your family your instincts would probably take over and you would do it without thinking, but could you end a life just to satisfy your stomach?

There are people who can and quite often do, but most of us prefer to have our food killed and prepared before we purchase it. We don’t mind going to the grocery store and picking up a chunk of cow or chicken, but we really don’t want to have to slaughter the poor thing ourselves. We just want to pay for our neatly packaged piece of flesh and indulge our appetite without having to think about where our meal actually came from.

People routinely bake, broil or fry hacked off pieces of animals, but sometimes something happens that makes them realize that the slab of meat on their plate was previously part of a living, feeling creature. When the revelation strikes it makes it all but impossible to continue eating flesh just to appease a rumbling stomach. I know; up until a year ago I was a drooling carnivore who ate so much meat that Noah was prompted to build another ark just to save some animals from my fork.

My perspective changed when I watched a documentary about slaughterhouses. The program wasn’t sensationalized, and was actually quite matter-of-fact boring, but the images of shiny cleavers, blood soaked floors and twitching animals got past my tear soaked eyes and burned into my mind. Knowing I was contributing to the suffering of a living creature simply to satisfy my taste buds made me feel a mix of self-disgust, anger and sadness and the only way to rid myself of the painful emotions was to stop doing the very thing that caused them. At that moment I declared I would no longer eat the flesh of animals. No meat, no fish and no seafood.

Although most people claim they can never give up meat, the transition to a healthier plant based diet is not as challenging as people are lead to believe. You certainly lose a ton of cholesterol and body fat, but you make up for it with increased energy, clarity of thought and a calming sense of peace. Some meat eaters balk at a vegetarian diet and argue that since man stands at the top of the perceived hierarchy he has the right to eat animals simply because he is more advanced and intelligent than his prey. Sounds good, but the argument is flawed because there are people who suffer from developmental challenges or succumb to the mind-ravaging effects of an illness that leaves them with cognition skills inferior to even the simplest animal. Those people are now less advanced than the rest of us. Do we now have a right to prey upon them too?

As a society we are too quick to place value on the species that carries the life instead of valuing the presence of life itself. Animals aren’t inferior, superior, better or worse than us; they are just different. We certainly have different chromosomes, genes and other physical characteristics, but the commonality that unites us all is that we are alive. Life is the greatest miracle we will ever know, and it doesn’t feel right to end one for the sake of a stomach.

Due to past purchases, I still have pieces of animals in my wardrobe and parts of a dead cow are still wrapped around my feet and waist. I share that only because the first thing people ask when they discover I don’t eat animals is whether or not I wear leather. I do, but I have made another realization; skin always looks better on the original owner.

It’s not a case of animal rights against human rights. It’s simply living by the value of respecting all life regardless of race, color or species.

Mike Rogozinski
Port Coquitlam