Animal Brutality: Is It Offensive to Compare the Holocaust With the Meat Industry?

The Holocaust on your Plate' campaign: Is it offensive to compare the holocaust with the meat industry?

The meat industry has grown worldwide, and that means that animals are the main victims of slaughter. It goes without saying that human life is way valuable as compared to the life of animals. But it is also common sense to understand that human beings are the one supposed to protect animals (Clack, 2015). The superiority of humans over animals is not a ticket to lash out brutality against animals. On the humanitarian point of view, the holocaust cannot be compared with the meat industry, but for the sake of safeguarding the animal life, the tag, the meat industry is as brutal to animals life as the holocaust can be useful. As we pass our condolences to the victims of the holocaust, we do not want to compare them with animals, but the critical point is that the continuous brutality, slaughter, and murder of animals is as bad to the act of the holocaust. In any case, the meat industry is less beneficial to humans as will be discussed below (Doostdar, 2017).

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There are adverse effects of meat diet as there is to a vegetarian diet. What with the disturbing and growing cases of meat-borne illnesses as a result of growing appetite for meat (Sorenson, 2017). One can argue that brutality against animals is not extended to the slaughter of animals that are bred for purposes of meat production. If that is the case, what about the cases of rising options of meat of almost all species of animals such as snakes (to the Chinese), crocodiles and even dogs! The appetite and thereafter consumption of meat have reached very high peaks of all time, being four times as compared with the last 50 years (Gordon, 2017). On the other hand, the number of livestock has tripled the population of humans, reaching up to twenty billion. Since 1961, the population of livestock has increased to 60 percent, according to the Worldwatch Institute. Consequently, the demand for meat has quadrupled. Having said so, let's examine the wastage effects caused by the consumption of meat products.

First, almost five pounds of grain that are fed to livestock for the aim of production of a pound of meat for consumption by people is utter wastage of the limited food resources. Because most parts of the world suffer from hunger and malnutrition, the five pounds of grains could as well do more justice than the one pound of meat (McWilliams, 2015). That is not to mention the amount of land acreage that is going to wastage as a result of dozens of acres that is meant for cattle only. A 10-acre piece of land can support approximately 24 people who grow wheat, 60 growing soybeans, 10 producing corn and two of them keeping livestock, in accordance with, Vagman, a British group (Medoro, 2015). The rising meat demand around the world is taking up millions of productive land that could as well be utilized for the production of grains. Jean Mayer, a Havard nutritionist estimated that the reduction of meat production by at least 10 percent would avail grains that would sustain over 60 million people (Rodriguez, 2016). Regarding water usage, Authors Anne Ehrlich and Paul noted that the amount of water amounting to 60 pounds is needed for growing wheat worth a pound, while approximately 2,500-6000 lbs of water are adequate to produce just 1 lbs of meat (Qiusheng, 2016).

Also, it is important to understand that meat has contributed largely to human ill health. Some evidence suggests that the digestive system of humans is not meant to take up and digest meat. This explains the reason why meat consumption leads to many diseases like hypertension, cancer and heart diseases. Humans have gone further to use a lot of chemicals in the form of medication for purposes of producing more pounds of meat and animal products. All that is consumed by humans and the health consequences boils down again to humans.

The points elaborated above are just a tip of the iceberg, in as far as the consequences of concentrating on meat production and consumption is concerned. Therefore, it is common sense to allude that in as much as protecting the lives of animals, abandoning the practice of massive animal slaughter is as well beneficial to human beings. We will gain more because we would have fought the effects of hunger and famine and at the same time safeguarded our health. Therefore, it will be worthy to at least reduce the rate of meat consumption and opt for other sources of proteins such as grains and honey. That is essential because an average consumer of meat is directly responsible for the slaughter and deaths of close to 2400 animals during his/her lifetime ( Lappe, 2011). Consider the amount of torture and trauma that animals kept and bred for food production go through, in their little-confined housing, feeding and eventually their slaughter. All that is neither visible nor indicated in cans or meat packages sold in the counters of browser stores (Sharma, Thind and Kaur, 2015). The traditional free-range practice of keeping livestock has disappeared, and animal brutality is now normal practice in meat factories. A recent article, 'National Hog Farmer,' provided a recommendation for reducing the normal amount of space that is occupied by one animal, from 8 to 6 square feet with the notion that crowd pigs pay more. Reporting on the 60 Minutes television program, Morley Safer reported the harsh reality pigs go through; limited sunshine, having no materials for lying on such as hay and mud for rolling on. Reports indicate that sows live in small cages that are too narrow for at least making turns around (Smil, 2014). The pigs stay on metals grates with their own waste pushing through the slats that are under them.

Having, therefore, looked at how animals have to go through hell on earth and eventually slaughtered a layperson who happens to be a victim of the holocaust can easily detect their experience with what he/she passed through. Therefore, if the population of people understands the brutal realities of animals in the name of providing chunks of meat on their plates, they would resort to other sources of proteins (Stuart, 2017). In the process, the merciless factories exercising the tortures of the holocaust against the animals would have no market for meat, and they will stop. Therefore, more measures ought to be put in place to safeguard the interest of animals, and since animals cannot pen down or even speak out their grievances, some reasonable humans need to stand up for them.

References

Clack, W., 2015. Call for action against brutality during stock theft: introduction-inbox. Red Meat/Rooivleis, 6(5), p.7.

Doostdar, H.M., Shah, M.H., Sattari, M.H., Doostdar, A.M. and Mamat, M.Z., 2017. A Clean Kill: Tracking the Socio-technological Aspects of Slaughtering Animals in Iran. Anthrozoos, 30(3), pp.373-386.

Gordon, R., 2017. From Pests to Pets: Social and Cultural Perceptions of Animals in Post-medieval Urban Centres in England (AD1500-1900). Papers from the Institute of Archaeology, 27(1).

Lappe, F.M., 2011. Diet for a Small Planet: The Book That Started a Revolution in the Way Americans Eat. Ballantine Books.Mc

Williams, J., 2015. Inside Big Ag: On the Dilemma of the Meat Industry. Virginia Quarterly Review, 91(2), pp.218-222.

Medoro, D., 2015. Weekends at the Mall with a Pig. Speaking Up for Animals: An Anthology of Women's Voices, p.37.

Qiusheng, W., 2016. Thomas Hardy's Animal Poems Seen in the Light of Animal Ethics. In Proceedings of The Fifth Northeast Asia International Symposium on Language, Literature, and Translation (p. 302).

Rodriguez, M.A.J., 2016. A Brief Survey of the Field of Ecofeminism.

Sharma, S., Thind, S.S. and Kaur, A., 2015. In vitro meat production system: why and how?. Journal of food science and technology, 52(12), pp.7599-7607.

Smil, V., 2014. Eating meat: Constants and changes. Global Food Security, 3(2), pp.67-71.Sorenson, J., 2017. The Animal Rights Struggle: An Essay in Historical Sociology.

Stuart, J., 2017. My year without meat [Book Review]. Australian Humanist, The, (125), p.21.