The connection between atherosclerosis, heart disease and meat consumption has long been proven by medical scientists. The 1961 Journal of the American Physicians Association stated: “Switching to a vegetarian diet prevents the development of cardiovascular disease in 90-97% of cases.” Along with alcoholism, smoking and meat eating are the main cause of death in Western Europe, the USA, Australia and other developed countries of the world. As far as cancer is concerned, studies over the past twenty years have clearly shown the relationship between meat eating and colon, rectal, breast, and uterine cancers. Cancer of these organs is extremely rare in vegetarians. What is the reason why people who eat meat have an increased tendency to these diseases? Along with chemical pollution and the toxic effect of pre-slaughter stress, there is another important factor that is determined by nature itself. One of the reasons, according to nutritionists and biologists, is that the human digestive tract is simply not adapted to the digestion of meat. Carnivores, that is, those that eat meat, have a relatively short intestine, only three times the length of the body, which allows the body to quickly decompose and release toxins from the body in a timely manner. In herbivores, the length of the intestine is 6-10 times longer than the body (in humans, 6 times), since plant foods decompose much more slowly than meat. A person with such a long intestine, eating meat, poisons himself with toxins that impede the functioning of the kidneys and liver, accumulate and cause over time the appearance of all kinds of diseases, including cancer. In addition, remember that meat is processed with special chemicals. Immediately after the animal is slaughtered, its carcass begins to decompose, after a few days it acquires a disgusting gray-green color. In meat processing plants, this discoloration is prevented by treating the meat with nitrates, nitrites, and other substances that help preserve the bright red color. Studies have shown that many of these chemicals have properties that stimulate the development of tumors. The problem is further complicated by the fact that huge amounts of chemicals are added to the food of livestock destined for slaughter. Garry and Stephen Null, in their book Poisons in Our Bodies, provide some facts that should make the reader seriously think before buying another piece of meat or ham. Slaughter animals are fattened by adding tranquilizers, hormones, antibiotics and other drugs to their feed. The process of “chemical processing” of an animal begins even before its birth and continues for a long time after its death. And although all these substances are found in meat that hits the shelves of stores, the law does not require them to be listed on the label. We want to focus on the most serious factor that has a very negative impact on meat quality – pre-slaughter stress, which is complemented by stress experienced by animals during loading, transportation, unloading, stress from cessation of nutrition, crowding, injury, overheating or hypothermia. The main one, of course, is the fear of death. If a sheep is placed next to a cage in which a wolf sits, then in a day it will die from a broken heart. Animals become numb, smelling blood, they are not predators, but victims. Pigs are even more prone to stress than cows, because these animals have a very vulnerable psyche, one might even say, a hysterical type of nervous system. It was not for nothing that in Rus’ the pig-cutter was especially revered by everyone, who, before slaughter, went after the pig, indulged, caressed her, and at the moment when she lifted her tail with pleasure, he took her life with an accurate blow. Here, according to this protruding tail, connoisseurs determined which carcass was worth buying and which was not. But such an attitude is unthinkable in the conditions of industrial slaughterhouses, which the people rightly called “knackers”. OThe “Ethics of Vegetarianism” essay, published in the journal of the North American Vegetarian Society, debunks the concept of the so-called “humane killing of animals.” Slaughter animals that spend their whole lives in captivity are doomed to a miserable, painful existence. They are born as a result of artificial insemination, subjected to cruel castration and stimulation with hormones, they are fattened with unnatural food and, in the end, they are taken for a long time in terrible conditions to where they will die. Cramped pens, electric goads and the indescribable horror in which they constantly reside – all this is still an integral part of the “latest” methods of breeding, transporting and slaughtering animals. True, the killing of animals is unattractive – industrial slaughterhouses resemble pictures of hell. Shrilling animals are stunned by hammer blows, electric shocks or shots from pneumatic pistols. Then they are hung by their feet on a conveyor that takes them through the workshops of the death factory. While still alive, their throats are cut and their skins are torn off so that they die from loss of blood. The pre-slaughter stress that an animal experiences lasts for quite a long time, saturating every cell of its body with horror. Many people would not hesitate to give up eating meat if they had to go to a slaughterhouse.
2022-11-11