Persuasive Essay: Stop Eating Beef
Beef consumption has doubled from 1961 to date. In the 1960s beef produced in the year totaled to 28 million tons, whereas in 2014 it was 68 million. The consumption of this meat is anticipated to tremendously increase in the next half a decade (Whitnall & Pitts, 2019). Economic and population growth are the main factors contributing to the increase in consumption. Additionally, beef is preferred than the other types of meat because it boosts body protein, and has health-promoting activities like anaemia prevention as well as it is easy to rear the cattle. But whatever the situation, people should stop eating beef due to its detrimental effects. Eating beef has been shown to affect the environment and health of people negatively. Further, it is advised so due to that the cows are treated inhumanely.
The first reason for persuading people to stop eating beef is because it negatively affects the environment mostly due to that it leads to pollution and a tremendous reduction of resources. The latter effect results because cattle require enormous quantities of food and land in their cultivation. According to PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals), more than 80% and 95% of corn and oat correspondingly are fed to the cattle globally. The quantity of food consumed by cattle alone in the entire world surpasses the caloric need that the whole population of humans in the earth require – roughly 8.7 billion individuals can use the calories fed to cattle. In addition, they state cows require vegetation weighing 2% of their body weight. Overall, this totals to 24 pounds per day. To convert the diet into a pound of flesh, they need vegetation that weighs 16 pounds. In terms of water consumption, generating a pound of meat utilizes 100 times the quantity of water that generates a pound of wheat. Concerning land used for the rearing of cattle (PETA, n.d.), Ritchie in her work of 2017 reports that livestock takes up approximately 77% of global land used for agricultural purposes. However, they generate less than a fifth of the calories needed to meet world supplies. In the report, she further displays the size of land that is required per 100 grams of proteins among numerous food products. The land required for the above quantity of protein for beef and poultry meat production is 163.3 meters squared to 7.1 meters squared respectively. It shows that producing proteins from cattle uses 23 times the land that can produce the same amount of protein with poultry. Other reports have gone ahead to calculate the energy used in making of beef products, and the results are shocking. In PETA’s report (PETA, n.d.), making a single beef hamburger utilizes sufficient fossil fuel that can power a car for 36 km. The second negative effect on the environment is that the rearing of cattle is significantly linked to pollution. Rearing of cattle produces more than 300 different harmful gases. The gases include ammonia, endotoxins, methane, carbon dioxide, nitrous oxide, and hydrogen sulfide. From the United Nations report (United Nation, 2018), the cultivation of cattle leads to a high proportion of greenhouse gases than the transport industry. Human related activities in this rearing process account nearly 10% of carbon dioxide (CO2) that is produced, and 65% of nitrous oxide (it is very lethal than CO2, due to that it scores 296 times than CO2 in the Global Warming Potential). Also, the digestive action of the cattle produces 37% and 64% of methane and ammonia, respectively. Ammonia substantially contributes to acid rains while methane is 23 times lethal than CO2 in causing global warming.
The second reason why people should cease eating beef is due to the inhumane treatment the cows undergo in rearing and slaughtering processes. In the cultivation of cattle, shepherds and ranchers mostly perform several operations to their bodies (Wang & Chan, 2017). For identification purposes, the cows are restrained and marked with the use of superhot irons that are pressed into their flesh. The reason for restraining them is because they bellow in pain and subsequently try to escape. In controlling unwanted mating, the caretakers habitually castrate the male calves and most of the time they do not offer pain reliefs (Wang & Chan, 2017). Another operation that has become a culture for cows being raised for beef is dehorning. Apart from operations, the cows are treated inhumanely as they rarely receive adequate veterinary care. It, in turn, leads to them falling sick or dying from injuries and infections. For instance, during winters, a considerable number of cattle in areas like South Dakota, Wyoming and Nebraska freeze to death, and in summer, heat kills them in Texas and Kansas. During their rearing, the cows are fed on unhealthy diets to fatten them up fast (PETA 2, n.d). The common foods used are corn and grains, which increase the probability of bloating. Filling of gas in the cow’s stomach compresses their lungs and ultimately hinders proper breathing. In others, the stomach acid surges and results to ulcers or in severe situations to acute acidosis. The feedlots maintenance is poor; the air is saturated with methane, ammonia and noxious substances. The impure air causes the cows to develop acute respiratory complications and make breathing excruciating. The inhumane treatment continues in their slaughtering process. Bestowing to PETA, the transportation of cattle to the slaughterhouse is hellish. They are crammed onto trucks and denied the basic needs – water, food and rest. When the journey is lengthy, a significant number of them collapse due to hot weathers and in the cold season many freeze. To wake them up, the workers pock them with crowbars. In reaching the slaughterhouse, the downers – sick and injured cows, which form a high number – are dragged from the vehicles by ropes. Those who are not downers are too frightened to come off the trucks; they are therefore shocked with the use of electric pods. While “Uncooperative animals are beaten, they have prods poked in their faces and up their rectums” (P ETA 2, par 3). After being unloaded, they are shot in the head, but because of several factors – one being poorly trained personnel and high flow – the animals are not made insensible to pain. Even as long as six minutes after slitting their throats, they can move and produce noises.
Finally, the third reason why people should stop eating beef is that it leads to health complications like cancer and diabetes. The relation between cancer and eating beef was carried out by Dr Fran Hu (Wein, 2012). The research encompassed subjects who were free from cancer with the men and women being 37,000 and 83,000, respectively. Through the use of questionnaires, the scientists were able to monitor their feeding habit for four years, on top of collecting information concerning their body weight and non-diet lifestyle. Before the end of the study, approximately 10,000 of them had succumbed from cancer. In analyzing the correlation, it was found out that, individuals who took high degrees of both processed and unprocessed beef had high risks of contracting cancer and consequently dying from it. Further, the study concluded that an additional serving (roughly 1.5 ounces) daily of the processed and unprocessed red meat increases the risk by 20% and 13%, correspondingly (Wein, 2012). On the other hand, substituting beef with other protein sources lowered the mortality risk as far as 19%. On top of increasing the risk of contracting cancer, eating beef has similar devastating effects for diabetes. From a report of Healthline (Gunnars, 2018), several studies have linked diabetes and consumption of beef. One of the studies they highlighted had reviewed 20 pieces of research totaling over one million participants showed a high correlation between the two. Another one pointed out that processed meat is more dangerous than unprocessed (Gunnars, 2018).
Conclusion
From quantitative studies, beef consumption has been increasing drastically since the mid of the twentieth century. Additionally, the increase is projected to continue in the same trend in the coming years due to surge in the population and economy. Because of this transformation, individuals should cease consuming beef because of the multiple adverse effects it has on the environment and people’s health. On top of these, cows are inhumanely treated during the whole process of beef production. The rearing of the beef producers leads to wastage of resources like food crops, water and land, and life-threatening diseases like diabetes and cancers. Also, during their rearing and slaughterhouse their face diabolical conditions. To eliminate all these impacts, it is recommended that people seek proteins and other nutrients in beef from other food products, particularly the farm produce as they offer the same quantities of nutrients. Nonetheless, vitamin B-12 is not found on the farm produces; thus, people can opt for poultry because they have fewer effects on the body and environment.
References
Gunnars, BSc, K. (2018, March 22). Is red meat bad for you, or good? An objective look. Healthline. Retrieved April 20, 2020, from https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/is-red-meat-bad-for-you-or-good#section3
PETA. (n.d.). How does eating meat harm the environment? Retrieved April 20, 2020, from https://www.peta.org/about-peta/faq/how-does-eating-meat-harm-the-environment/
PETA. (n.d.). Cow transport and slaughter. Retrieved April 20, 2020, from https://www.peta.org/issues/animals-used-for-food/factory-farming/cows/cow-transport-slaughter/
Ritchie, H. (2017, October 17). How much of the world’s land would we need in order to feed the global population with the average diet of a given country? Our World in Data. Retrieved April 20, 2020, from https://ourworldindata.org/agricultural-land-by-global-diets
United Nation (2018, December 11). Rearing cattle produces more greenhouse gases than driving cars, UN report warns. UN News. Retrieved April 20, 2020, from https://news.un.org/en/story/2006/11/201222-rearing-cattle-produces-more-greenhouse-gases-driving-cars-un-report-warns
Wang, Y., & Chan, P. (2017). Animal Mistreatment in Business: Ethical Challenges and Solutions. International Business Research, 10(5), 159-168.
Wein, H. (2012, March 26). Risk in red meat? National Institutes of Health (NIH). Retrieved April 20, 2020, from https://www.nih.gov/news-events/nih-research-matters/risk-red-meat
Whitnall, T., & Pitts, N. (2019, November 4). Meat consumption. Department of Agriculture – Home. Retrieved April 20, 2020, from https://www.agriculture.gov.au/abares/research-topics/agricultural-commodities/mar-2019/meat-consumption