Vegetarianism for Heroism

Eating meat is one of those things I do even after knowing its numerous demerits. I don’t know if it’s because of my undying love for chicken or the natural human greed for meat but I do admit that chicken is one delicious meal I can’t keep away from. Many people find it difficult to avoid eating meat especially that we consider meat as a main source of nutrition and moreover the kind of charm there is when we say that “It’s beef, or pork or chicken for dinner.” We-are-so-cruel.

I often have a conflict within myself whether to be a pure vegetarian or just not think about those poor animals slain every now and then for a meal. I once saw a documentary movie on animals who were being slaughtered mercilessly for meat. They were stabbed and butchered like vegetables. Nothing could have saved them from the shiny butcher’s knife which swayed just above their lives. Nothing even if poor dumb animals like them knew their arriving death and shed tears from their eyes which blinked like a dying light. Their unheard cries of pleading disappear with the spilling blood but the butchers pay no mind. They wipe their knife on an already blood-stained cloth piece and prepare the next prey. 

For one time, I had an extreme revulsion and hatred for the butchers but the smarter part of me told me that I am also one of them, a meat lover indeed. That was when I decided to become a vegan, for the first time in my life. I vowed never to eat meat again. My sympathy for the animals rose to the level that I even cared about the ants I’d be stepping onto any minute while walking. For one time, I felt perfectly clean and not contaminated, unpolluted and wise like the elves from the Lord of Rings. But the human mind is incredibly flexible and unsteady; we always excuse and find excuses. I somehow started forgetting about the movie and the effect was ebbing away from my mind. When I no longer felt the sympathy that I did the first time I watched the movie and when I was persuading myself that I’m lacking a lot of nutrition, nothing resisted me from eating meat again. 

Well the same story continued for several times and apparently, I am a carnivore. I feel very bad eating meat and I try not to but I really can’t. I feel like a part of me is missing whenever I ignore a meat dish, I feel weak and not energetic without meat. I know these aren’t so real because there are people who have never tasted meat but still are fit and healthy. Sometimes I can’t live without having meat once a day and that is so awful. But I do agree that being or becoming a vegetarian is one of the kindest action anyone can follow. Vegetarianism is saving lives, saving money. Vegetarianism is heroism.