[Inquirer.net - opinion]

I’M not as daring as those sexy sirens wearing lettuce (and only
lettuce) while advocating vegetarianism. Nor am I as extreme as those
dye-dousers preying on fur-clad supermodels. You won’t even see me
hugging centuries-old trees in defiance of chainsaw-lugging loggers.

But what I do, and have been espousing for over a decade now, probably
takes as much guts as those much-publicized environmental stunts.
That’s because I, an average Filipino citizen making ends meet on an
average urban salary, have taken the dietary course less taken. ...
...
Once and for all and for the record, I henceforth convey this answer:
I have become a vegetarian to help end the following:

1. Animal genocide, or the endless cycle of violence and pain
inflicted by humans upon millions, even billions, of cruelly treated
livestock. Spend just one minute inside a slaughterhouse during a
killing spree, and try not to flinch as you hear pigs crying in fear
and pain. Try and look at a dying cow’s eyes, and it’s impossible not
to see terror in their final gasps for breath. Pity the chickens:
after being crammed mercilessly into wire mesh transports, their beaks
are cut off just before their throats are slit. Utter heartlessness.

“On today’s factory farms, animals are crammed by the thousands into
filthy windowless sheds, wire cages, gestation crates, and other
confinement systems. These animals will never get to feel the warmth
of the sun on their backs or breathe fresh air until the day they are
loaded onto trucks bound for slaughter,” Bruce Friedrich writes in his
“Top Ten Reasons to go Vegetarian.”

2. Animal revenge. There is a reason doctors ask us to go easy on meat
when we’re diagnosed with chronic lifestyle diseases such as heart
disease, stroke and cancer. When you gorge yourself on animal
products, there’s no telling what chemical cocktails come with it.
...
3. Poverty on a global scale. Yes, believe it or not, as more humans
eat more flesh, more humans will actually be the poorer for it. Food
experts have observed that the meat-eating habits of the wealthy
around the world support a world food system that diverts food
resources from the hungry. About one third of the world’s total grain
harvest is fed to cattle and other livestock, while as many as a
billion people suffer from chronic hunger and malnutrition, according
to Jeremy Rifkin in his book “Beyond Beef,” quoting data from the
United States Department of Agriculture and the World Bank.
...
“Every time you eat a hamburger, you are having a relationship with
thousands of people you never met. Not just people at the supermarket
or fast food restaurant but possibly World Bank officials in
Washington DC, and peasants from Central and South America. And many
of these people are hungry. The fact is that there is enough food in
the world for everyone. But tragically, much of the world’s food and
land resources are tied up in producing beef and other livestock-food
for the well-off, while millions of children and adults suffer from
malnutrition and starvation...”

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full story:
http://showbizandstyle.inquirer.net/sim/sim/view/20090606-209164/Eating-for-the-Planet