am i making a difference?

hey guys! i just joined on this site and i'm actually not a vegetarian but i am seriously considering becoming one. the only thing i dont understand is that... well i know that the treatment of animals in the meat industry is completely wrong and no one should support it, but if i stop eating meat, would it really save any animals? i mean, i'm not sure if it would actually change anything much. can someone please tell me how much of a difference i would be making for animals if i go vegetarian? i really need to know because i am making a big decision here.

~sarah

 

Hello and welcome to the site. The meat industries get more money and support from everyone who eats meat and buys from them. This enables them to kill more animals. The more people go vegetarian, the less money these companies and factory farms will recieve--thus lowering supply and demand. If everyone went vegetarian then, of course the meat industry would have no customers or supporters. Therefore, they would not be able to continue their practices. If even one person goes vegetarian, the meat industry will lose some of their business and profits. The average vegetarian saves approximately 95 animals per year. If you want help on becoming vegetarian you definately came to the right forum. Also if you want to disscuss the logistics or anything else about it you can absolutely PM me.
Peace.

 

thank you so much for your help!

 

No problem. And again, welcome!

 

I'll pharaphrase a story I heard a long time ago. An old man was walking along the beach. The beach was covered with starfish who were dying because they had been washed up by the tide. Every so often the old man bent down, picked up a starfish and tossed it back into the water. A young boy stopped and asked him why he bothered. "There are too many of them, you can't throw them all back, it's never going to make a difference." The old man just looked at him and bent to pick up another. As he tossed it into the water he looked at the young boy and said, "It made a difference to that one."

Every time we don't buy cow or pig or chicken or whatever animal, it does make a tiny difference. It means one less animal that will be eaten that day.

Kathi

 

Well put, Kathi! Great story.

I agree wholeheartedly with what's already been said, and I'll add my own bit: I've spent a good deal of time the last few years getting fed up with our civilization. The way our society is arranged and the things we do and go through for the sake of *tradition*,(or more realistically/bluntly, because people don't think enough about their every day activities to think there is a better or more natural way to go about life) I'm a big reader of historical fiction and non-fiction, primitive living guides and so forth, so most of this annoyance as got got more and more fed up just led to me reading more and retreating further and further into a fantasy world where I could concentrate on living day to day and year to year. I would daydream *constantly* about how wonderful it would be to go back in time and not have to deal with this bullshit. Sometime in this last year or so something changed though - clicked for me as a sort of revelation. I"M NOT GOING BACK IN TIME! No matter how much I wish it to be so, it ain't gonna happen. And in the world we live in now, it would be virtually impossible for me to live an entirely primitive lifestyle - or if I did, it wouldn't make any difference in any life except my own - and what good would THAT do the world?

In any case, the point to my ramblings here was that I came to the conclusion that for my life to have a greater meaning than "She woke, she thought, she dreamed, she died" I would have to work with what I've been given. So since that "revelation" of mine, I've taken baby steps toward sufficiency. I honestly don't expect, realistically, to EVERY be fully self sufficient. But I do what I can. Going vegan was one part of this quest to better myself. So has been gardening, handwashing/linedrying of clothes (which I've only just begun in), and opening windows in my "cave" of a house to take full advantage of the light of the sun.

I'm doing what I can in the world I've been given. And it's my belief that I'm not only helping this one animal I might save or my electric bill next month, but the whole world by proxy - because when I take a step I don't do it halfway, and when somebody sees how I live I want them to be inspired to do a little more for themselves.

(Note: I didn't mean for any of this to sound like self-righteous, preachy crap, and I apologize if it came across that way!)