Essay On The Ethics Of Eating Meat

1225 Words5 Pages

About 12,000 years ago, humans transitioned into a period of farming and agriculture. Humans were barely learning the basics in food preservation, as their ancestors had previously relied on hunting and gathering to obtain food. In Sean Hammond's article, he talks about how in the past, the lack of food preservation to transport food for long distances caused serious health issues to people. Some of the issues mentioned in the article include, "…bacteria and fungi rapidly colonize, increase in population, and produce toxic and distasteful chemicals" (Hammond). Soon enough, technological advances brought forth industrial food supplies that transported food all over the place. Because this was so new to people, no one bothered to take into account …show more content…

At first, many people were hesitant to wrap their heads around the fact that the food that was being transported to them from far away could be producing something harmful to the environment. Flash forward a couple of years and environmental impact is now one of the biggest arguments in the debate regarding the ethics of eating meat. Such discoveries are backed up by writers like Brian Henning, who writes about how meat production has negatively impacted the environment locally. In his journal, "Standing in Livestock's Long Shadow: The Ethics of Eating Meat on a Small Planet," Henning mentions how the production of meat has led to a concerning amount of water waste. The alarming rate in which this is occurring has led the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations to believe that by the year 2050, the individuals living in water-stressed populations will rise from 1.5 billion to 3-5 billion (NAO). Unfortunately, meat production is not the only food that pollutes the Earth. Horticulture, the practice of garden cultivation, is not far behind meat regarding pollution. During the 1990's, there was a demand for healthier and more organic foods as consumers became more conscious on what they ate (Fig. 1). Randy Stringer's journal shows how the over-cultivation of Australian land began to contaminate the land with excessive water, fertilizer, and chemical use. Soon enough, environmental problems became linked with the over-farming of Australian land

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