Pacifying the Dinner War

Ladies and gentlemen, good day. I am here to talk to you about a very serious topic. Veggies. No, really. I'm here to address a growing problem about that stick of celery caught between your teeth. 

Well actually it's a problem on how to SOLVE a problem  about that stick of celery caught between your teeth .

It cannot be denied that one of the main issues that need to be addressed by the government should be that of the environment and its degradation. Not only is addressing these issues necessary, but the measures that need to be taken in order to achieve a sustainable environment should be done to cater to short-term and long-term effects on the key players of this debacle: the Environment (this includes those that breathe and those that don’t) and Mankind. Which is exactly why I personally think that vegetarianism is NOT the most necessary, most beneficial and most practicable solution to this problem. 

You see, eco-activists are now trying to bash the non-vegan population into destruction. They say that the BEST way to save the world is to go veggie. And go veggie 100%.

oh yes. Yes, indeed.

Okay, conceding to that fact that yes, Vegetarianism may have a one-two hit on the meat production industry (which is also now one of the biggest contributors to greenhouse gases), but it just doesn’t solve the problem. It only sweeps it under the rug. 

See, the problem here is NOT that a lot of us patronize meat products---as that is natural for us, omnivores---but rather, the problem is that we patronize meat producers that utilize methods that are contributing to the destruction of the environment. We need to fix THAT and NOT the dietary preferences of the population. In other words, the more viable universal solution is not VEGETARIANISM, but rather RESPONSIBLE CONSUMERISM.

Why should we then tackle the mentality of the consumers and not the producers directly? Simple. Because even if we successfully topple down these companies, the patronage of the consumers towards their products will not die. They will still clamor for similarly-manufactured products. We don’t destroy the mentality, rather we worsen it as it will make these consumers realize that they WANT the product and they will fight tooth and nail to get it back. 

And we all know that for most companies, “the customer is always right.”

And they are darn serious about it.

Which is why, what the government should focus on is to change the product preference of these consumers to more environmentally-responsible companies, as this avoids drastic (and often disadvantageous) paradigm shifts for the people AND at the same time, indirectly making them more responsible and contributive to the improvement of the environment. 

Furthermore, if the government successfully channels the priority of its citizens towards the more eco-friendliness of the products they are buying, whether it may be through information drives, massive forums and extensive promotion, this then gives an implicative incentive for the non-eco-friendly companies to become more responsible with their processes. For when they see that the market becomes more inclined to buying beef that’s not produced by mass breeding (which causes massive methane production); they then see that the most practical thing to do on their part is to be more eco-friendly. The “villains” then try to level the market field by treating the earth better. In short, since for these companies, the customer is always right, the government should make the customer buy right because from that, the companies then do right.

On another note, VEGETARIANISM is frankly NOT the most practicable thing to do. Extending from the previous point wherein channeling the dietary preferences of the people to a more eco-responsible aspect is easier than having them change their diet totally, we focus then on the fact that vegetarianism is something that cannot be done overnight. 

Especially when the average human eats like a baby whale

Humans, by nature, are omnivores. Meaning we are built to take in both meat and greens. Vegetarians however, choose to eat only vegetables. And coming from a nature that dictates you to have some sort of meat in your diet, it would take a large amount of dedication and perseverance to have your diet isolated to vegetables. That’s why going vegan is NOT for everyone. We cannot demand the same amount of effort from everyone because the decision to eat ONLY greens is an organic choice. It has to come from the heart of the individual. Yes, vegans and their dedication to their advocacy deserve a resounding applause, but that doesn't mean we can take away someone’s right to choose what he wants to eat and what he DOESN’T want to eat.

We do not want to force our people to give up their love for meat. Let them eat meat all they want. From my previous argument, It has been established that it is INDEED possible to let them continue eating their beef steaks and save the earth at the same time.

Finally, the whole idea of having the whole of mankind eat only vegetables does more harm than good. Nature has remained sustainable because of a balance created by the food chain. First-order consumers eat the producers, second-order consumers eat the first-order consumers, and so on. All organisms have something to contribute in this chain, and an imbalance in this causes the endangerment of the massively consumed entity. Which then leads us to the idea that if we have everyone completely exclude the consumption of meat in their diet, we endanger the crops that get over-consumed and also face the problem of having these livestock, which are no longer eaten, become additional consumers to these already endangered crops. We soon are left with no crops at all. And the balance would then disappear. 

Also, be reminded that these crops are contributors to the consumption of carbon dioxide in our atmosphere. If we lose them to over-consumption, we lose our carbon sinks. We then have bigger problems at hand: we force ourselves to eat the meat again, which is what the government is trying to avoid with their proposition, and we become slowly suffocated by the increase of CO2 in our air. From that analogy, it can clearly be seen that the idea of having Veganism (as the main solution to global warming and the like) as counter-intuitive, impractical and non-doable at the very least.

So with that, Ladies and Gentlemen, I hope that I have proven enough to you that in order for us to really solve this problem we have with Mother Earth, we need to solve it at the very source of it all: Mankind’s abuse. We abuse the environment by processing these products in methods that are negligent of its consequences so we need to fix THAT---and not our diet.

We were built to eat vegetable AND meat. So let’s embrace that. Improve our consumer mindset and NOT our food choices. So at the end of the day, we say YES to the vegans, YES to the Omnivorous and YES to the meat-eaters. Why fight when we can all harmoniously live together?

Bazinga.