The Benefits of the Ethical Treatment of Livestock Outweigh the Disadvantages

Thanks con! And... my final arguments! III. Quality of Meat While this is a small benefit, I will mention it anyway. It turns out that when livestock are stressed before slaughter, it negatively affects the quality and taste of their meat. As far as transporting animals goes: "Long journeys are undoubtedly stressful and if the animals are killed before they are recovered, they will have higher than normal ultimate pH values." Things like weather and amount of food livestock received before slaughter could also negatively affect the quality of the meat. [1] IV. Effects of Animal-product Consumption *Now* we're going to address why producing fewer (1-2 billion fewer) livestock animals would be okay. 1. Meat & Cancer "When cancer researchers started to search for links between diet and cancer, one of the most noticeable findings was that people who avoided meat were much less likely to develop the disease. Large studies in England and Germany showed that vegetarians were about 40 percent less likely to develop cancer compared to meat eaters. In the United States, researchers studied Seventh-day Adventists, a religious group that is remarkable because, although nearly all members avoid tobacco and alcohol and follow generally healthful lifestyles, about half of the Adventist population is vegetarian, while the other half consumes modest amounts of meat. This fact allowed scientists to separate the effects of eating meat from other factors. Overall, these studies showed significant reductions in cancer risk among those who avoided meat. In contrast, Harvard studies showed that daily meat eaters have approximately three times the colon cancer risk, compared to those who rarely eat meat." [2] Cause for concern? Yes. Cancer kills over 5.7 million people each year in the US. [3] It is the second leading cause of death in the US. 2. Heart Disease Heart disease would be the first leading cause of death in the US. It kills nearly 6 million people each year. [3] Since Atherosclerosis is the most common cause of heart disease, [4] the amount of meat consumed should be taken seriously. Atherosclerosis: "It occurs when fat, cholesterol, and other substances build up in the walls of arteries and form hard structures called plaques... We absorb cholesterol from meat, dairy products and other animal foods..." [5] I understand that consumption of animal products is only one risk factor, but it's still a huge part of many people's diet. One should consider how huge it should be. For instance, "A recent infographic... found that Americans eat at least 12 ounces of meat per day, almost 50 percent more than the recommend daily amount." [6] 3. Economic impact "Now, for the first time, we know how much our national meat habit is costing us: Roughly 414 billion dollars annually in external health, environmental, and animal welfare costs, according to a superbly researched new book, Meatonomics, by California attorney David Robinson Simon." [7] Reviewing the first two leading causes of death, alone, in the US should explain why health costs would go up. 4. Environmental impact The article I will cite says it best: "A new report published in the journal Climatic Change compared greenhouse gas emissions attributable to more than 55,000 meat-eaters, fish-eaters, vegetarians and vegans in the U.K. The researchers found that meat-eaters' dietary greenhouse gas emissions were twice as high as vegans'. The production, transportation and storage of food greatly contributes to emissions, the study points out. These emissions range from carbon dioxide related to fossil fuels used to power farm machinery, to the methane released by livestock. Animal-based products tend to release more emissions than plant-based products due to the methane animals can produce and the inefficiencies in growing livestock feed. "Reducing the intake of meat and other animal based products can make a valuable contribution to climate change mitigation," the report concluded. Past research showed similar results. A study in April found that annual agricultural carbon emissions could be reduced up to 90 percent by 2030 with agriculture adjustments, including a reduction in global beef consumption." [8] Rebuttals: 1. "For example, organic meat producers themselves confirm that organic meat is substantially more expensive than "regular" meat." - I don't disagree with this. However, it's irrelevant as the debate is about the ethical treatment of livestock, not about organic meat. Organic beef livestock, for example, has to be the following: "-Never receive antibiotics -Never receive growth-promoting hormones -Are fed only certified organic grains (corn is a grain) and grasses -Must have unrestricted outdoor access" [9] The source I cited when I defined the ethical treatment of livestock does not say anything about livestock being fed only organic food. Organic food is more expensive (I feel this is common knowledge, so I won't cite it), so we should expect organic meat to be more expensive. 2. I agree that the population rate is overwhelming, but I'd also like to point out that according to a 2012 paper, as much as 40% of food is thrown out each year. Earlier, "In the United States, 31 percent-or 133 billion pounds-of the 430 billion pounds of the available food supply at the retail and consumer levels in 2010 went uneaten." [10] If this much food is thrown out per year, I feel it's fair to assume that there's an overproduction of food at least in some parts of the world. Therefore, I will assume it's not necessary to produce as much animal products as are produced now. So much food is thrown out that it has demonstrated that we simply need to more effectively use/distribute our resources. Furthermore, if the population continues rising, animal products won't be the only limited resource. Reducing population size is an issue on its own that cannot simply be addressed by saying, "We need more." I also found an interesting article that said, "Not only does meat cost a lot to produce (and even buy), it also hurts our environment. In fact, one 2011 study found eating less meat could double the world's food supply." [6] That's rather astounding. 3. "The intensive farming setting also reduces food turnaround times, poultry chickens which used to take several months to bring to rear now only take 5-6 weeks to be of age of slaughter." I will refer to my previous argument. If small percentage more of the country took hand in farming, the amount of animal products will still be significant. e.g. Production of chickens can still easily be in the billions. A 1-2 billion difference can contribute to the benefits I made in my fourth main point. 4. I'm not arguing that antibiotic use in livestock is immoral, but that factory-farms overuse and abuse antibiotics to the point it becomes a danger for people. "Yet another study has reinforced the idea that keeping animals in confinement and feeding them antibiotics prophylactically breeds varieties of bacteria that cause disease in humans, disease that may not readily be treated by antibiotics." "Some of this resistance comes from overuse in humans, but there's increasing evidence that resistance is being bred in animals that are a) raised in confinement and b) given antibiotics routinely. We want to know, of course, whether these bacteria move from animals to humans. Of particular concern is one called MRSA ST398, or "livestock-associated MRSA." MRSA [2] is shorthand for Methicillin (a type of antibiotic)-resistant Staphylococcus aureus." [11] [1] http://www.meatupdate.csiro.au... [2] http://www.pcrm.org... [3] http://www.cdc.gov... [4] http://www.mayoclinic.org... [5] http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov... [6] http://www.huffingtonpost.ca... [7] http://www.huffingtonpost.com... [8] http://www.huffingtonpost.com... [9] http://en.wikipedia.org... [10] http://endhunger.org... [11] http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com...