Today I presented vegetarianism to my ethics class. Here are some more links to help people understand factory farming.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Factory_farming
http://www.idausa.org/facts/factoryfarmfacts.html
http://www.humanesociety.org/issues/campaigns/factory_farming/
And a couple of links to vegetarian health
http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/vegetarian-diet/HQ01596
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16441942
I tried to avoid any site that is obviously biased (PETA etc,) and included sites that have good reputations (the humane society, mayo clinic). And for the other side:
http://www.amazon.com/Vegetarian-Myth-Food-Justice-Sustainability/dp/1604860804
Although, I don't think that this book really presents the arguments fairly. Cherry picked statistics and straw man arguments seem to miss the point about animal suffering. Instead she focuses on the quacks (All animals should live, and we should protect animals from each other), and sympathy (animals die in making your lettuce). I don't have a problem with animals dying. They die all the time. I just don't think that humans should inflict unnecessary suffering, which she doesn't seem to give much justice to, and seems to believe that if we all became vegetarians, that we would have need more farmland, rather than less, which even government statistics point out is plainly false.
Tuesday, March 23, 2010
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Thanks for sharing the links! I'm interested especially in the vegetarian health ones, having been a lacto-ovo veggie for 10 years.
ReplyDeleteDid you talk about the ecological aspects of vegetarianism? My own motives are primarily related to health and ecology rather than animal suffering etc. (although I don't like that either). For instance, it seems plausible that many diseases, such as BSE and perhaps things like bird flu and H1N1 as well are related to, or spread via having close contact with animals due to factory farming. And of course there's the CO2 emission debate...
I touch upon the ecological debate. But there is simply so much to present, that I can't possibly stuff it all into one class session.
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