When I started my blog, I had no intention to stop meat or even eat mostly vegan. My aim was to just avoid supporting a brand that supports animal testing and stop there. I started then challenging myself to try to eat meat-free dishes. At the time it was just a challenge and also because I was not a big fan of cooking meat myself. I loved eating meat but I don’t enjoy touching or smelling raw meat while cooking. During the process, I kind of felt like Mrs Lovett cooking her human meat pies in Sweeney Todd. Yeah, I know my mind is a bit crazy. 
So mostly I was eating vegetarian as a challenge and not to have to touch or smell raw meat. Nowadays I probably can ask my husband to cook the meat for me. So why would I want to keep on avoiding meat? One main reason is that I don’t want to support factory farming. If I am not mistaken this kind of farming has been around since the end of WWII and I think it is time that it dies down.
Factory farming as an environmental issue
The factory farming issue can be seen as an environmental issue. The reasons are:
- A large area of land is occupied by animal farms.
- The issue we always hear of CO2 emissions in every aspect of the meat business.
Factory farming as a health issue
You can see factory farming also as a health issue as due to mass production:
- The animals are not treated well, for instance, no space to move, so they are accumulating fat.
- The animals are not fed well, also from a documentary, I had watched I learned that animals are fed food that their stomach can’t digest.
- From a farm museum I recently visited in the Black Forest, I learnt that farming was a tricky trade, as when one animal is sick, the whole herd has to go. Nowadays, to avoid this, and to be able to farm thousands of animals on one farm, animals are injected with loads of vaccines.
All of this fat, undigestable animal food, vaccines all goes into the human who is enjoying his steak. Plus have you ever noticed the pattern in diseases such as Mad Cow Disease or Swine Flu, etc? All caused by factory farming and their vaccinated animals.
Factory farming as an ethical issue
- If you don’t see the above issues as unethical, how about the fact that humans who claim to be superior to animals are killing animals and then saying that even a lion in the wild would kill animals to survive. Does this mean that lions are as superior as humans, or it means that no animal (human or not) is superior?
Opting for biodynamic farming as an alternative to factory farming?
You might suggest to me to opt for biodynamically farmed meat as these farms tend to be careful about how animals are treated and what they are fed. Also, these farms tend to have a small number of animals. To tell you the truth, I did consider it but not for meat. Biodynamic farms, in my opinion, are always better than factory farms. However, my current decision is to keep on avoiding meat completely.
My reason might not convince you but I don’t see it fair to pay a “hitman” for my food. If I am not comfortable killing the animal myself, I don’t see it fair to pay others to do it for me. That is how I see it and I don’t expect you to see things the way I do. I do have a strange way of logic. 
If you happen to be slightly convinced, are you willing to take the Malta Meat Free Week challenge next week?
DISCLAIMER: This is not a paid post.