LaDarius Doaks

Professor Graham
Composition II
Spring 2016

Morality of Eating Meat

Americans have always had Meat included in their diets. In fact, 88 percent of Americans
have never been vegetarians/vegans while 10 percent were once vegetarian/vegan, but converted
back to eating meat. Our pre-historic ancestors from the Stone Age were scavengers and needed
meat to live. Being a vegan or vegetarian and having a plant-based diet is something one has
taught his or herself to do, so not eating meat would be unnatural for humans. Nevertheless, it is
ethical to eat meat. We come from a long line of meat eaters. This is not your everyday bad habit
that you're trying to break. Eating meat should have nothing to do with your morals.
In the Prehistoric era, our ancestors had a heavily plant-based diet. The discovery of meat
not only provided extra nutrients to us, but it helped evolve. Leslie Aiello, an anthropologist,
stated that the brain was the poor stepsister who got the leftovers because meat was not in the
diet (NPR). Meat is full of calories and fat which is essential for the brain to operate successfully
and to its full potential. Eating meat made our ancestors smarter. If our ancestors would have
never eaten meat who knows where we would be. The meat was also important for the
development of infants. Small infants could not fully develop with just a plant-based diet to get
both nutrients for growth energy for brain development.

With that being said, would not eat meat endanger us genetically? Socially? Taking meat
out of your diet would go through the same process of taking anything else, but it will probably
be dire. Our digestive system functions best eating both plants and animals. Going vegan is a
huge change and can sometimes even be more complicated if you are not allowed to eat certain
ingredients, says Jackie Keller, a nutritionist, wellness coach and founder of NutriFit (AARP). It
has been proven that vegan diets do not contain vitamin B12, which is one of our important
nutrient (VRG.ORG). When you choose to take meat out of your diet you also miss out on
Creatine, Carnosine, DHA AND EPA (Authority Nutrition). Creatine forms an energy, Carnosine
functions as an anti-oxidant and provides protection against many degenerative processes and is
only found in animals food. DHA and EPA are the active forms of omega-3 in the human body
and found primarily in animal foods.
Many contribute meat to diseases and diabetes. Meats that are high in saturated fats are
what causes that. Studies now show that saturated fat in the diet has nothing to do with heart
disease. There is a study at Harvard that took data from more the 1,000,000 individuals and
found no association between unprocessed red meat, cardiovascular disease, and diabetes
(Authority Nutrition). The study was also done in Europe and the results were the same. This
case study involved more than 450 thousand people (Authority Nutrition). This proves that not
eating meat is unnatural and can do harm to our health.
The treatment of meat and how it is produced can be morally wrong. I do not think meat
should be factory farmed and the way the animals are treated is horrible. If were taking the lives
of these animals then we should, at least, give the respect they deserve for providing for us and
keeping us satisfied. They should be harvested in an open field and fed properly to keep them
satisfied. Killing the animals in a cruel way is where I think your morals are challenged.

Eating meat has been in our culture since caveman and dinosaurs have walked this earth
together. We cannot blame ourselves for eating meat. This is not something that we can just stop
doing, so it should not affect our morals.

Work Cited

Despair, David. "Evolving Health." Evolution Health. David Despain. BlogSpot.

Web. 10 Feb. 2016.

Ireland, Corydon. "Eating Meat Led to Smaller Stomachs, Bigger Brains." Harvard Gazette.
03 Apr. 2013. Web. 10 Feb. 2016.

Joyce, Christopher "Food For Thought: Meat-Based Diet Made Us Smarter." NPR. NPR.
Web. 10 Feb. 2016.

The University of Colorado Denver "Anthropologist Finds Evidence of Hominin Meat Eating 1.5
Million Years Ago: Eating Meat May Have 'Made Us Human'." Science Daily
4 October 2012.

Beriss, David. "Evolution and Meat." Food Anthropology.

03 Oct. 2010. Web. 10 Feb. 2016.

"The Vegetarian Resource Group (VRG)." The Vegetarian Resource Group (VRG).
21 Sept. 2006. Web. 10 Feb. 2016.