Last night I watched a documentary called Vegucated, and I just
wanted to throw my opinion out there. This film is very well done and is
all about being Vegan. It shows how animals are slaughtered and stored
(it’s really awful and eye opening) - BUT - I think they are completely
missing the point on a lot of current issues regarding what we eat.
This film talks about how we can swap out meat intake with soy
alternatives (soy hot dogs, soy burgers, soy milk) and enjoy pasta,
breads, beans, ect. They even show that Oreo’s are vegan friendly. The
big problem I have with all of this is that A) it seems like this thing
was sponsored by soy farmers and it paid no attention at all to the
phyto-estrogens and the detrimental affect they have on people and B) it
made it seem like you can get all these processed “health” foods and we'll maintain optimal health. Which isn't the case at all. Soy is terrible for you! And there was zero discussion of GMO's. None.
Another thing that bothered me was that it showed the conditions of
chickens in regular egg farms as well as organic egg farms (still bad)
but there was no mention about how wonderful it is to get eggs from
farmers where you can actually see the chickens running around (or even
if you have your own chickens) and they are happy and lovely. I realize
they were trying to say MEAT and ANIMAL PRODUCTS = BAD, but they missed
the mark on other options.
They did highlight that the demand for meat has skyrocketed with our
booming population. People want to consume meats with every meal. More
demand means they need to produce more meat in any way necessary (have
you seen the size of chicken breasts nowadays? Those are genetically
modified chickens! They can’t even walk!). With the demand, animals are
mistreated, medicated, hurt, and slaughtered inhumanely.
I don’t find this particularly necessary or natural. I’m finding that
my paleo plan works the best if I have meat a couple times a week
(after all, I highly doubt that our cave-people ancestors had access to
hunting meat at all times AND I highly doubt that they would have said
no to non-gmo corn, chick-peas, ect). If people of our world did cut
back on the amount of meat we consume, we WOULD have healthier farms and
would be able to care more for the animals that we are going to
consume. I did agree with that part of the movie.
Overall, it was eye opening in regards to regular farming practices
and the cruelty that goes on (again… bawled over here), but there are
farms that do still care for their animals and farms where we can buy
eggs straight from the farmer. It’s our choice as consumers what type of
food we are going to eat. If we all make the right choices, big
business would need to follow our lead.
