Seven Reasons
Christians Should Be Vegetarian
“Animals are God's
creatures, not human property, nor utilities, nor resources, nor commodities,
but precious beings in God's sight... Christians whose eyes are fixed on the
awfulness of the crucifixion are in a special position to understand the
awfulness of innocent suffering. The Cross of Christ is God's absolute
identification with the weak, the powerless, and the vulnerable, but most of
all with unprotected, undefended, innocent suffering.”
—Rev.
Andrew Linzey
1. Jesus' message is one of love and
compassion, yet there is nothing loving or compassionate about factory farms
and slaughterhouses, where billions of animals live miserable lives and die
violent, bloody deaths.
Jesus mandates
kindness, mercy, compassion, and love for all God's creation. He would be
appalled by the degree of suffering we inflict on animals to indulge our
acquired taste for their flesh.
Animals are sentient creatures,
capable of loving us or fearing us. God created every animal with the capacity
for pain and suffering. Most people are unaware of the unspeakable mental and
physical torture that factory farmed animals suffer their entire lives. Indeed,
most people are duped by television commercials of “happy cows” in large, empty
pastures under sunny blue skies. The truth, however, is that family farms are
now a thing of the past, and on today's factory farms, animals routinely
undergo all sorts of painful procedures, being de-horned, de-beaked with a hot
iron, branded and castrated without anesthesia. Physical
mutilations, such as chopping off toes, tails, etc. are routine husbandry
practices in modern factory farms. These painful surgical procedures such as castration
and de-horning are performed without anesthesia or a local analgesic on
billions of farmed animals each year. That they are feeling pain is evident as
the animals scream and cry and squirm in pain.
These animals do not
spend their life roaming free in the barnyard, as they once did. Today,
virtually all of the meat we eat comes from factory farms in which animals
spend their lives suffering atrocious conditions. In the 21st century, eating meat is cruelty towards animals. Ten
billion animals live short, unhealthy and unnatural lives of confinement and
suffering and are then slaughtered for meat every year in the
Male chicks are useless
to poultry and egg farms and are sorted and thrown in garbage bags, to die of
suffocation or crushed under the weight of hundreds of other chicks.
Veal is created by
placing calves in a pen only as big as they are, where they cannot even turn
around. Separated from their mother at birth, they are deprived of all sunlight
and not allowed to ever walk, thus creating no muscle tone. Since male calves
are useless to dairy farms, they are turned into veal. Thus, if you consume
dairy, you are supporting veal. All this is out of order in God’s design. God
designed chickens to build nests and raise their families; he designed pigs to
root in the soil; he designed all animals to breathe fresh air, to play with
one another. Besides being horribly abused, animals raised for meat are denied
everything God designed them to be and to do.
Jesus said the father
notices when a sparrow falls unnoticed to the ground.[1]
Luke quotes Jesus as stating that even though sparrows are bought and sold for
pennies, “not one of them is forgotten” by God.[2]
Do you think he would ever approve of the intense suffering that factory-farmed
animals endure? The question isn’t “what did Jesus eat when he was on earth,”
but rather, “What would Jesus eat now?”
We are explicitly told
that “Whatever you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of
God.”[3]
Proverbs
2. God made us vegetarian. The Garden of Eden, God's perfect world, was
vegetarian. In God’s coming kingdom, the earth will once again return to God’s
original design.
When God created Adam
and Eve, he specifically outlined their diet as well as that of animals: “I
have provided all kinds of grain and all kinds of fruit for you to eat; but for
all the wild animals and for all the birds I have provided grass and leafy
plants for food.”[5]
He then called this ideal and non-exploitative relationship “good.”[6]
There followed many
years of fallen humanity, when people held slaves, waged war, ate animals and
committed various other violent acts—all not a part of God’s design. God did
not abandon his people because they wouldn’t do things his way. He worked with
them and gave them object lessons along the way. When he brought them out of
Egyptian slavery, he gave them manna, which was vegetarian. David called manna,
“angel’s food”, but the Israelites complained, “If only we could have some
meat! In
God had told the people
that they would not need to wage war to conquer the promised land, but that he
would send the forces of nature to slowly drive the inhabitants of the land out[11].
There are notable examples of times when they actually trusted him and allowed
him to conquer their enemies for him. When they chose to fight, God gave them
specific instructions on the manner in which to conduct themselves in war.
However, this is certainly not God placing his “stamp of approval” on war and
their lack of trust in him.
One installed in the land,
God declared himself
When God himself came
to earth in human form, the Pharisees basically told him that “God obviously
approves of divorce, because he told us how to do it.”[12]
Jesus’ reply was, “Moses gave you permission to divorce your wives because
you are so hard to teach. But it was not
like that at the time of creation,”[13]
and during this encounter he had gone to God’s original design by stating, “In
the beginning the Creator made people male and female, and God said, ‘for this
reason a man will leave his father and mother and unite with his wife, and the
two will become one.’... No human being must separate, then, what God has
joined together.”[14]
In following Christ’s
example, shouldn’t Christians be asking, “What was God’s original design for
our diets?” rather than pointing to Bible texts where God worked with his
rebellious children? God’s ideal and original design is that humanity be vegan.[15]
While he worked with rebellious humanity and gave us permission to eat certain kinds of meat killed in a specific manner[16],
it is no more evidence that he approves of eating meat than his direction to
The prophets tell us
that in the peaceable coming kingdom will be non-violent and vegetarian. Even
the lion will lie with the lamb. Man an even the animals will return to God’s
original design[17]
of vegetarianism[18],
as there will be no death[19].
Some try to spiritualize the kindgom away, but the Bible teaches that we will
be real people[20]
doing real things—planting vineyards and trees, eating and drinking[21],
building houses[22].
There is nothing
non-violent about the senseless torture and slaughter of animals in factory
farms. Jesus is the Prince of Peace, who will usher in this new world of
nonviolence. There will be no factory farms and slaughterhouses in heaven or on
the new earth. When Christians pray, “Your will be done, on Earth as it is in
heaven”[23]—the
one prayer given to us by Jesus—this obligates us to change our lives, to make
choices that are as merciful and loving as possible.
3. A vegetarian diet is good for you. We are
under obligation to preserve our health, to glorify God in everything we do,
and to reach the world with the Gospel.
We are told in that our
bodies are “the temple of the Holy Spirit,”[24]
and that “if any man defile the
A 20-year study
conducted at
John expresses that God
is as interested in our physical health as he is our spiritual condition:
“Beloved, I wish above all things that thou mayest prosper and be in good
health, even as thy soul prospereth.”[30]
Indeed, whatever affects the body has a corresponding effect on the mind and
soul, because our minds and souls are intricately tied to our physical bodies.
You can’t effectively share the gospel with someone who is under the influence
of alcohol or drugs. When someone is in extreme pain, their thinking and
reasoning and acceptance abilities are greatly affected and hindred. When
Daniel and his companions chose a vegetarian diet[31]
in Babylonian captivity, God blessed them and in just 10 days “they looked
healthier and stronger than all those who had been eating the royal food.”[32]
We live in a world
where we are no longer dying from unpreventable causes, but by what are termed
“lifestyle illnesses”, such as heart disease and diabetes. Heart disease is the
#1 cause of death in the
Breast and Prostate Cancer
A woman who eats meat
daily is at 3.8 times higher risk of breast cancer than women who eat it less
than once a week. Similarly, a woman who eats eggs daily compared to once a
week is 2.8 times higher, 3.25 times higher for women who eat butter and cheese
2-4 times a week. The increased risk of ovarian cancer in women who eat eggs 3
or more times per week versus one who eats them less than once a week is 3
times higher. As regarding osteoporosis, the average measurable bone loss of
female meat-eaters at age 65 is 35%, whereas it is 18% for female vegetarians
at age 65.
Men are certainly not
exempt. The increased risk of fatal prostate
cancer for men who consume meat, cheese, eggs and milk daily versus sparingly
or not at all is 3.6 times higher. Men who consume large amounts of dairy
products have a 70% increased risk for prostate cancer.
Asthma
A
vegan diet also has many benefits. Dairy products have been shown to
cause many health problems in people and especially children. Notmilk.com
believes that at least 50% of children in the
Vegetarians have 40
percent less cancer mortality and are less likely to suffer from strokes,
obesity, appendicitis, osteoporosis, arthritis, diabetes, and food poisoning.
Drugs, Hormones and Pesticides
Drugs and hormones are
routinely used on farms. Factory farmers routinely add antibiotics to animal
feed to prevent the spread of disease and hormones to induce growth. The use of
antibiotics in farm animals that are not sick causes an increase in
antibiotic-resistant bacteria that jeopardizes human health. Antibiotic
resistance has been called one of the world's most pressing public health
problems. Antibiotic resistance can cause significant danger and suffering for
children and adults who have common infections, once easily treatable with
antibiotics.
In addition to drugs
and hormones, meat is full of pesticides. Farmed animals are eating
pesticide-laden grain, and pesticides then collect in the animals' flesh such
that meat contains accumulations of pesticides and other chemicals up to 14
times more concentrated than those in plant foods. Meat supplies 55% of the
pesticide residues in the
The major source of
pesticide residues in the western diet are meat, poultry and dairy products.
The breast milk of 99% of
One alarming way these
pesticides in our food supply is affecting us is by causing male sterility. In
1950, only 0.5% of male college students were sterile, but the percentage in
1978 had climbed to 25%. The sperm count of the average American male decreased
30% in the last 30 years. The principle reason for male sterility and sperm
count reduction in
Among other health
problems, excessive meat consumption is also linked to colon cancer. Americans
consume in average double the amount of protein required by the body. This
lowers the levels of calcium[34].
The body acquires it from the bones, weakening them and causing stereoclorosis.
Other health problems
are a result of extra hormones injected into cows to produce milk, which may be
linked to breast and uterus cancer in women and prostate cancer in men.
Furthermore,
It is not even
appetizing to think about the filth and disease in animal products. They are
all tainted with feces and bacteria. 80% of pigs have pneumonia at slaughter.
90% of chickens have chicken cancer at slaughter. Ilness and death by
salmonella, campylobacter, e. coli, listeria and other bacteriological forms
are in most cases transmitted by tainted animal products[35].
This is not even taking into consideration Mad Cow Disease. Furthermore,
variants of mad cow disease have been identified in sheep, mink, elk, deer, and
cats. Thus, anything with a brain—chicken, fish, pigs, turkeys—are at risk.
When people eat infected animals (thus far presumed to be cows), they could
develop the human version of the disease, new variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease
(nvCJD).
God has set in place
certain laws of health in motion. They are written by the finger of God on
every fibre and muscle of our bodies, and they are just as sure as the law of
gravity. It is sinful presumption to live unhealthful lifestyles and then
expect God to heal us if we get sick as a result of our own doing. The Spirit
of God inspired Solomon to write, “The curse causeless shall not come,”[36]
reiterating the foundational law of God’s universe that we reap what we sow[37].
Thus, we are to discipline our bodies and bring them into subjection.[38]
In Romans 12:1, Paul implores, “I urge you, brothers, in view of God’s mecy, to
offer your bodies as living sacrifices,
holy and pleasing to God—this is your spiritual act of worship.”[39]
4. The earth does not belong to us; it belongs
to God. We are his stewards and are responsible for preserving his creation. A
vegetarian diet uses the resources God has provided in the wisest fashion.
The solemnity with
which God views the destruction of the environment is seen in Revelation, which
states that God is coming to “destroy them that destroy the earth.”[40]
Furthermore, Jesus showed us his attitude towards conservation when he
miraculously fed thousands with 5 loaves and a few fishes, but then ordered
that they “gather up the fragments, that nothing be lost.”[41]
In the
Toxic Waste, Water Waste and Water Contamination
In addition to feeding
animals food that could feed millions, they produce billions of gallons of what
is basically toxic waste. Thus, meat production around the globe not only
wastes the water it uses, it also pollutes the water it does not use. The meat
industry causes more water pollution in the
It takes between 2,500
and 5,200 gallons of water to produce 1 pound of meat, while growing 1 pound of
wheat only requires 25 gallons. 2,500 gallons of water would meet the total
water needs of a family of four for one month! Simply by passing up a few
hamburgers, you'll save as much water as you save by taking 40 showers with a
low-flow nozzle or as much water as it takes to maintain a typical household
for an entire month. Similarly, while taking anywhere between 23 to 49 gallons to
produce a pound of lettuce, tomatoes, potatoes, carrots, or apples, it takes
815 gallons of water to produce a pound of chicken, and 1,630 gallons of water
to produce a pound of pork[43].
A totally vegetarian diet requires only 300 gallons of water per day, while a
meat-eating diet requires more than 4,000 gallons of water per day. You save
more water by not eating a pound of beef than you do by not showering for an
entire year. The amount of water saved by becoming a strict vegetarian is in
excess of 1,400,000 gallons per year!
If you thought living
near a nuclear reactor would be a nightmare, trying living by a factory farm. A
farm producing 18,000 pigs a year can create as much waste as a town of almost
60,000 people. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the
pollution from animal waste causes respiratory problems, skin infections,
nausea, depression, and even death for people who live near factory farms.
According to other
In December 1997, the
Senate Agricultural Committee released a report stating that animals raised for
food in the U.S. produce 130 times as much excrement as the human population—5
tons for every person in the United States. A Scripps Howard synopsis of the
report (April 24, 1998) stated, "[I]t's untreated and unsanitary, bubbling
with chemicals and disease-bearing organisms. ... It goes onto the soil and
into the water that many people will, ultimately, bathe in and wash their
clothes with and drink. It is poisoning rivers and killing fish and sickening
people. ... Catastrophic cases of pollution, sickness and death are occurring
in areas where livestock operations are concentrated. ... Every place where the
animal factories have located, neighbors have complained of falling sick."
Because these animals
are injected, fed and sprayed with pesticides and antiboitics, their waste is
filled with toxic chemicals. While the excrement produced by
"No
one has the right to use
Topsoil Erosion
Not
only is twenty times more land is required to feed a meat-eater than to feed a
pure vegetarian, but the meat industry uses up topsoil at the alarming rate of
35 pounds in the production of one pound of steak. It has been said that,
historically, topsoil depletion has been a cause of the demise of many great
civilizations. And in the last 200 years,
Raising animals for
food consumes more than half of all the water used in the
Deforestation
Trees absorb carbon
dioxide and give off oxygen. When the trees are gone, life as we know it on
earth will also be gone.
The primary cause for
deforestation in
In the past 25 years,
almost half of the tropical rainforests of
Global Warming
Carbon dioxide and
methane gas are the biggest destroyers of the ozone layer. Cattle give off
methane gas as part of their digestive process. Cattle are the largest source
of methane gas going into our atmosphere. As the rainforests are burned to
create cattle ranches to produce cheap meat for the
Methane can trap 20 to
30 times more solar heat than carbon dioxide. Because cows release about 5 to 9
percent of what they eat as methane, livestock production is the greatest
“manmade” source of the gas[46].
Depletion of Natural Resources
Raising animals for
food requires more than one-third of all raw materials and fossil fuels used in
the
78 calories of fossil
fuels are expended to get one calorie of protein from beef compared to only 2
calories of fossil fuel to get the same protein from soybeans. Growing grains,
vegetables and fruit for food uses less than 5% the raw material consumption
used in the production of meat.
The energy return ratio
(as food energy per fossil energy expended) of the most energy efficient
factory farming of meat is 34.5%, while that of the least energy efficient
plant food is 328%. Fossil energy is utilized from before a cow is raised until
it is eaten. This account for the necessary energy to clear land from its
original vegetation, to grow cow feed, to operate slaughterhouses and
transportation. Forty pounds of soybeans are produced by the same amount of
fossil fuels required to produce one pound of meat. A vegetarian diet would cut
our oil imports by 60%[47].
If every human being on
the planet ate a meat-centered diet, the world’s known oil reserves would last
a mere 13 years. However, if human beings no longer ate meat, they would last
260 years.
A plant-based diet is
the single most significant contribution an individual can make to help
minimize these ecological disasters. Each person should do all that is in their
power to preserve their habitat, but Christians moreso. You don't need to care
about humanity (although it would be nice)—you just have to be selfish and
think about not only your personal well-being, but of the world you are leaving
to future generations, as “We did not inherit this earth from our parents, we are
borrowing it from our children”. It would make me sick to think that my
children got cancer because of the water that got polluted from the feces of
the meat that I ate. I would like to assume that most parents would sacrifice
anything, including something as trivial as meat, for the health and happiness
of their children.
5. We are told by Christ to feed the hungry,
yet by eating meat, we are greedily consuming resources that could feed the
hugry of the world.
Adopting a vegetarian diet
is kind to animals and humans alike. American cattle alone eat enough grains
and vegetables to feed over 5 times the human population of the
During the 2002 World
Food Summit, United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan said that 24,000
people die every day as a consequence of chronic, persistent hunger. The Hunger
Project estimates that 600 million to 1 billion people live in conditions of
poverty so severe that they are unable to obtain enough food to meet their
daily requirements. Every 2 seconds, a child dies of starvation. Harvard
nutritionist Jean Mayer is quoted in E magazine as estimating that reducing
meat production by just 10 percent in the
6. We are stewards of God’s money, and meat
eating wastes money.
Generally, a tasty yet
simple vegetarian diet based on unrefined whole grains (brown rice, whole
wheat, oatmeal, etc.), beans, fruits, nuts, and vegetables — typically
considered “poor man’s food” is more economical than a meat-based diet. The
current cost for a pound of protein from wheat is $1.50, compared to a pound of
protein from beefsteak at $15.40. However, it goes far beyond the mere issue of
economising.
The U.S government
indirectly subsidizes the meat industry. The cost of a common hamburger would
be $35 and the cost of one pound of beefsteak would be $89 if the meat
industry’s water use was not subsidized by taxpayers.
One form of government
subsidies to corporate farms is the offering of tax breaks at both the state
and federal level. Due to their significant political sway, corporate
farms are able to lobby successfully for numerous types of exemptions. As
one example, in 1987 ConAgra and IBP—two of the largest meatpacking firms in
the world—approached the
The money saved on
healthcare is also significant. According to the Worldwatch Institute, “Dr.
Colin Campbell of
7. Eating factory-farmed meat is in violation
of direct orders from the Holy Spirit..
As pointed out in
reason #2, God’s original design and the future kingdom are vegetarian. When
God permitted the inclusion of meat in the human diet, he not only limited the
kinds of animals that could be eaten[52],
but the manner in which these animals were to be slaughtered, being drained of
all blood. Blood and fat is what give meat its flavour, yet God gave
instruction that they were never to eat blood or fat.[53]
These Kosher laws given by God were given “for our good only”[54],
not to deprive us![55]
The laws of kosher were
not given only to the Jews, as Noah knew which animals were clean and unclean
prior to the flood.[56]
Animals are, by their very nature, “clean” or “unclean”. Christ’s death on the
cross did not change our bodies and how they react to animal foods, nor did the
effects of eating animal products on our health and well-being change
miraculously. Paul wrote to the Corinthian church, again speaking of our bodies
as the
We know this
distinction of clean and unclean remains to the end of earth’s history, because
in the last days, “
Many Christians have
accepted the unbiblical doctrine that all God’s instructions and teaching in
the Old Testament are done away with. Some call themselves “Spirit-filled Christians”
or “New Testament Christians.” However, when the question arose to the
exclusively Jewish church led by the apostles as to whether or not gentiles
could receive the gospel, one of the few places where the Holy Spirit directly
gives an order in the New Testament is disregarded by these “Spirit-lead”
Christians: “It seemed good to the Holy
Spirit, and to us, to lay upon you no greater burden than these necessary things: that you
abstain from things offered to idols, from
blood, from things strangled, and from sexual immorality. If you keep
yourselves from these, you will do well.”[60]
Conclusion
In essence, our food
choices are affecting the land, water, and health of our ecosystems, as money hungry
industries exploit natural resources in search for profits. The cattle industry
has proven to be energy inefficient because of the quantity of fossil fuels
required for its production. It causes deforestation, topsoil erosion,
extensive water usage and pollution, along with numerous health hazards. Many
of our tax dollars are directed towards this cause through government
subsidies. We need to halt deforestation for cattle production, stop
subsidizing water for cow feed, control cattle population and increase
standards for manure management. We should implement education measures in
hospitals for patients suffering from cardiovascular disorders and other health
problems related to meat consumption. At the personal level, it is necessary
for us to take responsibility for our actions, by paying attention to every
bite and being aware of how our decisions affect the planet.
I challenge and implore
everyone who reads this article to take the time to watch the film, “Meet Your
Meat”[61].
As Jonathan Safran Froer says, “The images are not easy to watch; they make me
terribly uncomfortable, and will probably do the same to you. I’m sorry to have
to share this material; I wish it didn’t exist to share, but it does. It exists
on a mind-blowingly massive scale. My intent is not to shock, or be
confrontational. It is only through knowledge that we can be empowered to make
right decisions... We study toward the end of living the good life—which is not
necessarily the comfortable life, and not necessarily the life that satisfies
all of our desires—it is the ethically
good life. So, please, resist the inclination to turn away. Please try to
understand what happens to the animals that become kosher meat. And if you do
find it impossible to watch, what does this tell you about the food you
consume, and the industry you perpetuate?”[62]
I strongly believe in
each person's right to their own opinions and decisions, but as Jonathan stated
above, those opinions and decisions must be made in light of evidence.
There is a movement
within Judaism currently toward vegetarianism, primarily for the humane reasons
listed in reason #1 of this article; many pierced and tattooed punk rockers are
vegan or vegetarian because they know it’s wrong to perpetuate and contribute
to animal suffering. How is it that people who don’t know the messiah and those
who don’t even believe in God can see that eating factory-farmed meat and dairy
are morally wrong, yet Christians who are filled with the Spirit of the
compassionate Creator and sustainer of all life[63]
cannot? The Bible nowhere speaks against slavery, yet the concensus of
Christians in the 21st century is that slavery is wrong. Strong evidence has
been given in this article that eating meat and dairy products in the 21st
century is wrong.
Ultimately, God never
forces his will on us. God offers us life, health and happiness, but as always,
Christians have a choice. When we sit down to eat, we can add to the level of
violence, misery, and death in the world and contribute to its destruction, or we
can respect his creation with a vegetarian diet.
“See, I have s