Your 'Light Bulb' Moment

I had my light bulb moment when i viewed the 4 corners program on live exports. I realised that there are some people in Australia that really dont care if they bring down a whole industry and destroy peoples lives who rely on this industry. Its selfish people like this that can destroy communities. With out the live export to indonesia many people would have to transport there cattle thousands of kilometres in a tight an confined space on a truck with little to no break to rest there legs to arrive at the meat works. This is not viable for farmers because it can cost up to $15 a km and before you know it, this price exceeds the value of the cattle. Never the less this does not include the on farm cost that includes labour costs, rates, taxes, and treatment of stock etc. The alternative is Indonesia, where the cattle are treated to state of the art air conditioning and fodder to gain weight. It is in the agents best interest for the cattle to gain weight and for losses to be minimal because they are payed a commissional rate; they do not under any circumstances want to see there cattle dying on the ocean because of stress related or nutritional reasons. The images on the 4 corners program shocked everyone but it must be noted that these incidences are very rare and only occur under strict circumstances. These reasons could be because of poor practice from the individuals, a mistake that has seen the wrong area hit; doctors make mistakes on rare occasions making a poor decision on an insertion. At this point in time Australia is the leading expert in animal welfare and have set the highest standards through out the world. It is our job to educate other countries but under no circumstance we should be allowed to dictate another country in there treatment of animals. It would be like your neighbour walking into your house uninvited and starts telling how you should treat your pet or children. It is unacceptable by anyone standards. The way to do would be to talk to them and convey your feelings and it would then be up to them to change there ways. Australians are suppose to work together in moving forward without destroying each other. So i think that everyone should take a step back and look at the bigger picture because it is not all as it seems. The truth has been bent a lot! Get the facts before you choose a side. Any farmer would tell you for the best productivity and result there animal has to be treated with the up most respect for no losses and best profit. Its time we started acting like adults and get over animal welfare and look into human welfare where its more important

My 'lightbulb moment' occurred as soon as my brain began to make its own choices, this was at age 10/11 I am 13 now. I started by simply not eating lamb and other baby animal meats, now I am a full vegetarian and hope to continue in this way of life.

Earthlings

Well ever since I can remember I never really liked the thought of eating meat. When I was a child I was forced to eat it and smacked when I refused. I'd just want to vomit. Also living overseas walking in the markets I'd see chickens been killed, chopped up and sold and I always had a bad reaction to any cruelty. Once when I was 6 I had a dream my dad and I were walking past that same market and then all of a sudden my dad wasn't next to me anymore and I look to my right and he was been killed, chopped up and put in plastic bags and sold. This horrified me of ever walking past that market again. I look back and think this was a call. At the age of 11 or 10 I watched this PETA video of people abusing animals and it just made me so furious and I swore to never eat any type of meat again. Now I'm 22 and still a vegetarian. My beliefs on animal rights will never die.

Ok for a start mate learn how to use paragraphs that is just a big jumble of nonsense that is seriously hard to read.

Secondly you say that "people don't care about bringing down a whole industry". Well tbh I don't care one iota myself what happens to beef producers. Just as I wouldn't of cared one iota about the slave merchants losing their livelihoods when slavery was abolished (though it still continues today). When your industry is based on misery, cruelty and murder then you don't deserve to be in business.

You say "these incidents of cruelty are very rare". How do you know that? Are you watching every shipment of cows/lambs/pigs etc sent from Australian shores to foreign slaughterhouses? It seems every few weeks there is another of these "rare incidents" popping up in the news. And they are only found out from footage shot by undercover animal activists. The so called watchdog never seems to uncover it themselves and loves to turn a blind eye and is constantly fighting off suggestions of installing CCTV cameras in the abbatoirs.

You say it's "time to get over animal welfare and look into human welfare". What's to bet every single person that is vegan/vegetarian on this site cares more about and is doing more for human welfare than you do and is just as passionate about that topic as they are about animal rights (and if they aren't they should be).

What you don't understand is both animal welfare and human welfare are inextricably linked. While ever there is violence against animals there will be violence against humans (and vice versa). Leo Tolstoy said "while ever there is slaughterhouses there will be battlefields".

We get it, you like meat. We care about the animals, you care about the humans and yourself. Get a life.

I decided I wanted to be veg as soon as I knew what I was eating was an animal, however, parents don't really want to have to cook 2 meals, so when I was 15, I just decided one day that enough is enough and I haven't eaten meat since.

Well I can't really remember, but I think I didn't want to eat dead animals just because I loved animals, but then I also read a diary entry from a year ago saying " I want to be vegetarian but are there better ways to help the environment?". So I reckon I also knew from general knowledge that it harmed the environment as well. So then on this holiday I was with friends and we were talking about if you were a colour what would you be, and two of my friends were ʻgreen' as they had decided because they were Eco friendly. I was purple becuase I was artsy or something. But then I was saying well if you're green you gotta be vegetarian. So they approached their mothers asking can I be vego. I said to them I would do it as well, to be green. I hadn't plucked up the courage to ask yet, but I thought this was a great opportunity. I guess I was the only one that went through with it.

A few months later a received the "do you want to know a secret" flyers and I posted one on my wall so I would feel guilty until I gave up dairy. And It Worked!

My light bulb moment: I had to cut dairy out due to severe acne but I also wasn't big in meat eating. I began educating my self with books (80/10/10 and the beauty detox solution) and started watching documentaries and also earthlings

I would have to say that it was more of a "slow dawning" rather than a light bulb moment for me.  I read books on the subject and slowly came to terms with how I felt.  The issue just did not go away from my mind until I realised that I could not make excuses anymore.  Animal welfare is more important to me that the convenience of eating meat in an meat eating culture.  My friends would say to me "but bacon tastes so good!", and "you have to be careful for your health", but in the end I realised these were all just excuses and myths about vegetarianism and I had to change.  Though I'm glad that my example has made my friends think about the issues and eat less meat as a result.

One particular moment that stood out to me though is when I saw a documentary about how there is not enough room in Europe to keep up with the demands of meat production, so they are thinking about building skyscrapers to farm.
One example is the Dutch MVRDV project "Pig City":http://www.mvrdv.nl/#/projects/urbanism/181pigcity

I thought "this is crazy, if this is what the future of farming is then I don't want to be a part of that future. How can this be seen as a clever solution when the real solution is staring us in the face: go vegetarian/vegan. "