Prompt 01

My name is Spencer Branch and I am a senior majoring in mechanical engineering.  I have always been interested in the environment and sustainable development.  I have tried to take all of my technical electives and general education requirements in classes relating to renewable energy and the environment.  Thus, when I saw the opportunity to take a humanities class in a field that I was passionate about I seized it.  I was especially excited when I saw the topics for the first prompt.  I was instantly drawn to the issues about protecting the environment but as I mulled it over, I decided to pick an issue that I have grappled with recently which is about my consumption of meat.

I have always thoroughly enjoyed most meat.  However, there are many reasons which have caused me to think twice about my meat consumption.  As I have learned about the impact that meat demand has had on the landscape of the world and the subsequent damage, I have made a conscious effort to eat less meat, beef especially.  However, my love to both cook and eat meat has made it difficult for me give it up entirely.  More recently I have thought about the philosophy of meat consumption.  Up until a recent conversation I have with my brother I believed (and I think many share this belief), that we eat roughly the same amount of meat as previous generations he shook my perception by informing me that meat consumption has increased.  In fact from 1961 to 2002 (1) meat consumption in the US increased by nearly 40 percent.  It forced me to think about eating meat more critically.  I realized that what made meat so appealing to me was that I saw it as nothing but a food.  The only form that we really see of meat is small  neatly wrapped packages.  I have gained the ability to put a complete separation in my mind between cows and beef.  I think we do this in part because if we spent time dwelling on something like this we would have much more trouble eating meat.  I think that this thought was a good progress in determining what specifically makes eating meat an ethical issue for me.  However, eating meat cannot be bad because it is natural.  Animals eating other animals is what happens naturally and what allows ecosystems to function.  I think this is what allows me to rationalize the pain that an animal experiences for my own health, because it is the way of the natural world.  I realized that the issue I had with meat consumption laid in the manner that we have come to eat meat.

What separates the way we eat meat from other animals is our complete removal from the process of slaughtering the animal.  That is, in nature, when a predator is hungry it must chase down the prey kill and eat the animal.  The carcass of the animal then serves as a meal for several other animals and very little goes to waste.  This school of thought has made me want to hunt.  So that I can make the connection between animal and food, and experience the transition from animal to nourishment.  I think that this experience would allow me to resolve some of my ethical issues with meat consumption and would definitely help me to reduce my meat intake having a better understanding of ending another animals life for my own.

(1) http://earthtrends.wri.org/searchable_db/index.php?theme=8&variable_ID=193&action=select_countries