I’ve been working on keeping most meat out of my diet for the past six months or so. I was a full time, fairly militant vegetarian in my early twenties but gave it up for good after college. I’ve been trying again for a couple of reasons: I want to eat a healthier diet, and I am concerned about the environmental impact and ethics of factory meat farming. I am not against meat eating, but I am against the conditions that pertain in most large-scale commercial meat farms, even when they are operated under lawful conditions. Last week, I read an article that makes a cogent, if heavy-handed, argument that if you are horrified by the death of Cecil the lion but you eat factory-farmed meat, then perhaps you should examine your position on meat eating. Even though I found the article to be written in a way that is likely to provoke a defensive reaction in a lot of meat eaters, it still reinforced my conviction to keep up with my mostly vegetarian diet. I’ve been doing pretty well but I’m going to get stricter with it – for myself, for the animals, and for the earth. Maybe this article will make you think about doing something similar – even if it’s just instituting a meatless Monday habit.

Eating chicken is morally worse than killing Cecil the lion