Contemplating Food Choices

As many of you know, Shelley and I have been vegetarians for the last eight years or so. This is a personal conviction, not a doctrine, but there are compelling reasons for adopting this lifestyle. The main conviction that led me to quit eating meat was that I felt I should never kill anything out of convenience or for pleasure. A close second was that the way animals are treated on industrial farms is absolutely hideous. As a person who’s first mandate from God is to reflect reflect his loving character by caring for the earth and the animal kingdom (Gen 1:26-28), I feel strongly that I should not participate in, let alone benefit from, this barbaric and even torturous treatment in any way. (I encourage all meat-eating followers of Christ to find out how your food choices impact animals and to buy your meat only from free-range ranch farms.) Since Shelley and I have  made this decision, we have notice many other unintended benefits as well. For example, we’ve both observed significant health benefits. It’s been good for our food budget. And I almost immediately noticed a greater appreciation for, and delight in, the inherent worth of all living things.

All that being said, here is a really interesting article that should give all people — but especially followers of Christ — another reason to adopt a vegetarian diet. In fact, it seems to me that, even if there were no other benefits to becoming a vegetarian, the future that this article paints could be (I almost wrote, “should be”) reason enough. I hope you read it with an open mind and heart.

May we all become the stewards God calls us to be!

From the article:

Adopting a vegetarian diet is one option to increase the amount of water available to grow more food in an increasingly climate-erratic world, the scientists said. Animal protein-rich food consumes five to 10 times more water than a vegetarian diet. One third of the world’s arable land is used to grow crops to feed animals. Other options to feed people include eliminating waste and increasing trade between countries in food surplus and those in deficit.

Image by Mark Rosenberg. Used in accordance with Creative Commons. Sourced via Flickr.