In my favorite meal essay that I wrote back in the beginning of the semester, I described the cheesy rice and beef dish that my mom prepares. One of the major, personal aspects of my paper was how the beef that is used in this dish is grass-feed and organic from local farms; this factor is very important to me, because I do not support the process in which factory farms produce their meat. I began to become aware of where my meat was coming from after i attended a seminar in which we were shown videos of how they treat the animals in major factory farms. I already had a great love for animals and supported their rights, and this video pushed me over the edge. I realized that i needed to take some sort of action, because i did not want to be a supporter of factory farms. This is why i wrote about that specific meal in my favorite meal essay, because I was the one who got my parents to start buying meat from local farms. It was mainly this factor that made the meal so special to me.
After reading all of the other texts that we analyzed throughout the semester and thinking deeply about my own views on the ethics of eating animals, I found my morals to grow even stronger. Going into this course, i already had background knowledge about how our food (especially meat) was produced, and I already had made the decision to make the effort to eat organic meat products. So, if anything, all of these readings have only made my views on ethics stronger, because they forced me to think about it again, making the topic fresher in my mind. Even though I thought about where my meat came from before, now I think about it even more, and that affects the way i chose what i eat. There are many times where i will want something with meat in it, and then I’ll remind myself of where it comes from, and suddenly, it won’t be as appetizing to me anymore. I’m very glad that we got to analyze and think deeply about this topic throughout the semester, because it is a topic that i had already felt strongly about, and it was nice to be able to express my opinions on it with others.
aspenladieu 