“Meet Your Meat”

Eight years ago, when I was in fifth grade, I was in the library searching for a book to read. I picked up a thick, heavy book; the title of which I cannot recall. What had drawn me to the book was the pictures of animals on the cover. I had recently decided that I wanted to become a veterinarian and figured that reading this book would be a great start. When I got home and started paging through the chapters, I was shocked by what I saw. Instead of the cute pictures of cats and dogs that I had been expecting, the first image I encountered was that of a bloody calf being dragged into a slaughterhouse. As I read through the book, the stories and pictures got worse and worse. I wanted to stop but somehow I was pulled into this horrible, foreign world. What struck me the hardest was the section on slaughterhouses. I had been eating meat my whole life and had never stopped to consider where it really came from. Those hot dogs I loved to get in Central Park were actually made from pigs, the charming, social creatures that I used to love to visit down the road from my grandpa’s house. From that moment on I was a vegetarian. This book did more than just change my eating habits. It took away some of my childhood innocence. I hadn’t realized up to that point how cruel humans could be. I did not understand how, in a country like the United States, where a dog is often valued as a member of the family, such horrendous treatment of animals could be allowed. This book encouraged me to become involved in the animal rights movement. It has led me to great experiences, from volunteering at the animal shelter to running the Students Against Animal Cruelty club in my school. Though I am no longer positive I want to become a veterinarian, I know that I definitely want some kind of career working with animals in my future.