2021 Essay Contest Winner
Go Vegan!
Liv Byham, Age 13
You're in the same dark and crowded room you've been in since you were born, six years ago. You're being pushed into a truck. You see sunlight for the first time, through the windows of the truck. Are you being freed? You find out the ugly truth when you are forced out of the truck and into the slaughterhouse. You are beaten into a small cage. Watching your friends be beaten, thrown, or stabbed to death. You choke on toxic air as you kick and scream until death. Sadly, this is what happens every time you have bacon, ham, pork, or ribs. Each time you are causing the suffering of an innocent animal. And that's only what happens to pigs. Going vegan is easy and worth it for the suffering you don't cause.
I learned the truth three years ago when I went vegan. I was a big meateater but also considered myself an animal lover. My older sister and mom went vegan and tried to force me to watch documentaries of animal slaughter. I refused. One night, after a dinner through them talking about suffering, I had a dream. I had to face each animal I had eaten. I heard the screams of "Why? Why would you put us through that?" They wanted to kill me. They wanted to show me how much suffering I had caused.
That morning I went from your regular chicken nugget lover, to fully vegan. The transition can be weird but pretty soon I no longer looked at the animal products as food I was missing out on but instead an animal who has to suffer for that bite. I was picky, too. I didn't even like French fries! And for pizza I had to get it with no sauce. But when I went vegan, I ended up not limiting the foods I liked to eat but I expanded. I tried new things and really liked them.
If 10-year-old me can go vegan so can you! Some may say that a vegan diet is expensive but it doesn't have to be. A can of chickpeas can cost a dollar while a dead chicken can cost $4-$20! Even restaurants are moving towards cheaper vegan meals. At Chipotle the sofritas cost the same as chicken and are cheaper than steak. Also tofu and beans last longer than meat so you can worry less about it going bad. So why are you still eating expensive animal corpses when you can be eating cheaper, healthier food that comes from plants? Now is the best time, too! With the pandemic you don't have to worry as much about people judging you, and there's a vegan version of everything so you don't even have to give up many of your favorite foods.
Being vegan has tons of benefits other than cost. Animal agriculture produces more greenhouse gas than all travel put together. The decision to go vegan could be the decision of the next generation having a future or not. And as for the animals their decision is already made. They don't get a say if they want to be food or not. If Covid-19 has taught us anything it's how it feels to be locked up or have loved ones taken away. The animals live this way their whole lives only to be brutally killed. Cows have best friends too that are stressed when apart. Pigs are just as smart as dogs and respond to their name being called. Cows are forced into pregnancy and then have their child ripped away from them right after birth. Only so we can drink the milk that was meant for the baby. Male chicks are ground alive because they are useless to the industry. The animals suffer and the planet is dying all so you can have that one bite.
So why are you paying money to kill our planet and make animals suffer? Does it really taste that different from the alternatives? Is all the cruelty that you cause that worth it? That's your decision. You can keep eating that overpriced animal corpse cause it's only going to cost us the future of the planet, a life of suffering, and a brutal murder. Or you could just go vegan.
The deadline for the next Vegetarian Resource Group Annual Essay Contest for kids is May 20, 2022. For details and information about the contest and previous winners, see: www.vrg.org/essay
