Animals as a Human Food Source

Paper Summary:

This essay examines many of the issues associated with the consumption of animals for food. It is argued that this practice is flawed from two perspectives: ethically and as an issue of human health. As the writer shows in this article, from the perspective of ethics the only supportable position is to refuse to consume animals for food while, from a health perspective, the clear dangers from animals fats and, in particular, the transmission of toxic pollutants from animals to humans suggests that the consumption of animals for food carries with it considerable health risks for the human species.

From the Paper:

"In September 2001 the well-known animal rights organization People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) sponsored a billboard in Vancouver, British Columbia that triggered widespread controversy within the environmental and animal rights movement. The billboard read, simply: "Eat the Whales". Not surprisingly, this advertisement provoked a heated response from many environmentalists and, in particular, from the influential anti-whaling movement. However, PETA was unrepentant and argued that their advertisement made an important point: why do so many people, including environmentalists and anti-whaling activists, make distinctions between species and consider eating domestic pigs, cows or chickens permissible but whales, dolphins or seals abhorrent?"

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