ENGL 101-028
Mrs. Berry
11 October 2014
Vegetarianism And Eating Meat
Do you like vegetables? Juliana Devries, a vegetarian, has learned from a particular article that explained most of the meat comes from factory farms in the U.S. when she was seventeen. Devries speculates in her essay “Making Choices: Ethics and Vegetarianism” that vegetarianism has became a trend and decreases the meat consumption which indirectly protect the environment. Although Devries clearly agues her points that more people become vegetarians and more benefits will be produced, she weakens her argument by using some absolute words to reject the meat consumption, to indicate the trend of diet and to declare how meat consumption execrably affects the environment.
One of the argument’s weaknesses is that Devries has used strongly voices to reject the meat consumption. Devries bases her personal experiences to reveals how the meat is produced by factory farms. However, Devon Brooks has different opinion between vegetarian corporate and carnivore corporate, and he indicates if the issue comes from corporate malfeasance, then vegetarian corporate world will have same situations as carnivore corporate world. Therefore, people should not just consider one side of meat or vegetables. Also, Devries wants to show her personal vegetarianism’s life, and she tells a story to her audiences. Unfortunately, pathos, an emotional appeal, is not strong enough to support Devries’ point. As Brooks’ opinion completely refutes Devries’ opinion that comes from the article, People could not just presume that vegetarian farming is environmentally friendly, and people should consider both meat and vegetables to choose which are good for them.
In addition, Devries tries to make the vegetarianism to be an identity-marker, and she said, “Vegetarianism has of course become trendy, as well as a trend”(41). She even indicates that to be a vegetarian is easier than ever before (Devries 41). If you like vegetables, you might believe this point. Likewise, even though Devries illustrates several unique examples that comes from Vegetarian Times, or some vegetarian reports, her opinions still do not have credibility because she does not use examples from common area or trying to compare the trend of eating meat with the trend of eating vegetables. These examples and some data that she uses could not reflect a phenomenon of the trend of vegetarianism. Moreover, Richard Corliss, et al., authors of an article “Should We All Be Vegetarians?” use another data to confute this view. They displays, “In a survey of 11,000 individuals, 37% of those who responded, "Yes, I am a vegetarian" also reported that in the previous 24 hours they had eaten red meat; 60% had eaten meat, poultry or seafood.” It shows that people could not just believe how the data displays a phenomenon because, in this case, some people may not know the broadest definition of vegetarian. Another reason they give an opinion from Johanna Dwyer, a professor of nutrition and medicine at Tufts University, that “At least among the vegans who are also philosophically opposed to fortified foods and/or vitamin and mineral supplements." This claim also implies people should eat not only vegetables, but also meat which could supplement more vitamins to people. Therefore, people could not know if the vegetarianism has became trendy because she does not give people some believable evidences to prove her views.
Devries’ the weakest opinion is meet consumption could execrably affects the environment. She points, “It is now widely known that the methane gas produced by farm animals is a significant contributor to global warming and that growing vegetable protein for human consumption is a much more efficient use of land”(40). Based on Devries’ point of view, She also uses some data to show that meat consumption is so dangerous to human’s life, which