Comment of the Day: From a 10-Year-Old
Published January 14, 2009 @ 03:27PM PT
A rather smart and compassionate young woman left the following comment on the page for the idea regarding healthy vegan school lunch options (for which you need to vote ASAP if you haven't already--5 PM EST tomorrow is the deadline!):
I am ten years old and have never eaten a dead animal in my life. My parents do not buy dead animals and I am so happy that they don't because I love all animals and I am sad to know that people eat animals that have been killed for meat. When I see classmates eating animals, I feel so bad that these little kids don't understand the problem with eating a sweet cow, pig or chicken. If they did understand that animal's short scary life, only to be killed, they for sure would never eat meat. Meat is a confusing word that hides the fact that an animal was killed after a very scary and painful short life. I feel very glad that my body has never known the taste of a murdered animal. Thank you mom and dad and thank you to all people who care about my friends the animals. You have the power to protect my friends and I hope that more people will realize that animals deserve protection just like a baby human deserves protection. I wish that this world was not so violent. Fruits and vegetables are the best foods on this planet and it seems weird that people would want to eat a bloody piece of meat at any part of their life. Please protect our animal friends.
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Comments (20)
Comments on Change.org are meant for further exploration and evaluation of the ideas covered in the posts. To that end, we welcome constructive comments. However, we reserve the right to delete comments that are offensive, abusive, or off-topic; that contain ad hominem attacks; or that are designed to subvert or hijack comment threads rather than contribute to them. Repeat offenders may be permanently removed from the site at our discretion.
Author
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Stephanie is an independent animal rights advocate, a vegan, a tree-hugging environmentalist, and a freelance editor and writer. She lives in St. Louis with an aging corgi-lab and an adolescent rescued pit bull.
Love it! Good job to her and her parents.
Posted by Philosophia and Animal Liberation on 01/14/2009 @ 03:42PM PT
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I'm so glad that a vegan student posted a comment on an idea that would affect her. Very good to read!
Posted by Sue G. on 01/14/2009 @ 04:01PM PT
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Yeah, it´s great to read! It´s a very clever and intelligent young woman! Worth imitating!
Posted by clanie ... on 01/14/2009 @ 04:50PM PT
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I'm right with you. Some of my friends (Not naming) think it's impossible to live without meat.
Posted by Marty Davey on 01/14/2009 @ 04:53PM PT
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I'm right with you. Some of my friends (Not naming) think it's impossible to live without meat.
Posted by Marty Davey on 01/14/2009 @ 04:53PM PT
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i think a vegan option in school is a great idea. However it would be too expensive to pull off, and there isn't a large vegan population to make it worth the effort. Why not bring a packed lunch? I think school food should generally be made more nutritious before it becomes specialized. ...and I'm not buying that this was written by a 10 year old...
Posted by jeremy silver on 01/14/2009 @ 05:28PM PT
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Too expensive, Jeremy? Are you a vegan? I ask because as a vegan, it would certainly not be too expensive to offer vegan school lunch options. Not only would such a move advance further the challenge to some of our more baseless assumptions (e.g., about price and health) but it would achieve the "more nutritious" end you believe is important.
With some anecdotal evidence in mind, I believe that this post could have easily been written by a ten year old if said child had been socialized into an environment open to these discussions.
The point is, most families conceal the truth, which breeds ignorance. If given the information, who knows what ingenious ideas may develop.
Posted by Alex Melonas on 01/14/2009 @ 06:04PM PT
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In my family, we talk about all kinds of problems that harm people and animals and the environment. I don't like that Jeremy thinks that there are not enough people who would like to eat vegan food in schools. They would if it was a option. And I don't like that he doesn't think that someone my age can write about such an important problem.
Posted by K Rose on 01/14/2009 @ 09:29PM PT
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Katie--I'm thrilled to see you join the conversation! Welcome!
Posted by Stephanie Ernst on 01/14/2009 @ 09:37PM PT
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Most people I know think it's impossible to live without meat, and if I tell them I'm a vegan, they look at me like I've sprouted a third head. I'm inspired to know a nine-year-old has sense like this, because most of the time I think people will never get it.
Posted by Fallopia Tuba on 01/14/2009 @ 10:15PM PT
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Stephanie, thank you for being such a smart and compassionate person. You make me feel that there may be hope for the future. As you know, eating dead animals is bad for the animals, bad for those who eat them, and a huge contributor to global warming. Also we would have more food for the starving people of the world if animals being bred for food were not consuming so much of the planet's crops and water.
Posted by Robin Hamilton on 01/14/2009 @ 10:29PM PT
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It is true, my 10 yr old son feels the same way. We really dont need to feed off animals anymore.
Posted by f H on 01/15/2009 @ 08:42AM PT
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All, I believe what Jeremy was trying to point out is that the article has some inconsistencies that make it seem like it was written FOR a 10 year old, not by one. No one is doubting that a young person can understand and get involved in a cause that they believe in. When I read the article, I did not think a 10 year old wrote it either. For one thing, 10 year olds do not usually refer to classmates as "these little kids."
Posted by whelan shoemake on 01/16/2009 @ 06:31AM PT
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Cave men needed to eat animals to survive. People in contemporary society do not!
Try to grow your own fruit and vegetables if you can, at least part of the year, too. It's healthier for you and the environment as it reduces transportation pollution.
Posted by Barb Adams on 01/16/2009 @ 06:47AM PT
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For such a young girl to adapt herself to the world instead of the world adapting to her is truly remarkable. Most adults go through live with blinders on and shield themselves from the unspeakable cruelty in factory farms and slaughterhouses. All beings suffer. That’s reality. But for a lot of people our treatment of them is accepted as an inconvenient truth and that is an unpardonable crime. This little girl has more courage and insight than most adults I know.Bad habits are hard to break but we must realize that vegetarianism takes care of everything in one shot: our health, the environment, and the animals. There’s a reason why vegetarians are generally much healthier and live longer than meat eaters (vegans live the longest). It’s not a secret anymore. A plant-based diet is better for the human body. Those who eat meat are at a much greater risk for heart disease, cancer, obesity, diabetes, osteoporosis, etc. The evidence speaks for itself.Thomas Paine, Common Sense: “...a long habit of not thinking a thing wrong, gives it a superficial appearance of being right, and raises at first a formidable outcry in defense of custom. But the tumult soon subsides. Time makes more converts than reason.”
Albert Schweitzer: “Very little of the great cruelty shown by men can really be attributed to cruel instinct. Most of it comes from thoughtlessness or inherited habit. The roots of cruelty therefore, are not so much strong as widespread. But the time must come when inhumanity protected by custom and thoughtlessness will succumb before humanity championed by thought. Let us work that this time may come.”
George Bernard Shaw: “While we ourselves are the living graves of murdered beasts, how can we expect any ideal conditions on this earth?”
Jane Goodall: “Thousands of people who say they ‘love' animals sit down once or twice a day to enjoy the flesh of creatures who have been utterly deprived of everything that could make their lives worth living and who endured the awful suffering and the terror of the abattoirs.”Charles Darwin: “There is no fundamental difference between man and the higher animals in their mental faculties...The lower animals, like man, manifestly feel pleasure and pain, happiness, and misery.”
Mark Twain: “Because one species is more clever than another, does it give it the right to imprison or torture the less clever species? Does one exceptionally clever individual have a right to exploit the less clever individuals of his own species?
Posted by Christopher Pearson on 01/16/2009 @ 08:25AM PT
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I really admire your character and I envy you your parents:-).
Posted by Michal Kolman on 01/16/2009 @ 01:32PM PT
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I am the ten year old who wrote this and I believe that eating animals is wrong. I would NEVER eat my cat for dinner, just like I wouldn't eat a baby cow for dinner.(yuk) When the animals are very young, they get taken away very fast by the murderers and never see thier mothers again. What a nightmare. I love my mother very much. The animals love thier mother as well. They will never see thier mother again. I would be very sad if that happened to me. How sad the animals are.
I do not like that grownups eat murdered animals. They are our role models and little kids will keep getting tricked by the lie that eating animals is right. NOT RIGHT!!!!!!!!
I also want to say that it really hurts my feelings that people don't believe that a ten year old couldn't be smart.
When I say "little kids" I mean little kids.
I AM a little kid in school with little kids and there needs to be more healthy options in schools besides chopped up pig, and sliced cow, and fried chicken.
Please go vegan.
For the animals.
Please stop the nightmare.
Posted by K Rose on 01/16/2009 @ 02:01PM PT
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Well, my heart has been touched! I have always considered myself a clean meat eater meaning I don't eat red meat or pork. I thought I was doing pretty well for myself until I read this letter.
I was raised with the concept that these animals are put on earth for our eating yet I was also told that I had to be careful of dirty meats.
I have truly been touched because I am an animal lover and have never viewed it this way before. I honestly don't know if I will eat meat again.
Posted by Jennifer Driskel on 01/17/2009 @ 01:56PM PT
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I have been moved by your words, kid! I hope your example, and that of your parents, will be followed very soon by more and more people. Animals are here to share our life, not to be made suffer and eaten. Graziana and her cats.
Posted by Graziana Barsocchi on 01/18/2009 @ 05:33AM PT
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You know, it's never too early to start grooming Katie for the White House. :-)
Posted by Pat Fish on 01/18/2009 @ 06:13AM PT
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