By Miki Patel

All human beings deserve to be healthy, but not at the expense of hurting other animals. We should be preserving life, not destroying it for worthless reasons. Food and animal testing are just some of the many ways that humans use animals for their own personal benefits.

In 2000, 9.7 billion animals were killed for food in slaughterhouses, labs, pounds, and open spaces according to the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) and this number continues to rise every year as the human population increases. While I agree that meat supplies humans with proteins, there are other options that can give you all the nutrients you need without harming a single animal, such as taking supplements for nutrients while, at the same time, maintaining a healthy vegetarian diet.

According to the Vegetarian Times, 7.3 million Americans are vegetarian. There are several reasons why someone would choose to follow a vegetarian diet; it could be because of religious purposes or because of the guilt they feel after consuming an animal that has been killed and processed. Either way, they’re making the right choice by really caring for these animals.

Loy Norrix Senior Jessica Allen is one person who tried being a vegetarian for 42 days and found many challenges along with it.

“I did it for Lent, which is a Catholic holiday,” said Allen. “It was really hard because Bacon was a weakness for me. People were always like ‘hey, do you want a burger’ and I couldn’t have it. It was hard to find food without animal meat that I actually enjoy.”

Most people believe that there is not much food available outside of animal meat, but they are wrong. When we put together food from different cultures, there are so many combinations of vegetarian foods that can be made that actually taste good. Vegetarian foods don’t necessarily have to consist of raw fruits and vegetables like many people think.

More than 100 million animals suffer every year and die in cruel testing experiments according to the people for the ethical treatment of animals (PETA). Animal testing leads to human testing later on anyway so is it really necessary to use animals to test chemicals, drugs, foods and cosmetics that we use on a daily basis?

Animal testing is mostly conducted on mice and rats which behave nothing like human beings, so a human’s reaction to the chemicals will be different from a mouse or a rat’s reaction to the same treatment.

Whether animals are used for food or for animal testing, they deteriorate in a painful sensation, suffer from loneliness within their cages and intensely desire to be free. Instead, they are forced to wait until the next painful procedure is performed or until they are taken to the slaughterhouse to be killed.

Animals should not be tormented like this. It is cruel and awry. They feel the same pain that humans feel. Their true nature lies outdoors, not stuck in some cage for humans to do experiments on. Animals are not food or experimental units. Animal cruelty needs to stop.