Above: Jenna Lee (Larrakia artist, Gilimbaa)
MY POSITIVE CHOICE
Jackson (12 years), SA
Hi, my name is Jackson, I’m twelve years old and [am in Year 7 of high school]. I’d like to tell you about my positive choice in life, being vegetarian. I’ve been vegetarian for about 3 years now. I’m very happy with this choice and I don’t miss meat at all. I will never, ever go back and the best thing is, I can still eat FruChocs!! I’ve never felt healthier in my entire life and I haven’t been sick at all since I’ve become vegetarian.
It all started roughly around three years ago where my dad watched a documentary on the treatment of animals, which was awful, and from that moment he became vegan. A vegan doesn’t eat any animal products like dairy, eggs, honey or meat. He also doesn’t wear leather or use any products tested on animals, he has no regrets what so ever, and he’s never been heathier. My mum and one of my two brothers are vegetarians. And my sister is mostly vegetarian but she is young (5 years old) so Mum lets her choose. Our parents didn’t force us to make this decision, we chose it.
From my research I’ve found health benefits for becoming vegetarian. And there’s no health benefit, at all, to eating animal fat. It should come as no surprise that when you remove it from your diet, you will also remove the detrimental effects it has on your health.
Meat industries are terrible. I have seen some nasty pictures on how animals are treated and I really don’t want to see anymore. The animals haven’t done anything wrong and yet they are being slaughtered because people think they need more protein in their diet than they actually do.
The meat industry uses huge amounts of water and land to produce animals for food. The poop from all of these animals has to go somewhere too! It can get flushed into rivers and sprayed into the air. That’s not the kind of air I want to breathe. The fishing industry isn’t much better, it doesn’t leave much for the rest of the marine life to eat. Trawling kills coral reefs and when fishing with nets, so many other animals suffer like dolphins, whales and turtles when they get caught in the nets too.
I’m really happy with my decision to be vegetarian. I’m trying hard not to be judgemental of other people’s choices but to inspire them to do their own research and hopefully they will make a positive choice like me - for our planet and for the animals.