GT Writing Task 2 / Essay Sample # 270
You should spend about 40 minutes on this task.
Write about the following topic:
People should never eat meat because raising animals for human consumption is cruel.
To what extent do you agree or disagree with this opinion?
Give reasons for your answer and include any relevant examples from your own knowledge or experience.
Write at least 250 words.
Model Answer:
Whether it is brutal and inhuman to raise animals for our consumption is a hotly debated issue nowadays. In this case, the writer strongly disagrees with the claim because it is a natural process and part of human history and culture.
There is no brutality in eating meat. From time immemorial, animals have been eating other animals for meat to survive. Eagles kill and eat snakes, and snakes eat the mouse, and it is a natural process. Human is also the part of the animal kingdom when it comes to the food pyramid. Moreover, meat is an important source of nutrients for the human being. For instance, ruminants such as cows, sheep, and goats, convert indigestible plant parts into a form the human body can absorb. That is to say that our digestive system cannot break down cellulose, which is an elementary component of fibre. They consume high-fibre plants like grasses and translate them into valuable protein for humans. The food chain is an essential part of ecosystem service, so to claim that rearing livestock for meat is inhumane is unnatural.
Aside from this, farmers breed ruminants, feed these animals, and protect these animals. These animals are domesticated so as to earn their bread. If rearing livestock for human consumption ceased, then the impulse of raising livestock would be gone. Farmers would no longer be there for looking after these animals, this, in turn, would endanger their existence. On top of that, these animals have survived over the generations due to their importance to humans. Besides, animal agriculture is a substantial part of human culture as well as history. Farmers and ranchers deem livestock rearing as more than a job. It is a lifestyle that is deeply ingrained in their existence and objectives here on earth. Thus, there is no brutality with rearing livestock for human consumption.
In conclusion, raising ruminants for human consumption is not cruelty to animals, rather a natural process. However, we can introduce regulations so that farmers or corporations deter themselves from malpractice in raising and slaughtering animals.