Universidad San Francisco de Quito
English Level 6 (NRC: 3086).
Carla Rivera (331571).
September 11th, 2023.
COGNITIVE DISSONANCE
So ever since I was a child, I've kind of had this conflict about food that comes from animals, but
especially meat. This happened because I once saw a video of the process behind meat
obtaining, and kind of got traumatized by it. Years passed and now I'm an adult and meat is kind
of a big part of my diet. However, sometimes all of the violence against animals, all of the videos
and images come to my mind and I feel sort of weird for eating what I eat.
For me this is a clear example of cognitive dissonance and here is why: I am fully aware of the
animal violence and slaughter house stuff, but I still eat meat. As of the weird feeling I get
sometimes about it, I think I start to question my moral values, like, why am I even sort of
contributing to animal violence and people killing animals just for me to eat? Why am I doing
this? The explanation (for me at least) to that last question would be something like: it’s
tradition, your family and maybe somehow society have told you that eating animals is okay and
it has been part of your diet since forever, you’re already used to eat it and habits that have
always been ingrained in your lifestyle are kind of hard to change.
It's okay and normal to sometimes just stop and think about our actions, to question everything,
to not agree with everything that society or your close circle teach you or have taught you.
People have different beliefs, and we are all in a constant journey of learning, of being better.
But also, you shouldn’t do things that you don’t want to do just because you feel pressured to do
so. If you enjoy eating meat after everything that you know, then maybe you’ll keep eating it, but
you can't ignore the information you have about how meat industry works, at least not
completely. It’s okay to be aware of stuff.