More Pros Than Cons In A Meat-Free Life Analysis

Changing human diet can be a controversial topic and to change this omnivore’s mind one needs to present facts as cold as a fresh cut of meat. Marjorie Lee Garretson’s “More Pros Than Cons in a Meat-Free Life” is an essay that tries to persuade the reader to a vegan lifestyle under the guise of vegetarianism using few cited sources and trying to make the reader feel bad about the way they currently eat. “More Pros Than Cons in a Meat-Free Life” is a college level essay written by Marjorie Lee Garretson about the potential positives to vegetarian lifestyle. The essay first focuses on the health benefits of switching to vegetarianism which is done in three sentences claiming decreased cancer rates and longer life expectancy without any …show more content…
Garretson generally strays away from any words or phrases that are not common speak. This leads to an essay that is very accessible but, at the same time, a little dull. Garretson’s tone changes over the course of her essay: she starts with a slightly snobbish tone in the introductory paragraph with lines such as, “You would probably ask how this is possible. The answer is quite simple: go vegetarian” (Garretson). Her tone then quickly changes to an informative one in paragraphs two and three as she covers the only form of logos in the entire essay. Finally her tone darkens in the final argument of the essay as she explains the conditions of the factory farms and what people are forcing animals to go through by eating meat. She spends most of the essay arguing this final point trying to get the reader to feel sorry for the animals by explaining in detail how the animals are contained and how they are treated in these factory farms. Even though there is this great disparity in length of arguments, the essay is very clear about when each point is going to come up and what to expect. Though her main downside is her citations, or lack there of. The only citation in the entire essay is from the Environmental Protection Agency claiming it requires sixteen pounds of grain and up to five thousand gallons of water for every pound of meat. Even though that is …show more content…
The only sentence in the essay that comes close to a counter argument is “All of your daily nutrients can be found in plant-based sources,” (Garretson). This lack of counterargument could have been why Garretson implies the switch to veganism while never saying the word vegan. Throughout the essay she makes references to the negatives of not only meat but dairy and eggs too. One example is the quote found on the previous paragraph about alzheimer’s disease being linked to not only meat, but dairy and eggs too. If she were truly trying to argue vegetarianism, there would be no need to include the link to dairy and eggs too. Also when she wraps up her argument on inhumane treatment of animals she mentions “for our meat and dairy products...”(Garretson) when she could have just mentioned the meat industry. Finally, in the first quote used within this paragraph, she mentions plant-based sources not just non-meat sources.
Garretson knew her strengths and weaknesses, so she chose to write on the benefits of vegetarianism when she most likely subscribed to, and wanted others to convert to, veganism. She does this because with her limited citations and lack of a counterargument, she would not have been able to convince anyone once they knew she wanted them to give up all animal products. Garretson tries to convince her audience that