We need to ensure that people are properly educated about all aspects of life. They need to know where babies come from, how they get clean water, how electricity works, and especially where does their food come from.
I think too many people take for granted the fact that groceries stores exist, they never run out of food, and no wrong doing happened to get that food to the store.
Obviously animals have to die and be harmed to get meat to the markets. But what about vegetables? Do the harm anyone?
Take Quinoa. Most vegetarians love it, it is a good alternative to soybeans due to the high protein count. Most of the worlds Quinoa comes from Bolivia, where they have been growing it for generations to feed their people. But now the price has been driven up so high, that it makes a lot more sense to take their crop to the city and sell it, so it can be sent to America and put in our grocery stores. What do they eat instead? Obviously our subsidized corn based society, they eat noodles, potato chips, and other less nutritional products of our modern age.
So even our own vegetarianism is changing the planet.
Reference: Quinoa’s Global Success Creates Quandary at Home from the New York Times on March 19th, 2011