(11:30 minute read, I DARE you to read the entire article! References at the end)
I have claimed to be an animal lover my entire life, passionate about being the voice for those who have none. As a child, and now as an adult, animals fascinate me and I love every opportunity to get close to them. I love learning about their unique adaptations. Spend any time around a dog or cat and it’s easy to see that each animal is an individual, capable of having unique personalities and characteristics. When my cat Hobbes seeks me out to snuggle or when my dog Schroeder goes crazy with tail wags when I arrive home, it’s obvious these fellow earthlings are sentient beings, just like humans. They can experience joy, grief, pain, and other emotions. Many of my fellow humans do not agree with this belief, arguing that people are superior to all other animals, and that we are unique in our ability to feel and express emotions. This is a convenient belief, allowing them exemption from needing to care if those animals are then exploited and mistreated.
I have spent my life fighting against what I consider to be injustices to animals. I’ve boycotted circuses with animal acts, not supporting a life of captivity for elephants, tigers, lions and other animals. When I travel to foreign countries I refuse to pay money to have my photo taken with the local wildlife—which is held captive for the benefit of tourists. I refuse to visit or support zoos, aquariums, and game parks because I don’t think it’s our right to steal these animals from the wild, or breed them for the “enjoyment” of people.I speak out when I hear about someone taking a box turtle or a salamander from the wild to keep as a pet, for what gives us the right to essentially sentence these animals to life in a cage, or tied up, for our amusement? Through blog posts, articles and programs, I’ve stood up for the unloved and misunderstood creatures like bats, spiders and snakes, trying to set the record straight on the services these animals provide and their important role in the ecosystem. When I find an animal in my house, car, motel room, etc, I carefully, and kindly take it back outside where it can resume its life in freedom.
I have a few sentences on my website that have been there for nearly 15 years, talking about my love of animals. I say, “I want to show people the impact of their actions and encourage them to become stewards of all things wild— not just the cute, cuddly, and beautiful animals, but the hairy, scary, scaly, slimly, furry, feathery, giant, tiny, and odd ones too. I believe every animal deserves respect regardless of its place in the food web.” It’s the last sentence in this quote that concerns me the most, because how can I say that every animal deserves respect and then turn around and bury my head in the sand when it comes to treatment of animals we eat every single day? Why are these animals exempt from respect?
There’s a saying you’ve likely heard that claims, “ignorance is bliss,” and though I spent the first 50 year of my life adhering to this principle, I no longer can support a system that so blatantly goes against everything I believe. Like most people, I had chosen to remain ignorant about where my food comes from, not wanting to know the details because it was easier that way and because I suspected I wouldn’t like the answers I would find. People say, “No! Don’t tell me because I don’t want to be turned off to my food.” Better to not look closely so I could go on doing what I had done my whole life which is eat meat, and consume dairy products. It’s easier to follow the crowd and accept the paradigm most of us follow our entire lives, than to ask questions and rebel against the norm.
However, because of a handful of comments from people I admire or love, (including Jane Goodall, David Attenborough, and Greta Thunberg), as well as time spent watching powerful documentaries* and reading a handful of books* by respected researchers, and authors on this subject,
I became aware —and horrified—to realize that my values were not in alignment with my actions.
For how can I profess to be an animal lover if I turn a blind eye to abuse and torture that happens behind closed doors every day to millions of animals?
Which one are you?
What kind of animal lover am I if I treat my two cats and dog like members of my family, but act like cows, pigs, chickens and turkeys are somehow different and don’t need to be treated with kindness and respect?
How can I think that they are raised and killed humanely? Because look, how can the word humane ever be tied to the death of a sentiment being who does not want to die any more than I, my dog, or my cat wants to die?
In the past, I figured these animals had “good” lives before they were sent off to slaughter, but learned nothing could be farther from the truth. Even when I was buying organic, or humanely raised, or grass-fed, the animals still suffer and experience pain and terror, especially when it comes time for slaughter.I was horrified to learn just about all of the meat from land animals is from baby animals, killed before they’ve lived even a fraction of what would be possible outside of their tragic life of confinement. Despite the illustrations or words you read on the packaging at the grocery store, they certainly don’t have “good” lives.
Cows can live 25-30 years but are sent to slaughter at 18-24 months. Pigs can live 15-20 years but are sent to slaughter when they are around 5 to 6 months old. Most chickens are slaughtered at just 40 days old even though they can live 5-10 years. We never know that we’re consuming baby animals, because of course we never call it that since that would surely turn off some people to meat. We humans are fabulous at using fancy words to disguise what something is so it sounds more appealing— veal, calamari, filet mignon, and probably worst of all, foie gras. Know what foie gras really is and how it comes to be? Multiple times per day ducks and geese are force fed using foot-long tubes that are shoved down their throats so their livers become enlarged. And for this “luxury” people pay big bucks, not caring or knowing the torture required for this “tasty” treat.
Pig mamas sing to their babies when it’s meal time, and have the intelligence of a four-year-old. Cows have best friends that they seek out for comfort and company. They get “the zoomies,” just like dogs when they are happy and love a good belly rub. Cows can think critically and solve problems to achieve rewards. These animals grieve the deaths of animals raised with them, mourning the loss for days. Just like my dog and cats have unique personalities, so do these animals, whether we want to believe it or not. Raise chickens? Then you know that they are individuals with unique traits, just like our beloved pets.
Why do we love one, but kill the other? Why is one a pampered and revered member of our families, while the other suffers unconscionable torture and death?
Why do we love dogs, but kill pigs, cows, chickens, turkeys and other animals?
Why do we jail people for organizing dogfighting when every day far worse goes on behind the closed doors of slaughter houses? Animals getting “processed” while they’re still alive. Workers torturing animals for fun because there’s no oversight, no rules governing the behavior of workers. The USDA does not monitor what goes on in these places because when it’s a corporation, it’s okay, totally acceptable.
I am not okay with chopping pig or cow tails off, or clipping chicken beaks without anesthesia. I am not okay with chickens being ground up alive– though of course the industry calls it maceration, thinking we’re too stupid to understand what that means. What it means is that living male baby chicks are sent down a conveyer belt until the end when they are chopped into thousands of pieces, or put to death in gas chambers. (Don’t believe me? Here’s a video, which I recommend against watching if you want to continue to go on eating eggs or chickens, or raising chickens in your backyard since this “need” only supports this cruel industry practice.) Every hour, 30,000 freshly hatched male chicks suffer unimaginably cruel deaths due to the lack of protections and regulations around the methods of slaughter for poultry in the United States. I am not okay with caging pigs in gestation crates that don’t even allow them to turn around, separating Mamas from their babies. I am not okay with weak or slow growing piglets being held by their back legs and slammed into the floor or wall to kill them, a practice with an actual name—called ‘thumping.’ If I was walking down the road and saw someone cutting off a dog’s tail, or whacking a cat against a brick wall, wouldn’t I stop and rebel against such behavior? But why then do I allow, and support with my dollars these horrific practices every single day to thousands of animals behind the closed doors of a slaughter house or dairy farm, or in the nets of ships in lakes and oceans?
Horrified by the treatment of animals just so I can eat beef, chicken, pork and fish, and “enjoy” a 15 minute meal, I became vegetarian a little more than a year ago.
Jane Goodall says, “Meat symbolizes fear, pain and death, so I stopped eating it.”
I did too, happy with my decision, feeling joyful that I had stepped out of the cycle of death that is totally accepted when I buy and eat meat. My body is no longer a tomb for tortured animals.
When asked if I was going to take it one step further and become vegan, I said emphatically, “No way! I could never give up cheese or ice cream!” I thought that it was enough to stop consuming beef, pork, chicken, fish and other animals, and that I didn’t need to take the extra step and also give up those products that come from animals. I believed that since the animal’s death isn’t required to get those products, that it was fine to consume them. I admit being baffled as to why anyone would stop eating products that didn’t require death of the animal.
Obviously I hadn’t ever bothered to investigate how the dairy industry works, a fact I am deeply ashamed of now.
I’ve since learned about the cruelty involved in the dairy industry and changed my tune. Ice cream and cheese is suddenly not so appealing now that I understand the cruelty behind it, what it represents. I can’t imagine a worse fate than being a dairy cow–it is nothing short of modern-day slavery, a practice so horrific it seems like a horror movie, except it’s happening everyday, behind closed doors.
Like humans, and all mammals, female cows only produce milk after they have given birth, and then, only for a limited amount of time, (around ten months) not indefinitely, as some people mistakenly believe. Just as our milk is intended for us to feed our babies, so is a cow’s milk designed by Mother Nature for them to feed and nourish their babies.
But in the dairy industry, this is how it works: After a gestation of nine months, female cows give birth and produce milk. Usually within 24 hours after Mama cows give birth, their babies are forcibly removed from them. Even though we’re not there to see and hear it, rest assured that these mama cows cry for their babies, sometimes for days, the anguish in their voices and body language very clear that they are suffering. And why wouldn’t they be? They carried that baby inside them for 9 months! Of course they cry for their lost babies. What Mother wouldn’t?
And then, if that wasn’t bad enough, we take their milk from them several times each day. And for what? So humans can “enjoy” it. The cow babies never get to drink their Mother’s milk or receive love from her. Dairy cows have been bred to produce unnatural amounts of milk to the extent that they are sometimes so heavy they can’t even stand up without chains holding their legs together, or machines holding them up.
Male cow babies are either killed immediately since they are of no use for dairy, or are sent to farms where they will be raised for veal. Veal exists because of the dairy industry. Often confined to tiny boxes in which they are unable to turn around, and sometimes even chained by their necks to prevent movement—and thus muscles— these baby male cows are fed a low-iron diet designed to “keep their flesh supple.” They are slaughtered for consumption when they are around 20-24 WEEKS old so humans can “enjoy” veal.What kind of barbarians are we?
The female adult cows are milked repeatedly multiple times each day until their milk runs out, at which point, they are forced again to become pregnant. Called “artificial insemination” (rather than rape,) this practice happens against their will since what animal would willingly get pregnant, only to have to give up her baby again, and again? Cows are put in what some farmers call a “rape rack” which holds the cow in place. And the cycle continues. Imagine this horror happening again and again, the mama cows never getting to be with the babies they brought into this world. Any Mother, or female on Earth should be able to imagine this horror and see the evil in this practice. How can we call ourselves civilized, when this is how we treat our fellow earthlings? Is it okay because we are smarter, because we can claim to be sentient and wrongly say they aren’t?
Female baby cows are sent off to giant feed lots where they are fed artificial milk brimming with antibiotics and other medicines, which they drink from machines until they are old enough to be impregnated and forcibly milked for all of their days, just like their mothers. They never know their mother’s love, or get to drink their mother’s milk. When the female calves are around 15 months old, they will begin the process of forced impregnation. All so we humans can steal their milk, in order to make cheese, yogurt, ice cream and other products. After being milked and pregnant for 3-4 years, these females are “spent,” and sent to slaughter.
From The Independent, “Ethical farming of animals is a seductive fantasy. The inherent practices of the dairy industry are brutal and profit driven. Some farms are particularly bad and some are absolutely horrific, but it’s important to understand that maintaining a profitable dairy herd is itself an unethical pursuit. It’s not possible to sell ethical milk.”
How can I claim to be an animal lover if I turn a blind eye to all of this? If I support these terrible and painful practices in the name of getting to “enjoy” ice cream or cheese? Watching a man drag away a newborn cow, or seeing a mama cow chase the trailer full of baby cows not even two days old was enough for me to make everything dairy lose its appeal. Thankfully there are ways to make ice cream that don’t require stealing cow’s milk that’s intended for baby cows, not humans. And there are plenty of plant foods that provide calcium– cow’s milk and its related products are not required for good health, as I’ve learned from a book called The China Study by T. Colin Campbell and son, Thomas Campbell. This book opened my eyes to the fact that cow’s milk and animal products are NOT good for our health, nor do they supply essential nutrients we need to survive. (If you want to learn more about this, please read The China Study)
After learning how the dairy industry works, it was very easy for me to stop consuming these products. Is it convenient? No. Is it always easy? No.
But I have never been prouder of myself. I have never felt more free, and happy to be out of the cycle of death and torture that happens behind closed doors every single day. I can’t save all of the animals, but I can stop supporting cruelty with my dollars and my actions.
Since adopting a whole foods, plant-based diet, I have learned that our insatiable appetite for animal meat is driving the destruction of the rain forest in Brazil. Acres and acres of forest are being cut down and burned so Americans can “enjoy” a steak or a burger. This and our agricultural habitats around the world are contributing to climate change. Raising animals so humans can consume meat instead of raising plants so humans can consume plants is a wasteful and unnecessary practice, carried on only because humans have grown up eating meat, and falsely believing they need it to thrive.
“This trend will continue to contribute to global warming, widespread pollution, deforestation, land degradation, water scarcity and species extinction. More animals mean more crops are needed to feed them: the planet cannot feed both increasing human and farmed animal populations, especially when there will be between 2-4 billion more human mouths to feed by 2050.” –From the Vegan Society
Our hunger for fish, shrimp, clams, lobster, octopus and other aquatic animals is causing extinction of species, and destruction of entire ecosystems under the sea. Why do we think it’s okay to totally deplete the ocean of all of these living creatures? We kill 3.6-6.3 billion aquatic animals EVERY DAY! And though many think of fish and other aquatic animals as these unfeeling beings that lack intelligence, this is just not true. Fish have nervous systems similar to birds and mammals. They can feel pain and are capable of learning. They can “be taught how to evade a trap and remember it a year later, and they can learn from each other, recognize other fish they’ve spent time with previously, know their place within fish social hierarchies and remember complex spatial maps of their surroundings.” (Page 86, This is Vegan Propaganda)
How can I say I’m an environmentalist if I support these practices? How can I say I love nature, animals and the earth if I’m not willing to make changes that directly benefit these things? Is it fair to claim I’m too old to change, or that it’s too hard, or too inconvenient, that it’s too unpopular? I cannot say I care about the earth and at the same time just continue on eating animals and supporting with my dollars these destructive practices.
Scientists say, “A VEGAN diet is probably the single biggest way to reduce your impact on planet Earth, not just greenhouse gases, but global acidification, eutrophication, land use and water use.”
David Watson, who coined the term vegan in 1944 once said, “Veganism gives us all the opportunity to say what we stand for in life.” My new knowledge cannot be unlearned, unseen, or simply forgotten. I can no longer live in ignorant bliss.
I have the power everyday to either support needless animal suffering, uncontrolled destruction of the natural world that is my very soul, along with the increased risk of diseases and pandemics, or to vote with my choices against these things.
I can, as they say, “Be the change you wish to see in the world.”
When people learn I’ve adopted a vegan diet, they have many comments, often insensitive or rude in nature. One of the most frequent, and one that I definitely thought about vegans before becoming one, was “Wow, isn’t that a bit extreme?” Now I see the fallacy of that statement, how ridiculous it is to claim vegans are extreme– because,
You know what’s extreme? Killing 220 MILLION land animals EVERY DAY for food: That’s 430,000 cows and buffalos, 3.1 million sheep and goats, 4 million pigs, 11 million ducks and geese and 207.4 million chickens and turkeys. This doesn’t even count the marine animals!
2.4-6.3 BILLION marine animals are killed every day. Every. Single. Day. It is estimated that the food industry kills at least 1.2 quadrillion animals every year. Look at this number! How is this allowed, and accepted? 1,200,000,000,000,000. How do we think this is sustainable, that this insatiable appetite for animals is not going to have negative impacts?
Ed Winters, an activist and author remarks about the irony of people hating vegans so strongly: “This seems strange considering almost everyone is against animal cruelty; it doesn’t therefore make sense that one of the most reviled groups of people in society is the one that is actively trying to reduce the amount of cruelty caused to animals.”
You know what a vegan is? According to some famous quotes:
“A vegan is a person who has the crazy idea that animals should be free.”
“A vegan is a person who refuses to let their body be a tomb for other beings.”
“Veganism is not a diet, it’s a moral stance.”
“Veganism is not a restriction, it’s a liberation.”
“Veganism is not about us, it’s about animals.”
“Veganism is not a sacrifice. It’s a basic decency.”
“Going vegan isn’t about giving up anything. It’s about no longer taking what was never yours to begin with.”
“Veganism…rejects the human supremacist mentality that identifies other animals as objects, considering it justifiable to use them as resources and exploit them for human benefit.” — Arts_councilvisual
“If we can live well without killing and harming other animals, why wouldn’t we?”—Gene Baur, founder of the first Farm Sanctuary, in Watkins Glen, NY
As Greta Thunberg said in her famous speech, “You are never too small to make a difference.” And in my opinion, never too old either.
My actions now align with my beliefs, and I’m no longer a hypocrite. Instead, I’m vegan. I’m an animal lover. I’m someone who is choosing to take action against climate change because I love the earth and want it to be here for future generations. My only regret is not doing it sooner.
If you want to talk to me about this, or learn more about how I became vegan, please get in touch. I’d love to help you in whatever way I can to begin your transformation to a Whole Foods, plant based diet.
References:
Books
The China Study: The Most Comprehensive Study of Nutrition Ever Conducted and the Startling Implications for Diet, Weight Loss, and Long-term Health by T. Colin Campbell. (This is a fat book! You can read a summary here)
Whole by T. Colin Campbell
How Not to Die: Discover the Foods Scientifically Proven to Prevent and Reverse Disease by Dr. Michael Greger
This is Vegan Propaganda, by Ed Winters
72 Reasons to Be Vegan: Why Plant-Based, Why Now by Gene Stone
Why Vegan?: Eating Ethically by Peter Singer
Why We Love Dogs, Eat Pigs, and Wear Cows by Dr. Melanie Joy
