The Issues

Animals Are Not Ours to Eat

The green pastures and idyllic barnyard scenes of years past are now distant memories. On today's factory farms, animals are crammed by the thousands into filthy windowless sheds, wire cages, gestation crates and other confinement systems. These animals will never raise their families, root in the soil, build nests or do anything that is natural and important to them. They won't even feel the warmth of the sun on their backs or breathe fresh air until the day they are loaded onto trucks bound for slaughter.

Animals on factory farms have no legal protection from cruelty that could be illegal if it were inflicted on dogs or cats, including neglect, mutilations, genetic manipulation, drug regimens that cause chronic pain and crippling, transport through all weather extremes and gruesome and violent slaughter.

Yet the farmed animals who are not protected from cruelty are no less intelligent or capable of feeling pain than are the dogs and cats we cherish as our companions. They are inquisitive, interesting individuals who value their lives, solve problems, experience fear and pain and are capable of using tools.

According to animal-behaviour scientists, chickens begin learning from their mothers while they are still in their shells, pigs can play video games better than some primates can and fish form social bonds and can remember things that they have learned for the human equivalent of 40 years.

There are alternatives to eating animals. Vegetarian foods  provide us with all the nutrients that we need, minus the saturated fat, cholesterol and contaminants that are found in meat, eggs and dairy products.

Plant-based diets protect us against heart disease, diabetes, obesity, strokes and several types of cancer, and vegetarians also have stronger immune systems and live 10 years longer, on average, than meat-eaters do.

Not only is raising animals for food cruel and unhealthy, it is also extremely inefficient – for every pound of food that animals eat, only a fraction of the calories are returned in the form of edible flesh. If we stopped intensively breeding farmed animals and grew crops to feed humans instead, we would easily be able to feed every human on the planet with healthy and affordable vegetarian foods.

Animals are not ours to eat. Pledge to be vegetarian today.