Watch Now: Do Kids Know Where Meat Comes From?
In PETA’s latest video, kids are asked where meat comes from, and their answers – among them “poo”, “ham is a vegetable”, and a spirited chicken dance – make it clear they don’t know the truth about whom they’re eating … but if they did, how would they feel?
Kids Know What Most Adults Have Forgotten
Most children instinctually and instantly care about animals. Whether they’re deeply connected to the family companion or besotted with a bird they come across, they’re curious and excited to learn more about our fellow animals.
They know that it’s wrong to exploit, hurt, or kill others, but many kids have no idea that meat comes from the animals they meet, read about, and love. Even those who do would have nightmares if they knew about the misery and pain that animals who are bred, raised, and killed for meat have to endure. It’s our responsibility to make decisions that nurture, not stifle, their compassion and not to teach them speciesist lessons. We wouldn’t want our dogs and cats to end up in abattoirs, where they’d be strung upside down before their throats are slit, so why do so many people accept the same thing being done to a pig?
Let’s stop desensitising our children to suffering and letting them grow up normalising cruelty by feeding them animal flesh. Instead, we should foster their natural empathy with healthy, animal-friendly vegan food.
Meat Production Is Cruel
Pigs, chickens, cows, sheep, fish, and other animals on farms have feelings, thoughts, and personalities. Yet the meat, egg, dairy, and fishing industries subject them to miserable conditions, immense suffering, and violent slaughter.
Females are repeatedly forcibly impregnated. Babies are torn away from their mothers, mutilated, and kept in filthy, severely crowded conditions. Then, often when they’re only a few months old, they endure a stressful and terrifying trip to the abattoir, where many are killed while still conscious.
Teach Compassion, Not Violence
We can choose to bring up our children with strong values and compassion and inspire them to be good people and to do good in the world. Let’s not make them support an industry we don’t even want them to know about.
We can teach them how to be kind to our fellow beings, rather than feeding them a diet that causes so much harm to animals, their health, and the planet.
It’s easy to lead by example. Here’s how:
In collaboration with HelloUp.
