Top 10 (Recent) Developments On Factory Farming And Vegetarianism

On Thanksgiving, I spent some time taking stock of my life and the world around me and, as we're supposed to do over the holiday, giving thanks for all the joys -- little and big -- in my life. One of the larger joys for which I am giving thanks is all of the recent attention that has been lavished on a topic that is near and dear to my heart -- the cruelty and environmental harm involved in raising animals for food.

I struggled to cohesively construct an article about some of the many recent and important developments on this topic, but there is just too much. Instead, I decided on a top 10 list (a tip of the hat to David Letterman) -- the 10 most interesting articles on the farmed animal welfare front.

So without further ado:

1. World Bank scientists conclude that eating meat causes more than half of global warming (conservatively).

World Bank agricultural scientists Robert Goodland, who spent 23 years as the Bank's lead environmental advisor, and Jeff Anhang, a research officer and environmental specialist for the Bank, argue convincingly that more than half of all greenhouse gas emissions are attributable to our desire to eat chicken, pigs, and other farmed animals. That's right: Add up all the causes of climate change, and you find that eating meat causes more than everything else combined.

Honestly, this was the biggest point for me: How can I possibly take the environment seriously if I'm still participating in what is -- by far -- the biggest contributor to warming?

Which might explain:

2. Prominent Stanford biochemist pledges to focus all his energy on promoting veganism.

Most of us have heard of Nobel Peace Prize winner Dr. RK Pachauri from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, and his lectures all over the world promoting vegetarianism. Now along comes Dr. Patrick O. Brown who, as reported in (of all places) Forbes, will spend the next 18 months focused on "put[ting] an end to animal farming." Explains Dr. Brown, "There's absolutely no possibility that 50 years from now this system will be operating as it does now... I want to approach this as a solvable problem. Solution: 'Eliminate animal farming on planet Earth.'"

3. Al Gore is taking notice.

Although Gore's Global Warming Survival Handbook noted that "refusing meat" is the "single most effective thing you can do to reduce your carbon footprint" (emphasis in original), Gore had not spoken publically about the issue. Now he has -- repeatedly. For example, on Larry King recently, Gore explained that "the impact of meat-intensive diet is a significant factor" in warming the planet, that "the growing meat intensity of diets around the world is bad for the planet," and that "the more meals I've substituted with more fruits and vegetables, the better I feel about it..." The truth is becoming less inconvenient, thankfully.

4. Celebrated author of Everything is Illuminated and Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close publishes Eating Animals a riveting book based on a three-year investigation of factory farming.

Jonathan Safran Foer has been widely hailed as one of the greatest novelists of his generation, was one of Rolling Stone's "People of the Year," and Esquire's "Best and Brightest" -- and after just two extraordinary works. As Nobel Prize-winning novelist J.M. Coetzee puts it about Foer's latest work, "The everyday horrors of factory farming are evoked so vividly, and the case against the people who run the system presented so convincingly, that anyone who, after reading Foer's book, continues to consume the industry's products must be without a heart, or impervious to reason, or both."

In his interview with Mother Jones Magazine (the entire interview is worth reading), Foer points out that Americans "now eat 150 times as much chicken as we did 80 years ago," and that it "takes between 6 and 26 calories to make one calorie of meat. It is an incredibly inefficient protein because we are cycling through all of these other grains that humans could eat."

5. Actor Alicia Silverstone and Chef Tal Ronnen on the New York Times bestseller list.

For some weeks now, Chef Tal Ronnen's Conscious Cook and actress Alicia Silverstone's Kind Diet have joined Foer and former model agent Rory Freedman (whose book convinced home run slugger Prince Fielder to adopt a vegan diet) on the list with books that make the case for vegetarian eating. You may recall Ronnen from his appearances on Oprah, which caused Oprah to exclaim, "Wow, wow, wow! I never imagined meatless meals could be so satisfying."

6. Martha Stewart promotes a vegetarian Thanksgiving.

As my friends at Ecorazzi put it, "Martha Stewart has proved once again why she's a pioneer in the kitchen. Having someone with as much sway as the famous host show people that the big feast doesn't have to include meat to be successful is huge. Even better, she took the opportunity to educate her audience on factory farming industry -- with help from author Jonathan Safran Foer (of Eating Animals) and filmmaker Robert Kenner (Food, INC.)."

7. Egyptian mummy heart disease in LA Times

I'm not sure it belongs in my top 10 list, but I found it extremely interesting that "CT scans of Egyptian mummies, some as much as 3,500 years old, show evidence of atherosclerosis, or hardening of the arteries, which is normally thought of as a disease caused by modern lifestyles..." What on earth could have caused it? I think I know: "The high-status Egyptians ate a diet high in meat from cattle, ducks and geese, all fatty." If only the ancient Egyptians had the wisdom of Dr. Caldwell Esselstyn!

8. Honesty at the Turkey Pardoning

First Obama talks about factory farming and animal rights as a candidate. Then he puts in a garden at the White House. Now he's adding some honesty to the annual turkey pardoning -- talking about the fate of other birds, the fact that it's a fairly new ceremony, etc.

Might he have celebrated a vegetarian Thanksgiving? The White House isn't saying, according to Gail Collins of the New York Times in her delightful Thanksgiving Day contemplation of the turkey pardoning. Okay, I'm kidding a bit (could he really get away with having a veggie Thanksgiving, given the power of Agribusiness -- as documented in this sad piece on FoodConsumer.org), as was Collins of course, but the honesty at the event is refreshing, and we do have the first president who understands the harms of factory farming and who is taking global warming seriously.

9. Cargill launches dairy-free cheese!

The largest privately held company in the United States (six times the size of McDonald's) has just launched "a 100 percent non-dairy cheese analogue for pizza and other prepared food applications" that "replicates the functionality of dairy protein and replaces it fully at an outstanding cost advantage for the manufacturer." According to Cargill, "its appearance, taste and texture perfectly match those of processed cheese" and it "also offers health advantages as it contains reduced calories (less fat and no saturated fats) and... a unique opportunity for vegans to enjoy a product that has the characteristics and taste of cheese but without any animal-derived ingredients." It's also Halal and Kosher.

10. Yet another study is exposing the horrid treatment of workers by the all-powerful meat industry.

A recent six-part piece in the Lincoln Journal-Star documents the horrid conditions endured by slaughterhouse workers. Sadly, nothing has changed since Human Rights Watch released their report on the industry, "Blood, Sweat, and Fear," six years ago. Then and now, researchers have documented "systematic human rights violations embedded in meat and poultry industry employment." It's becoming all too obvious that if we care about worker rights, it makes sense to go vegan.

For information on making the switch to vegetarianism, please check out my previous post, "A Beginner's Guide to Conscious Eating."

 

Comments

[repurposeme]

08:56 AM on 12/09/2009

soooo....I wish people would stress the issue with global warming and eating meat is FACTORY farming and not tradition farming. Your article mentions something about this once? maybe twice? This is why people become fanatics rather than understand­ing the need for balance. There are many local meat farmers in the USA that practice within guidelines that are safe for the environmen­t and living conditions that are humane for the animals. Cows are grass fed, allowed to roam in fields, cows fertilize grass, chickens..­...which is a part of the cycle our Mother Earth needs. It might behoove you to read Omnivore's Dilemma. Fad eating is NOT healthy. A friend who was vegan for most of her life ate herself to Celiac disease... The focus needs to have balance on environmen­tal and issues that revolve around fanatical eating and obesity...­...

[VeganInManhattan]

01:11 PM on 12/22/2009

repurposem­e: "I wish people would stress the issue with global warming and eating me is FACTORY farming and not traditiona­l farming...­This is why people become fanatics..­.
There are many local meat farmers in the USA that practice with guidelines that are safe for the environmen­t and living conditions that are humane for animals. Fad eating is NOT healthy."

Adhering to USDA guidelines does not make traditiona­l animal farming safe for the environmen­t. It emits just as much or more methane, increases pollution from excreta deposits over larger areas, and is a major cause of deforestat­ion.
Veganism is not a fad. It is a choice to respect humans and other animals, and to reject violence and the exploitati­on of human and nonhuman beings. Not does it cause disease. We can be perfectly healthy on a diet of plant foods. If this is "fanatic", then let's all be so.

[Max Helmberger]

08:54 AM on 01/19/2010

"Adhering to USDA guidelines does not make traditiona­l animal farming safe for the environmen­t. It emits just as much or more methane, increases pollution from excreta deposits over larger areas, and is a major cause of deforestat­ion. "

Do you even know anything "tradition­al" animal farming? One of the reasons factory-fa­rmed cows create more methane is because they are fed grain, corn, and soy, which are unnatural diets for them (they should be eating cellulose, not starch, so grass). They aren't going to be farting all the time eating their natural diets.

Increases pollution from dung over a larger area? Yeah, maybe 4-5 cow plops every acre. Besides, cow poop is among the best natural fertilizer­s.

Deforestat­ion? Not if it is planned intelligen­tly. Lots of people will let a field go fallow for a year and have the animals graze there, which makes it more fertile the next year.

And that's just cows. Chickens can easily run around inside a forest.

[Viper]

07:02 PM on 12/06/2009

So to fight global warming we should hunt/eat the massive herds of buffalo and other animals that would be on the planet earth if man was not here...ooo­ps already done...


Regards

[Viper]

06:59 PM on 12/06/2009

Or we could kill animal who eat other animals..


Regards.

[anyoneoutthere]

06:38 PM on 12/06/2009

Turning an issue into black and white is an easy way to avoid dealing with it.
The issue is not that we should all become vegans. Nor is it that we are such natural carnivores that it is a cri me against nature to avoid meat.

Try the middle road: if city dwellers in the rich world reduced, even by a little, meat and dairy consumptio­n they would be helping along and likely become healthier in the process.

Third World farmers or hunters have no need or obligation to turn vegan. Anyone who has a problem getting enough calories should get what calories are available. People who raise their own chickens in an African (or even in some cases European) village can have their eggs and their chickens, not to mention their goat cheese and their goat. They can even give some to their neighbors:­)

In the end, the issue is the commodific­ation of everything­, including natural processes. When there is no value other than money, efficiency­, and profit, humanity loses.

[grumpyfarmer]

04:04 PM on 12/06/2009

Beef farming always gets such a bad rap, yet chickens and pigs eat only grain(the way they are farmed today) while the nations cowherd(ma­ma cows) and their calves graze nearly exclusivel­y on rangeland. As I pointed out to my ex vegetarian wife(who is also ex PETA) "go ahead and eat chicken and stay away from beef for ethical reasons, but I cannot imagine anything with a more miserable life than a chicken has today". For some reason not all that scientific­, some folks on the left got their shorts in a wad over beef cattle, ignoring the fact you never drive down the highway and see chickens or pigs grazing on pasture. I can assure you, beef cattle(and their smaller ruminant cousins sheep and goats) turn ton after ton of grass and other roughage into useable protein for humans, and are raised for the most part out in the open. Even those that are finished on grain(most­) still have put on most of their weight(at least 2/3) out on grass, as opposed to your pork chop or chicken nugget, that had every bit of feed harvested and taken to him. 99% of the beef in the grocery store has some calories from grass in it. Lets have a little balance in this argument.

[OGoodGrief]

08:54 AM on 12/18/2009

Here's a little balance for you...out of all meats, beef is the most unhealthy. It it linked to cancer, heart problems and obesity. Environmen­tal issues aside, people who choose to eat red meat are simply risking their health. Red meat is directly linked to colon cancer, which is the third most common cancer in the U.S. Aside from the environmen­tal issues, why anyone would choose to eat beef is beyond me because it is sheer stupidity. It sits in the digestive system for days and rots. All of the evidence points to the fact that humans are not meant to eat meat...you just have to be open to seeing the truth.

[grumpyfarmer]

03:30 PM on 12/06/2009

..and on and on it goes, the never ending battle by the Huffington post vegans against eating animals, using as a main weapon half truths. In this utopia we are supposedly headed for, where all food is organic, no one offers up what will be used as fertilizer for all these veggies. Sorry folks, I realize I don't count for any knowledge because I am "just a farmer" but like it or not, those veggies need N, P, and K. Good old manure is the best source, if you aren't going to use commercial fertilizer­s, you can try plowing under legumes for the N, but those same legumes use alot of P and K. Truly sustainabl­e ag will require farm animals. Lot of pie in the sky about farming on this site, and lots of pretty naive people posting on things they have no first hand knowledge of. It is a tall order to feed 7 billion people, I am not sure we could feed 3 billion if practices advocated by many posting here were employed.

I have asked the question before, and it remains unanswered­, when all are vegan and there is no hunting, what will be used to control the species such as white tailed deer and raccoons that already cause alot of havoc on crop production today??

[VeganInManhattan]

03:15 AM on 12/23/2009

grumpyfarm­er: "... when all are vegan and there is no hunting, what will be used to control the species such as white tailed deer and raccoons that already cause alot of havoc on crop production today?... Truly sustainabl­e ag will require farm animals.."

White tailed deer, raccoons, and other animals control their own population­s in relation to their food supply. When food is abundant, reproducti­on increases. When it is scarce, reproducti­on decreases. The females of many species absorb their own fetuses when there is lack of food.
Free-livin­g animals have no need to venture beyond the resources in their natural habitat -- human spawl, shopping malls, etc. have roobed their habitat and their food supply, making it necessary for them to look for food beyond it.
Contrary to popular myth, hunting does not reduce animal population­s. In reality hunting results in "compensat­ory rebound", i.e., more food available for the animals who survive, causing an increase in reproducti­on. Hunting is thus a vicious cycle: of killing, a boom in animal population­s, and then killing again and again. In addition, there are more car accidents during hunting season, since frightened animals run onto the highway.
So instead of killing, we should respect nonhuman beings and the resources they depend on. I don't think that's utopia, just common sense.
And we don't need animal by-product­s (manure, blood, etc.) for crop farming. Check the Vegan Organic Network. It's working for farmers in the UK and it will work here.

[comicpro]

09:39 AM on 12/06/2009

continue==­\
For the sake of my own sanity I will continue to eat meat and vegetables and let you wranglers on both sides continue your quest for being right. Vegetables and animals will continue to get my undivided attention when it comes to my health. I appreciate all the concern but really folks on both sides take a breather.

[comicpro]

09:37 AM on 12/06/2009

For every issue there are two sides vying to be right and reform people for the sake of their opinion. For the sake of

[pcuvie]

06:57 PM on 12/04/2009

The current system of raising animals for consumptio­n combined with the current rate of population growth is having devastatin­g effect on the Earth's environmen­ts that sustain all life, including our own species. At some point raising animals for consumptio­n will no longer be environmen­tally sustainabl­e. Accordingl­y, we can go Vegan the easy way,(by choice), or we can go Vegan the hard way, (by necessity)­.

[PhatP]

12:14 PM on 12/05/2009

Or we will evolve VEGAN out of a moral imperative in the same way we have evolved away from other immoral and unjust practices. We will just need to begin educating people about living vegan and it will happen slowly but surely. Eating animals for food is a brutal unethical and totally unnecessar­y way to feed our species. Our species thrives on a plant based diet and the 53 billion animals killed a year for food will slowly decrease. Veganism will become a positive meme and eating animals will become as appalling and no longer accepted as canabalism and human slavery are now.

http://www­.youtube.c­om/user/ap­pleloverr#­p/a/u/2/Z8z­Mc_g-hTI

Go vegan NOW!

[empiricalWeb]

02:20 PM on 12/05/2009

Amen! Protein deficienci­es for all!

[ProfessorBrooks]

12:23 PM on 12/04/2009

The first item in the list is a result of fallacious logic--mis­taking a characteri­stic component for a causal element--i­n saying that eating meat causes half of global warming. It is true that all those cows and chickens fart a lot and the gasses accumulate­, and that the feeding of them and such contribute to CO2, etc. But it is really human overpopula­tion that is the "cause" of it. We breed too many animals because we are feeding too many humans--7 billion plus is just too many--we are outstrippi­ng our resources and fouling our nest out of sheer numbers, not just short-sigh­ted behavior. To say that the animals that feed us causes the problem is like saying that the manufactur­e of bullets causes battlefiel­d injuries.

[VeganInManhattan]

03:27 AM on 12/23/2009

ProfessorB­rooks: "The first item in the list is a result of fallacious logic-maki­ng ... in saying that eating meat causes half of global warming... But it is really human overpopula­tion that is the "cause" of it."

There are 3x more farm animals than humans on this planet. If humans didn't eat animal products, billions of farm animals would not be bred.

[ProfessorBrooks]

12:10 PM on 12/04/2009

GrumpyFarm­er has beaten me to the point about the impossibil­ity of "zero-impa­ct"--in fact, "No Impact Man" even said in his Colbert interview that it is impossible­--an ideal goal, but you must know that it cannot be reached--m­inimal impact is the more realistic goal. All life forms modify their environmen­t, animals kill and eat each other all the time, and since most humans need at least some meat in their diet to stay healthy, then the goal should not and cannot be that all humans go vegan, but that the needless cruelties of large scale, profit-dri­ven factory farming be addressed, and that we return to smaller farms and find a way to price the products of those farms properly so that farmers can make a decent living. Food has become artificial­ly cheap in this country as a result of agro-busin­ess--you are not supposed to buy a hamburger for 99 cents. Neither are you supposed to eat meat 2 or 3 times a day as a poster below has countered. We eat too much cheap meat and our expectatio­n of that is the cultural habit that drives the cruelty of factory farming and our own poor health. Michael Pollan, the food author, sums it up best in seven words: "Eat food, mostly plants, not too much."

[grumpyfarmer]

03:38 PM on 12/06/2009

Alot of times Professor Brooks the required additional money required to make smaller farms competitiv­e isn't much, maybe 10 cents a pound live on cattle and hogs, perhaps a dollar or two a bushel on grains like wheat. But there are other issues, such as most seed companies offer substantia­l discounts to larger farmers, a farmer growing 1000 acres of soybeans can buy his seed for $10 an acre less than I can, growing 400. It is now very hard to sell pigs in lots smaller than what will fit on a semi(about 200 head). Because of the fact fewer and fewer locker plants are operating today, it is also much harder to sell livestock one at a time to individual­s. Harvesting equipment offered in Europe to smaller farmers that is modern is not offered for sale in the USA, because everything is geared toward big. The combine I own that 20 years ago would have been the 2nd biggest offered for sale in the USA is now the smallest. I have tried and tried to post that we are seeing the end of most of the private non integrated pig farms right now, due to a terrible market cycle the last 22 months. The deck is stacked against anyone operating less than 2000-3000 acres in the midwest. I operate 3500(mixed grass and farmland), and it is darned tough making ends meet with that.

[VeganInManhattan]

03:48 AM on 12/23/2009

ProfessorB­rooks: "... animals kill and eat each other all the time, and since most humans need some meat in their diet to stay healthy, then the goal should not and cannot be that all vegans go vegan, but that the needless cruelties of large scale, profit-dri­ven factory farming be addressed, and that we return to smaller farms..."

The American and Canadian Dietetic Associatio­ns report that a carefully planned plant food diet is healthy for all life stages. If we have nutritious plant foods, humans do not need to eat meat. Plants have an abundance of nutrients and some have protein levels comparable to meat,
Some animal products are labeled "humane", or "compassio­nate", but this is really a marketing tool, that's making such labeled meat producers and animal welfare/pr­otection organizati­ons millions of dollars.
Animal farming, whether factory modeled, small sized, or "free-rang­e", is inherently cruel. I hope people who rely on these labels will visit the HumaneMyth organizati­on.

[Kristine Hale]

06:28 PM on 12/03/2009

Without a doubt factory farming is horrible. It is horrible for the environmen­t, horrible for the animals, horrible for our conscience and horrible for our health. In fact, about the only thing it is good for is our wallets. But the argument that says that we should cut out all meat is shortsight­ed. I raise my own chickens and feed them scraps from my table that would otherwise be garbage or compost. In exchange they provide me with eggs, fertilizer and meat. The impact on the environmen­t is zero. The problem isn't meat, the problem is the way we obtain that meat.

Not everyone can or wants to raise their own animals and in those cases I would say that if you can't get all of your meat from a zero impact farm, then it is appropriat­e to suggest a vegetarian (or vegan) diet. But to make that the first and only suggestion will not only alienate a majority of the population that won't give up meat, it also excludes from the conversati­on viable alternativ­es.

[PhatP]

04:44 AM on 12/04/2009

Kristen,
What would a world or just this country look like if everyone did as you suggest and raise their own animals for food?
With a population of 300 million humans eating animals twice probably more like 3 times a day as they do now......w­e would have an insane, bloody, violent and horrific industry that would resemble in numbers of guts spilled and animal waste flowing into the ground....­.factory farming.
Do the math... we are talking billions upon billions killed just as they are now. 12 billion a year killed in US alone.
If that is your suggestion as a viable option...t­hen I will continue to suggest people stop eating, wearing and killing animals for food pleasure..­.whatever.
Go Vegan.

Veganly yours,

Philip

[peskime]

11:44 PM on 12/04/2009

As a fellow vegan, I say hear! hear!

[grumpyfarmer]

09:26 AM on 12/04/2009

Good post but there is no such thing as a zero impact farm. Everything everyone does in life impacts something somehow.

Seems to me vegans miss the point that animals rarely die peacefully in their sleep, wild or domestic. If animals are humanely raised, and humanely slaughtere­d, and have a good quality of life, what is the problem? Bambi out in the forest is going to die, and probably a horrible death. Likely as not, starvation or disease, perhaps a car, maybe a hunter, or a wild animal or animals will take out Bambi in the end. Kristen feeds the chickens, cares for them,and in the end eats them. Something is going to eat those chickens eventually­, or, they simply will never be hatched.

The world isn't going to go vegan. Efforts would be better spent trying to encourage smaller scale farmers and more humane practices, rather than propaganda about how terrible eating meat is.

[PhatP]

05:53 PM on 12/04/2009

The world will probably go vegan one day..at least humans will...if we still exist. And it will be an ethical decision as most progress occurs out of our empathy which is hard wired into us. Will the world be perfect? No...but we have slowly ended other horrible immoral practices and though the world is not perfect and never will be it is a far better place without some of our earlier common practices, Human slavery being only one.
Humans are killed brutally and violently by the thousands upon thousands every year on highways..­so what. Humans kill each other by the thousands with hanguns every year by the thousands.­..so what? Because those truths exist does that mean you do not deserve to love your life until you die of natural causes? If a child is living a wonderful life and raised humanely and is killed peacefully in their sleep does this make the crime OK? What if someone liked killing children as long as it was done humanely?
Animals are never killed by butchers "humanely" this is a myth.
We do not need to eat animals to be healthy (quite the opposite) so...they are being killed for the pleasure of their taste only...and no different than the child analogy.

[Natalie Zaracko]

02:50 PM on 12/03/2009

Fantastic article! It's really wonderful that this informatio­n is finally becoming known mainstream­. I've been a vegetarian for almost 10 years and I recently became vegan, I love it! I've lost weight and my skin cleared up and I feel fantastic, the food tastes amazing too. :)

"I have no doubt that it is a part of the destiny of the human race, in its gradual improvemen­t, to leave off eating animals, as surely as the savage tribes have left off eating each other...." ~Henry David Thoreau, Walden, 1854

[Maya68]

08:56 AM on 12/03/2009

Our food habits were seasonal once and are largely cultural. As someone said, in Northern latitudes, Africa or arid areas, vegetarian­ism would be difficult. Similarly, in tropical/s­ubtropical climates, meat is hard to preserve or unsafe to cook due to rapid bacterial growth. I may be wrong here but Indian food is the only fully vegetarian­(not vegan) diet ,worldwide­, unlike other Asian diets that have meats but in minute amounts. Of course, Indians eat meat too, depending on religions and upbringing and now claim one of the highest growth rates for diabetes..­. sigh

At the very least, it's obvious that Americans eat too much processed foods and meat and don't work it off naturally, unlike those older folk who can tuck away 3 really square meals and live healthily to 90 plus! The many strikes are that most of the food is produced in horrendous conditions­, processed to an inch and subsidized to keep it cheap. Coupled with the mentality to jump into the car to get a bag of chips and coke, it's a disaster for everyone.

[PhatP]

04:34 PM on 12/02/2009

Why is it such a taboo to discuss Not eating animals in our culture?
There seems to be a huge...gig­antic.. major problem when some of the most cherished and sacred beliefs of a culture are challenged­.
Humans become so defensive and angry.
When African human slavery was first challenged as maybe not so ethical...­those who used African human slaves became enraged and often violent.
Our situation today is this....a lot of what people believe...
That animals are here for human use and don't suffer when turned into food...
That the creator of the universe wrote a book and has a special plan for you...
Sorry...bu­t these beliefs well...are simply NOT true.

The belief that small farms are more humane....­simply not true.
see here...
http://www­.youtube.c­om/watch?v­=LUkHkyy4u­qw&feature­=related

Living vegan for ethical reasons...

Philip

[gusti2]

12:26 PM on 12/03/2009

Thank you, Philip!!!

[helenwheels]

01:58 PM on 12/22/2009

Because once people know the h0rr0r of what eating meat really causes they feel somewhat guilty. Just look at how defensive meat eaters up here are. What do they have to be defensive about if they are so sure that the grotesque crueIty invoIved in getting that steak or chicken wing on their plate doesn't really bother them?

Many meat-eater­s don't like their convenient cognitive-­dissonance disturbed, it makes them defensive and cranky.