Why We Do It

The Animals

Theologians have long debated whether there is life after death. For animals on factory farms there is no life before death.

As millions of male baby chicks are hatched, they are ground up alive or suffocated, because they don’t lay eggs. The females are crammed five to small wire cages that tear out their feathers and cut their feet. Some die of hunger, unable to reach the feed trough.

Mother pigs suffer for a lifetime in tight metal gestation stalls. Their babies are torn away shortly after birth, mutilated without anesthesia, crammed into crowded pens for six months, then slaughtered in the dawn of their lives.

“All beings tremble before violence. All fear death, all love life. See yourself in others. Then whom can you hurt? What harm can you do?” ~ Buddha

Dairy cows spend their lives chained on a concrete floor, and have their milk sucked out of them by machines. Every year, they are artificially impregnated to keep pregnant and to keep the milk flowing. Newborn calves are torn from their grieving mothers at birth, so that we can drink their milk. The female offspring are used to produce more milk, while the males are killed for veal. The dairy industry is the meat industry.

Fish and other aquatic animals used for food are simply brought out of the water and left to die slowly of suffocation.

Hundreds of thousands of prairie dogs, coyotes, wolves, mountain lions, bears, bison, as well as tens of millions of starlings and blackbirds are shot, maimed, poisoned, and burned alive by farmers and government agents each year, because they are viewed as interfering with animal agricultural activities.

Our Health

Meat and dairy products are laden with saturated fats, cholesterol, hormones, pathogens, antibiotics, and excess protein. They lack complex carbohydrates and fiber, as well as many vitamins and minerals, all essential to our health. Your diet may be killing you.

Over the past four decades, dozens of massive studies found that consumption of animal products is associated with elevated risk of obesity, diabetes, heart disease, stroke, and certain forms of cancer, which kill 1.4 million Americans annually. None reached the opposite conclusion.

Pathogens like E. coli and Salmonella, responsible for many food recalls, all originate with animals raised for food.

All major viral epidemics, including Ebola, and the Spanish, Asian, Avian, Coronavirus, and Swine Flu, have originated from virus mutations associated with our exploitation of animals.

And the Planet

For more about how your diet impacts the planet, visit greenyourplate.org.

What is a Vegan Lifestyle?

A vegan lifestyle seeks to exclude all animal exploitation from one’s life, including but not limited to food, clothing, entertainment, decor and travel. Those of us following a vegan lifestyle seek to minimize harm to animals as much as possible by not eating or using animal ﬂesh or parts, including eggs, dairy, honey, leather, fur, wool, silk, down feathers, and any items tested on animals, such as soaps, cosmetics, pharmaceuticals and cleaning products. Furthermore, the vegan lifestyle does not condone any form of entertainment or sport involving the exploitation or killing of animals, such as hunting, fishing, circuses or shows with animal acts, and zoos.

Have you witnessed farm animal abuse? Tips for reporting here.