Ending The Modern Day Holocaust of Animals
There is a lot of polarisation around the subject of eating animals. Most of us are somewhat familiar with the debate at this point, so I wont waste time reiterating it.
What I want to do instead is dissolve the usual disagreements in the debate so that we can ameliorate the situation.
So often the debate ends up in a variety of meaningless philosophical exercises, and we lose focus on what we actually all agree upon.
We don’t need to solve any questions of consciousness or debate where the line of sentience can be drawn.
What we need to do is look at reality.
We need to look at how most of the 70 billion land-animals and trillions of fish we consume each year are bred and killed for us, and just how monstrous the industry has become.
We don’t need to have any agreements on the ethics of eating animals in general to do so, as we can mostly agree that animals should at least live as well as they would in nature. Thus, hunting an aged animal for consumption should be the baseline of decency, at the very least.
The modern animal agriculture stands in stark contrast to this baseline, as the modus operandi has throughout the centuries shifted into that of maximising profit and output, above all else.
Small percentages do breed animals in a manner that can be considered more humane, often labeled grass-fed or organic, yet even these parts of the industry are profoundly cruel.
For while animals may live somewhat better lives in this way, there are still practices taking place, which by their nature can’t be redeemed.
This is especially evident when it comes to the production of milk, in which simple biological facts prevent any humane production. Cows, like us, only lactate when a child needs to be fed. Anything else would be meaningless.
Thus, the only way one can keep milk production going, and efficiently so, is to push this biological mechanism to the max. This means not only that cows are kept impregnated as constantly as their bodies allow, but also that their calves are removed from them. This will normally happen days after their birth, and is both an unspeakable cruelty and a necessity for us drinking the milk.
After all, if the calf gets the milk, how can it be sold to us?
And while this specific cruelty is to some degree avoidable in other sectors of the industry, the principle of maximising output stays the same.
Pigs, cows, chicken, ducks, and other animals are grown in horrific conditions, living their lives from birth to slaughter in immensely cramped confinement, barely able to move, getting huge tumors or injures. They get so sick, that large amounts of antibiotics need to be given to them in order to even keep them alive. All this before being killed, most often in an extremely painful manner.
We don’t hear much about this, as slaughter houses are kept out of sight, making sure that all we buy in the store is just sliced pieces, with little sign of coming from an animal.
Furthermore, governments many places enact gag laws, which essentially means that you can be criminally prosecuted for exposing the conditions of animals in farms and slaughterhouses.
There is a lot of effort going in to making us forget what we are eating.
But we need to be willing to accept the reality of what is happening, as turning a blind eye to it will not spare us the consequences of ignorance.
Not only will continuing animal agriculture be a stain on our history, but will also be extremely destructive for us.
It already is.
There immediate dangers this industry poses to us are numerous, including the creation of hyper-resistant bacteria and viruses which can’t be stopped by antibiotics, the decimation of the land through the chemical farming needed to support the growth of animals, or the loss of fresh water due to both the production of feed and the waste of animals seeping into the water.
There is an immense opportunity for change, but only if we take it now.
We change this entire system, by changing our own consumption. The idea that our individual choices don’t matter is both a product of apathy and also entirely untrue from the standpoint of economics.
The food industry will provide what we ask for. It may feel insignificant whether we buy plants or meat, but through the law of supply and demand, we are essentially casting our vote for what we want to see more of.
The choice of living as plant based as we possibly can is the best we can do to ameliorate this situation. Especially if we can get in touch with local farmers and get locally and organically grown food, which is just the absolute optimum available.
We don’t need labels, sides, groups. We don’t need to call ourselves vegan or plant-based. We need to take responsibility, which means doing the best we can with what we have.
We do it for ourselves, our kids, the planet, the animals.
And we can start today.
So what are you waiting for?
