Animals are not ours to use for food, clothing, entertainment, experimentation, or any other reason. By switching to a plant-base diet, human societies will be able to alleviate the needless suffering and deaths of countless animals, the irreparable damage done onto the earth like air and water pollution, the erosion of lands, waste of precious energy, and deforestation. Raising and eating meat leaves behind an environmental toll that generations to come will be forced to pay.
The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated. - Gandhi, Indian spiritual leader
How animals become meat and why the vegetarian diet & vegan diet helps animals. Modern high-pressure agriculture commonly keeps cows, calves, pigs, chickens, turkeys, ducks, and other animals in overcrowded stalls, cages, crates, or sheds where they are often unable to turn around or take even a single step for their entire lives. Deprived of veterinary care, exercise, sunlight, and even the feel of grass beneath their feet, these living, breathing, thinking, feeling beings, whose senses are so much like our own, suffer and die at the rate of millions per day just so that we can have burgers, patties, nuggets, and wieners. Deciding what we will eat means choosing between the horrors of factory farming and respect for animals.
Pigs, cows, and chickens are individuals with feelings - they experience love, happiness, loneliness, and fear, just as dogs, cats, and people do. More than 25 billion animals are killed by the meat industry each year - in ways that would horrify any compassionate person. The average American meat-eater is responsible for the abuse and death of about 90 animals per year.
In modern factory farms, animals are routinely injected with hormones and stimulants to make them grow bigger and faster. Many dairy ranchers use recombinant bovine growth hormone (rBGH) to enhance milk production, despite the fact that this chemical - which has been implicated in causing cancer and other diseases - shows up in milk. Feedlots are crowded, filthy, stinking places with open sewers and choking air. The animals would not survive at all but for the fact that they are fed huge amounts of antibiotics. In some farms, cattle are fed "renders" - dead and grounded up cows. To induce and increase egg production, chicken are kept in tight cages and kept awake under bright light 24 hours a day. Consider eating vegan and eliminating all animal products from your diet.
Hundreds of thousands of animals are poisoned, blinded, and killed every year to test shampoos, household cleaners, cosmetics, hair sprays, and other personal-care and household items. These tests are not required by law, and they often produce inaccurate or misleading results - even if a product has blinded an animal, it can still be marketed to you. Some corporations force substances into animals' stomachs and drip chemicals into rabbits' eyes. What goes on behind the doors of laboratories is horrific.
Animals are also unnecssariyly being trapped, caged, hurt, and even killed to make clothing, accessories, and furniture for human use.
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