I have been a vegetarian most my life. I have written about my reasons quite extensively about 6 years back, and most of these are just as valid today. The objective of this post is to provide a few more points of view on the related topic of factory farming based on more recent reading or conversations. Caveat - naturally, my biases here, given this information.
Yuval Noah Harari, in Sapiens, speaks at length about what he calls the religion of Humanism, which dictates the ideals of our present times. According to its unwritten diktats, human beings are equated to a god among animals with more rights than any other species. The rest of the world and all other beings exist solely for the benefit of humanity. Accordingly, other living beings have so little rights that it is socially acceptable to farm them in factories so that their meat can be harnessed for our use. The only aim of factory farming is to maximise the output, while minimising the cost involved. As of 2011, factory farms account for 99.9 percent of chickens for meat, 97 percent of laying hens, 99 percent of turkeys, 95 percent of pigs, and 78 percent of cattle currently sold in the United States. World over, more animal products are factory farmed than raised in free range farms.
One show that I have always enjoyed watching on Discovery channel is How It's Made, which outlines several industrial products ranging from tiny screws to large car radiators. Every one of its episodes are surprising in how many procedures actually go into producing even a paper-clip in a factory. We use these devices with almost no knowledge of the processes that create them. This fact is true of factory farmed animals as well. Harari writes about how hens and chickens who have a complex world of behavioural needs and drivers, are caged in enclosures where they cannot flap their wings or even stand fully erect. He describes how pigs, the most intelligent and inquisitive of mammals apart from the apes, are grown in cramped crates, separated from their piglets soon after birth. Dairy cows who live all their lives in small enclosures, living in their own urine and feces, are reduced to being a mouth to feed and an udder to milk. However, we are completely insulated from knowledge of the assembly lines of carnage that ultimately bring our meat to our tables - just like other industrial products. The factory farming industry thrives on this ignorance of its customers.
So how does one make an informed choice here without being at conflict with one's conscience? I found a heuristic adopted by a friend of mine to be most practical. He was vegetarian because he could eat anything that he could bring himself to kill. He would grapple with the idea of doing this mentally and concluded that he drew the line at vegetarianism. Another alternative is described by Erza Klein, the founder and editor-at-large at Vox.com, who says that eating lesser meat could be more effective than eating no meat at all. Ezra speaks about past instances where he would stay for months on a vegetarian diet, only to succumb to temptation and relapse to "full-on omnivorism" because of one exception that he made. Later, he relaxed these restrictions to turn 'almost vegetarian' - where he would eat meat or fish when he would travel. Today he is almost vegan, while going vegetarian when he travels. Ezra points out that if the world's population as a whole ate 30% lesser meat, it would have a much larger impact than if 5% turned completely vegetarian. Eating lesser meat, especially factory farmed meat could be a more pragmatic approach than turning completely vegetarian.
Ezra also speaks about how someday in the future look back on factory farming of animals just as we did with slavery or gender equality, and ask ourselves how we could willfully let this happen to other sentient beings. The market for organic and free-range products are rising everywhere which makes it increasingly easier to consume animal products that are not factory farmed. Apart from resting easier on our conscience, this choice has so many other benefits, healthy, environmental or otherwise, that I need not point out. Even as I write the credo of Humanism, one which subordinates all other living beings to the sole benefit of man, it sounds a little ludicrous in present times. The grip of Humanism as we know it is reducing, and though I am not sure if I would live to see the day the production of our meat staples would go back to more 'humane' means than factory farms, we are most certainly headed that way.
Yuval Noah Harari, in Sapiens, speaks at length about what he calls the religion of Humanism, which dictates the ideals of our present times. According to its unwritten diktats, human beings are equated to a god among animals with more rights than any other species. The rest of the world and all other beings exist solely for the benefit of humanity. Accordingly, other living beings have so little rights that it is socially acceptable to farm them in factories so that their meat can be harnessed for our use. The only aim of factory farming is to maximise the output, while minimising the cost involved. As of 2011, factory farms account for 99.9 percent of chickens for meat, 97 percent of laying hens, 99 percent of turkeys, 95 percent of pigs, and 78 percent of cattle currently sold in the United States. World over, more animal products are factory farmed than raised in free range farms.
One show that I have always enjoyed watching on Discovery channel is How It's Made, which outlines several industrial products ranging from tiny screws to large car radiators. Every one of its episodes are surprising in how many procedures actually go into producing even a paper-clip in a factory. We use these devices with almost no knowledge of the processes that create them. This fact is true of factory farmed animals as well. Harari writes about how hens and chickens who have a complex world of behavioural needs and drivers, are caged in enclosures where they cannot flap their wings or even stand fully erect. He describes how pigs, the most intelligent and inquisitive of mammals apart from the apes, are grown in cramped crates, separated from their piglets soon after birth. Dairy cows who live all their lives in small enclosures, living in their own urine and feces, are reduced to being a mouth to feed and an udder to milk. However, we are completely insulated from knowledge of the assembly lines of carnage that ultimately bring our meat to our tables - just like other industrial products. The factory farming industry thrives on this ignorance of its customers.
So how does one make an informed choice here without being at conflict with one's conscience? I found a heuristic adopted by a friend of mine to be most practical. He was vegetarian because he could eat anything that he could bring himself to kill. He would grapple with the idea of doing this mentally and concluded that he drew the line at vegetarianism. Another alternative is described by Erza Klein, the founder and editor-at-large at Vox.com, who says that eating lesser meat could be more effective than eating no meat at all. Ezra speaks about past instances where he would stay for months on a vegetarian diet, only to succumb to temptation and relapse to "full-on omnivorism" because of one exception that he made. Later, he relaxed these restrictions to turn 'almost vegetarian' - where he would eat meat or fish when he would travel. Today he is almost vegan, while going vegetarian when he travels. Ezra points out that if the world's population as a whole ate 30% lesser meat, it would have a much larger impact than if 5% turned completely vegetarian. Eating lesser meat, especially factory farmed meat could be a more pragmatic approach than turning completely vegetarian.
Ezra also speaks about how someday in the future look back on factory farming of animals just as we did with slavery or gender equality, and ask ourselves how we could willfully let this happen to other sentient beings. The market for organic and free-range products are rising everywhere which makes it increasingly easier to consume animal products that are not factory farmed. Apart from resting easier on our conscience, this choice has so many other benefits, healthy, environmental or otherwise, that I need not point out. Even as I write the credo of Humanism, one which subordinates all other living beings to the sole benefit of man, it sounds a little ludicrous in present times. The grip of Humanism as we know it is reducing, and though I am not sure if I would live to see the day the production of our meat staples would go back to more 'humane' means than factory farms, we are most certainly headed that way.
