Your fave celebs, your best friend, your colleague, and even your next-door neighbors. In , there were 2 million self-identifying vegans in the US, but today, that number has more than tripled to 6.
People turn to the vegan lifestyle due to health and nutrition reasons, as a response to animal cruelty, and even in a push to save our environment from the affects of the animal farming industry. But should you give up meat, eggs, dairy, and possibly honey , in an attempt to join the crowd? The answer is actually a lot more simple than you'd think. Vegan cheeses, meats, and even some plant-based milks can be high in saturated fat, sugar, and chemical additives… If you are eating vegan cookies, ice cream, and burgers, your diet will not necessarily be healthier.
While there are important differences between how cattle, pigs, and poultry are kept, most of these animals are raised at factory farms. Prior to World War II, most farm animals lived under comparatively good conditions on small, family-owned farms. These animals typically received plenty of space, and they often had access to sunlight and fresh air. So, by any standard they had decent surroundings even if their lives were destined to be violently cut short. Note 2. Land grant colleges across the United States pioneered an entirely new form of farming both crops and animals.
Starting in the s, agriculture colleges at these state colleges began teaching farming with the same rigor applied to any other academic discipline. And as a new generation of farmers were taught subjects like chemistry and biology, everything about plant and animal farming changed. But within animal agriculture, the introduction of factory farming methods increased animal suffering to unconscionable extremes. Adjusted for inflation, the price of animal products dropped significantly thanks to the efficiencies gained through factory farming.
This gave rise to people eating more meat, milk, and eggs than ever before—while animal welfare standards simultaneously collapsed. Thousands of meat, dairy, and egg producers quit business every year.
The dairy industry offers a good example of the relentless financial pressure that animal farmers face. Beginning in , dairies throughout the Northeast U. In each of those years, wholesale milk prices came in well below production costs. Over that period, one regional dairy cooperative sent out suicide prevention letters after two of its members killed themselves.
Note 3. To stay afloat financially, meat, dairy, and egg producers must cut expenses wherever possible. Tragically, many of these cost-cutting measures are tremendously cruel. No farming cruelty exceeds those carried out by the egg industry. Additionally, these hens spend their entire lives standing on wire-bottomed cages. Predictably, the wire causes abrasions that lead to open sores and bruises. The birds sleep while being pressed against the cage and literally never have a moment of comfort.
Pigs face comparably appalling living conditions, especially females used for breeding. These sows often spend their entire lives in gestation and farrowing crates.
Standard crates forbid any sort of normal movement. In fact, they are so narrow that the sow lacks sufficient space to turn around. What about cows and cattle? Beef cattle are the only farm animals that nearly always live a portion of their lives outdoors in good conditions. Some dairy cows also spend much of their lives outdoors. But many dairies are factory farms that intensively confine their cows for their entire lives. Even for the lucky cattle who spend time outside, this experience is only temporary.
There, they live out their final months crowded onto filthy, barren plots of land. Having driven this stretch of Interstate countless times, I have often smelled the stench of the feedlot from several kilometres away. The feedlot covers a vast expanse of land, with seemingly every square meter crammed with animals amassed on black manure-coated earth.
Any large feedlot is basically indistinguishable from what you can see at Harris Ranch. Conditions are just as bad at many dairy farms. Some dairies are nearly indistinguishable from beef feedlots. The easiest way for an untrained observer to spot the difference is to look at the animals: most dairy cows have spotted coats whereas beef cattle are usually solid dark brown. Just as bullying and violence pervades poorly run schools and prisons, the same is true at factory farms.
The staggering levels of crowding incite the animals to take their frustrations out on each another. More crowding inevitably means more violence. The problem goes away if you remove stresses and provide adequate living space, but that solution costs too much for most facilities to contemplate. Factory farms instead inflict a variety of mutilations onto the animals in order to keep them from injuring one another.
Hens crowded into battery cages can peck each other to death. So egg producers use a hot blade to sear off the pointy final third of their beaks—rendering it unlikely that a peck can draw blood. Some hens die after beak searing renders them unable to drink or eat. Ranchers also brand their cattle with a hot iron in order to deter theft. That leaves the cows with no way to shoo away flies, which are often legion at dairies and a constant source of misery.
Each of these mutilations, including castration, typically occurs without anesthesia. A local anesthetic would greatly reduce pain, but factory farm owners regard even the cheapest pain killers as prohibitively expensive. Even when raised in good environments, farm animals commonly suffer painful health problems. These breeding advances make animal agribusiness more efficient and productive than ever, but the animals pay a terrible price.
When it comes to genetics, no animal is more revved up than chickens, and none suffers more as a result. Chickens raised for meat grow more than four times faster than birds raised in the s. Unable to walk to food or water, they die of thirst or starve to death. Just like every human pregnancy carries risk, complications can arise every time a hen lays an egg. So the more intensive the breeding to increase egg productivity, the greater the chances that something will go wrong.
During laying, reproductive and digestive organs can come out along with the egg. Without prompt veterinary attention, infection will set in and the bird will die. Since the requisite veterinary care costs at least twenty times more than a replacement hen, none of these afflicted birds get the treatment they need to survive. In typical sheds that house tens of thousands of hens, it is unlikely they will be noticed at all. Nearly all hens afflicted with a severe prolapse will suffer a lingering death from blood loss or infection.
In many cases, they take their dying breaths trampled by cage-mates while lying pressed against a wire battery cage floor. In the United States alone, millions of hens each year die in this manner as a result of prolapses and other conditions. Note 5. Dairy cows likewise suffer a variety of maladies brought on by selective breeding. Note 6 A variety of health problems are attributable to these extreme milk yields, the most common of which is an inflammation of the udders, which is generally accompanied by infection.
In cows with infected udders, the number of somatic cells in the milk increases dramatically. Thanks to their massive milk yields, udder inflammation and sub-clinical infection are widespread among modern dairy cows. So if you want to ensure your milk contains no pus, you must choose a plant-based variety like soy milk. These experiences have convinced me that no words can do justice to the topic. In order to truly grasp what the animals experience, you really must visit factory farms yourself.
Most of these places therefore forbid visitors. Thankfully, the world contains people like my friend Cody Carlson. Cody switched to a vegan diet at age nineteen. A few years later, he took a job at a large dairy farm in Upstate New York. He worked there for a month, then left to work in a pig-breeding facility in Pennsylvania.
After that gig ended, he got jobs at two different egg farms. The other difference was that, each day when Cody arrived at the job, he wore a hidden camera. What happens when you take people who lack decent employment opportunities, pay them a pittance, and put them in stressful work environments with minimal supervision?
All too often, they take out their frustrations on the animals. The atrocities that undercover investigators like Cody have uncovered at factory farms are endless. I could go on and on with more examples. Few jobs are as traumatizing as that of an undercover animal cruelty investigator. Yet many activists have stepped up to do this work.
Still other undercover investigators have taken jobs at the slaughterhouses and fishing boats. No matter where these investigators show up, staggering cruelties reveal themselves.
Typically, whenever a new undercover video goes public, the guilty company makes a big deal of firing the workers caught abusing animals. While these firings are invariably well-deserved, they conveniently shift blame away from ownership and management.
Yet the root of the problem is not with any individual worker. Factory farms are owned and operated by people willing to inflict unfathomable amounts of suffering onto animals in order to cut costs. Every farmer has a tremendous financial incentive to cram as many animals into the smallest space possible.
On top of this intensive confinement, the industry strives to cut expenses to the absolute minimum. These efforts play out in all sorts of distressing ways. No matter where in the system an animal may be, agonies and discomforts unrelentingly suffuse every moment. There is not one softer corner, nothing without an edge, no flicker of respite. Anything decent or worthwhile was squeezed out decades ago in the pursuit of profit. Countless sources of misery exist within factory farming. Wherever you choose to look, a fresh hell opens up.
For the sake of brevity, here are just three topics of dozens worthy of a lengthy book chapter:. No room to talk about what the animals can see coming as they look down the slaughter line.
Nor can we linger here on the experiences of the dairy cows who watch their newborns taken away just a day or two after birth. No space either to talk about the millions of birds and cattle who have been buried alive in open pits during disease outbreaks. Factory farming is a bottomless horror, no matter where you choose to look. Unless specifically labeled to the contrary, you can assume that every animal product came from a factory farm.
A number of omnivores have pushed back against factory farming by demanding higher animal welfare standards. Most natural foods stores and supermarkets sell specially-labeled animal products from farms that promise better animal welfare.
At their best, alternative farms deliver genuine animal welfare improvements. And with this reduced crowding, mutilations like beak searing and tail-clipping can be eliminated. Unfortunately, the substantial price premium these higher welfare foods command exerts an overpowering temptation on producers to cheat.
All too often, farmers exaggerate or outright lie about standards for animal care. Just like at factory farms, every alternative producer faces the strongest financial temptation to push limits.
Since the costs of delivering genuinely good animal welfare are so high, there are always farmers willing to cut corners. Sure, they use higher quality animal feed and refrain from using antibiotics, but animal welfare remains deplorable. Many consumers are aghast to discover poor animal welfare at organic farms. So top food service companies and groceries have implemented a variety of certification programs. Much like hotels are typically rated from one to five stars, one leading program offers five different tiers of animal welfare.
That way, at least in theory, the consumer can decide for herself which practices are acceptable, and choose products accordingly. Of course, every welfare certification system depends on farmers having the integrity to live up to their promised standards.
This in turn demands careful monitoring and strict enforcement by the certification agency. Alternately, you can do your own monitoring. Me, I have better things to do with my time. Much easier, I think, to simply avoid foods where egregious abuses of consumer trust and animal welfare are commonplace.
In this respect, laziness surely ranks as one of the most underappreciated reasons to consider a vegan diet. You undoubtedly have more pleasant ways to spend your time than investigating animal welfare compliance.
And why expend all that effort when there exists such an abundance of delicious vegan food? And anyway, no matter how you strive to purchase only the highest-quality animal products, numerous problems remain either unaddressed or impossible to remedy.
As just one example, there is simply no way to eliminate slaughter. Even the highest-welfare producers kill their dairy cows and layer hens well before midlife, as yields decline. Find out more about how much protein we really need. The vegan diet is thought to be one of the healthiest because it includes plenty of legumes aswell as fruit and vegetables Credit: Getty Images.
He advises eating plenty of fruit and vegetables with a variety of colours, nuts, wholegrains and beans and lentils, as well as chia, hemp and flax seeds, which contain omega 3. In fact, they found that those who ate a more diverse diet tended to eat more processed foods and sugary drinks. Speaking of unhealthy foods, Springman is concerned about the rising popularity of vegan junk food.
In a recent study looking at the effects of a diet high in plants, but not strictly vegan, researchers used indexes that ranked people according to how much of their diet consisted of plant-based foods, compared to animal foods. Even those who ate the most plant-based foods also ate some dairy, fish and meat.
Those who had the most plant-based diets, and lower intakes of animal products , scored better on health markers. Eggs are a major source of vitamin B12, which the vegan diet lacks Credit: Getty Images.
She found that people who ate more fruit and vegetables generally ate less red and processed meat, dairy and fish. Researchers are concerned that a lot of research comparing the vegan diet and health outcomes also known as observational research is unreliable, since vegans tend to be healthier. These lifestyle factors, which can also contribute to a lower risk of heart disease and mortality, can suggest that the vegan diet alone is healthier than it may actually be. These studies serve as a starting point, says Faidon, and because most data on veganism is observation, there are still uncertainties around the vegan diet, particularly when it comes to long-term effects.
Vegetarians don't get protein deficiencies because many plant-based foods contain protein Credit: Getty Images. This could make more people interested in taking up the vegan diet for health reasons.
It will take a couple of years, Medawar says, before research is done to understand the mechanisms behind how a vegan diet affects our health, as it will require controlled studies. But despite the lack of data on the vegan diet specifically, researchers say existing evidence on diet and health generally points to a few trends.
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