Even for those who agree that American farms are mistreating animals, a fundamental question over the culture of animal-eating remains: Can it ever be justified?
ILANA COHEN: ‘Most of us fail to recognize the face on our plate. When we salivate over “chicken wings,” we do not associate our meal with what was once a living chicken. And this disconnect is critical: Acknowledging the face on one’s plate might mean acknowledging the cruel reality of the animal agriculture industry behind it. While cats and dogs in American culture are often seen as ‘part of the family,’ U.S. farm animals face physically and psychologically traumatizing conditions on factory farms and in industrial slaughterhouses, where they have been butchered while conscious…
Even for those who agree that American farms are mistreating animals, a fundamental question over the culture of animal-eating remains: Can it ever be justified? Although both aim to advance farm animals’ wellbeing, animal welfare and animal rights activists’ views on the matter differ substantially. The former tend to endorse animal-eating when coupled with improved conditions for farm animals, while the latter oppose consuming animals and animal products entirely…
While changes in the law can help mitigate factory farms’ influence by extending farm animal protections and creating a marketplace for alternative products, whether farm animals’ wellbeing takes precedence over cheap meat and dairy remains largely up to consumers. On a collective scale, personal dietary change can have great impact. Individuals can also help expose cruel industry practices and create pressure for change by documenting processes inside factory farms and industrial slaughterhouses…
Philosopher and author Peter Singer attributes a culture of farm animal exploitation and consumption to speciesism, the belief in humans’ superiority to animals. Speciesism promotes a false conception of animal suffering as less significant than human suffering, making it appear more defensible… From swearing off factory farm products to going fully vegan, the value of changing one’s diet is not, Singer explained, in committing an act of “personal purity,” but rather in opening an avenue for greater political action and bringing animal suffering into public consciousness’. SOURCE…
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