The meat, dairy and egg industry workers are injured and killed more than any other workers. In addition, the mostly black, female and immigrant laborers are exploited more than any other workers. Cutting into a live sentient being, spilling her vitals, while her eyelids are still blinking, these acts cause long lasting psychological damage.

I appreciated the article because it presented the relationship between killing and cruelty to feeling, breathing animals and the hardships of workers doing these jobs.

We humans are herbivores by physiology and anatomy. Our bodies are not designed to be graveyards for dead animals (as George Bernard Shaw put it), nor for their milk or eggs. Consuming animals and animals products is the number one cause of all the major and minor diseases (cancer, heart disease, stroke, diabetes, obesity, impotence ~ you name it – who needs it?!)(For evidence of this, please read “The China Study: the most comprehensive nutritional study ever conducted,” (a national best seller and labeled “the grand prix of epidemiological studies by the NY Times.))

Not only do the meat, dairy and egg industries cause needless (since we’re herbivores) suffering to the animals and disease and imbalance to humans, but in addition, the consumption of animal carcasses and products abstracted from animals is the number one cause of the accelerating destruction of our planet.

This includes through deforestation, soil erosion, pollution of our air, land and water, misuse of resources (including land, water and petroleum (1/3 of all petroleum goes to the meat, dairy and egg industries) and finally through catastrophic climate change (usually referred to as global warming)(methane and nitrous oxide gases from the animals and their poops are 286 times more gwp (global warming producing) than all the cars, power plants and carbon dioxide emissions put together!) For more info on this, please see the latest IGPCC (InterGovernmental Panell on Climate Change) report, the John Hopkins University for a Sustainable Future, the Earth Save Int’l report by Yale physicist, Noam Mohr and the Chicago University study showing that switching to a Vegetarian / Vegan diet is one and a half times more effective in stopping global warming than switching from a regular car to an alternative energy fueled car (like a Prius).

Lastly, 60,000 people die of starvation every day because most of the food grown on the planet goes to feed animals that then goes to feed people (in the wealthier nations). Eighty percent of all plant food grown in the US goes to feed animals.

Do we need any other reasons to go vegan? Eating animal carcasses and animals’ products is cruel and exploitative to the animals; it causes them tremendous pain and suffering; we humans are herbivores so eating outside our natures causes stress and dis-ease to our bodies and shortens our life spans; it puts a burden on the ones we love and on society at large; it forces workers to commit acts that violate their natural instincts to feel compassion for other living beings; it forces workers to kill and cause pain and suffering leading to all kinds of psychological problems and social imbalance (drugs, alcohol, spousal abuse, suicide); it puts these most vulnerable members of our society at risk of injury and death at meat packing and slaughterhouse plants; it exploits these workers, depriving them of sick leave, health care and other basic workers’ rights; it lowers the wages of all workers who must compete for decent wages and working conditions; it contributes more than any other industry to the destruction of our planet and puts out entire species as well as all the others species at risk of extermination on an unsustainable planet; it causes hunger and starvation (60,000 deaths/day!); Need I go on?

I appreciate this article for raising a few of the problems and contradictions in the meat, dairy and egg industries. Anyone concerned with social justice, the fate of our planet and its inhabitants, health and health care, etc may want to consider veganism, a healthy,(relatively) cruelty free, planet sustaining, just and loving way of living. For more info along with free recipes, health tips, shopping tips (a Vegetarian Starter Kit)(DVD or booklet – free) go to GoVeg.com.

Thank you Martha Rosenberg for raising these concerns. May we all take heed.

This story actually is about Americans not being willing to do hard manual labor $6 an hour.