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Veganism
Think of where the animal products you consume come from. You¶re probably

envisioning acres of grassy farmlands with cows grazing leisurely in the open air, happy pigs

rolling around in the mud, and chickens in cozy coops laying their eggs, right? Wrong. Farms

like these hardly exist anymore. Instead, cows are kept pregnant to produce an abnormal amount

of milk, pigs are raised in concrete cages inside windowless metal buildings, and two hundred

and fifty thousand laying hens are piled in one, single building.

These animals are living in what¶s known as factory-farms. The factory-farm is an over-

crowded, terrifying, smelly madhouse, filled with suffering animals that are literally going

insane. These conditions are absolutely unacceptable and must be changed. If you are eating

meat, if you are eating dairy products, or if you are purchasing leather or fur, you are supporting

this despicable behavior. In order to stand up against the industry, everyone must choose the

better, more ethical way of living; the vegan lifestyle.

A vegan is defined as; a person who refrains from using any animal product whatsoever

for food, clothing, or any other purpose. Essentially, this is someone who has enough

compassion and empathy for one of God¶s creatures to not want to eat or wear them. Although

we have progressed over the years, the issue of animal cruelty is still a severe problem.

According to Tyler Garcia, ³Calves are chained by neck in two-foot wide crates. This

confinement makes the meat µtender¶ since the muscles cannot develop´ (19). He also stated,

³Battery hens are kept in tiny cages with other hens, unable to stretch their wings´ (19). What

kind of life is that? The conditions these helpless animals live in tend to cause injuries. These

³downer´ animals are not given any grace. Stated in the article µBad Beef?¶, ³Every day, I would
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see downed cattle, or animals too sick or injured to walk, arriving at the slaughterhouse,´ the

investigator says. ³Plant workers would hit, drag, do anything to get them to stand so they could

later pass inspection and be slaughtered´ (4-5). Many of these animals are often dead prior to the

slaughtering process and still being ground up and used.

Many people argue that not eating animals is wrong because ³God put them on the planet

for consumption.´ This may be true, but they were NOT meant to be tortured. How would you

feel if you were tragically ripped from your mother at birth? Better yet, castrated without pain

relievers within the first few minutes of life? Just because these are animals doesn¶t mean they

don¶t feel every bit of pain they¶re put through. According to Jeffrey Kluger, ³Similar amounts

of pain are equally bad´«´whether felt by a human or a mouse´ (36-43).

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Works Cited
³Bad Beef?´¢

 3 Mar. 2008: 4-5.

Garcia, Tyler. ³A Cruel Place.´ 

 Dec. 2006: 19.

Kluger, Jeffrey. ³Inside Minds of Animals.´   16 Dec. 2010: 36-43