#the cattle industry isn’t inherently bad

[trkstrnd]

Hello, cow loving nerd here- prefacing this with just. I'm not trying to be rude, in case I come off that way. Cause I'm very overenthusiastic and sometimes that comes off wrong! I just love cattle and talking about cattle and cattle welfare, and I get way too excited whenever cattle are mentioned, even passingly. So. Just wanted to share a bit of info about cattle welfare!

Even tho the treatment of cattle is often viewed as the worst thing ever, the cattle industry is actually one of the best (if not the best- I'm not sure if any niche industry is regulated better) regulated livestock industry! I highly recommend looking up Temple Grandin- she's an autistic woman, and she has done a ton to improve welfare for cattle! It's really cool- she even developed humane methods of slaughtering cattle! She also viewed cattle as living individuals, rather than simply property! I'm always quite sad when people assume that the cattle industry is bad for the animals, cause it also means that not enough people have heard about her and her accomplishments- which isnt anyone's fault ofc, she's just really cool and I wish more people knew about her!

(Again, I hope this doesnt sound condescending or anything- I just always like chattering when people mention the cattle industry, cause it's so interesting that it's gotten such a bad reputation to the non-cow obsessed public, when in reality chicken and pig industries are far more unethical- unfortunately, no one has quite stood up for them in the same way that Temple Grandin stood up for cattle.)

(Also, every industry does need pressure to do better, so pressure should keep being put on them! But I know that worrying about things can be mentally draining, so I always find it nice to know when animals arent being treated horribly.) (Btw, note, I'm not a professional or associated with the industry by any means, I just love cows a lot vhdjcjdncjf)

Anyways, infodumping ramble over! Btw, may I ask why the lettuce industry is bad? I'm not as good at keeping up with plant agriculture (or, well, any non bovine agriculture) as I am with cattle, but I do like to know about the ethics of food, if you wouldnt mind dropping a link?

Also, happy new year! - cowlos-reyes

(Quick little fun fact: feed for dairy cows is sometimes supplemented with bakery waste! So sometimes they get chocolate, caramel, breads, cookies, etc! It's not stuff that would be fed to humans- just stuff that would be tossed!)

oh! my! goodness! anon, your ask is not condescending or rude at all, it’s actually brought me so much joy!! i love hearing about people’s niche interests, and i love opening up nuanced conversation! i will absolutely look up temple grandin!! thank you for letting me know about her!!

as for my cattle industry take being bad, i truly do not think that the industry is as inherently bad for the cattle as it is for the environment, but even then, the cattle industry only makes up four percent of the greenhouse gases polluting the atmosphere. most of it comes from architecture and industrialization, but that’s a whole other can of worms!

i just figured since you mentioned that the cattle industry gets a bad wrap, i would like to deflect some of that negative energy (towards the cattle industry) to my arch nemesis: lettuce:

lettuce is 99% water. i feel like we know this, but the rest of lettuce basically has no nutritional value, and it’s truly a waste of fresh water to produce. in fact, according to water calculator.org, a single salad has a water footprint of about twenty-one gallons of fresh water! that is twenty one gallons of fresh water going into something that will not fill you or give you energy!

don’t get me wrong! i love healthy foods, but lettuce being 98% water means at minimum that water has to go into it just for it to exist, plus extra water for it to grow! for literally nothing!! even if people struggle to comprehend the ethics of the cattle industry (at least from an environmentalist standpoint), the nutritional value speaks for itself!

an average cow will drink 10-15 gallons of water a day. the lifetime of that cow will result in them drinking somewhere in the ballpark of 75,000 gallons of water in their lifetime.

now, according to the university of arizona, it generally takes about 40-50 inches of water per acre to grow a good, desirable head of lettuce, or, to generate a good harvest of lettuce crop.

one inch of water over one acre equals about 27,000 gallons of water. AN INCH. OVER AN ACRE. THIS MEANS AT 40 INCHES OF WATER (the low end of water recommended for lettuce growth) THAT IS 1.08 MILLION FUCKING GALLONS

FOR AN ACRE OF LETTUCE

there are still people in the US and all around the world that can’t get access to clean, fresh water. it’s a resource that is running out and quite literally is THE resource that fosters life, and we are letting people go thirsty, and letting the planet heat up and dry out, so we can eat CRUNCHY WATER??????

about 15-20 cows can be kept alive for THEIR ENTIRE LIFESPAN with enough water it takes to grow A SINGLE ACRE OF LETTUCE.

not to mention beef is high in iron and protein and vitamins and tastes a hell of a lot better than crunchy plant water.

anyway, tldr: fuck the lettuce industry, don’t get mad at cattle farmers for trying to make a living. the climate is changing due to corporations cutting corners and polluting the environment just so they can use cheaper materials. the cattle industry is not bad, and i very very much loved this anon ask.

ps: GIVE THE COWS COOKIES ALL DAY EVERY DAY OR I WILL SOB ARE U KIDDING ME that’s SO CUTE I BET THEYRE SO HAPPY

sources:

[is-the-owl-video-cute]

Yeah man I’m “anti-vegan” because the idea that several hundred acres of a monoculture rife with pesticides and rodenticides being LESS environmentally devastating than putting some cattle in a pasture is extremely laughable to me as an actual biologist who specializes in environmental conservation.

I’m “anti-vegan” because ARA weirdos have told me that my work in wildlife rehabilitation is abusive because an animal cannot consent to medical treatment, and even those who are slightly more hinged have insisted that I should simply scavenge for roadkill instead of feeding the raptors I work with farm-raised mice, rats, and quail because farming for food for animals in my care is seen as being as evil as whatever peta documentary they’ve seen about industrial animal agriculture showed them, regardless of how many times peta has been caught falsifying evidence and scenarios which makes people waste time rallying against something that doesn’t exist rather than lobbying for animal welfare laws that would ACTUALLY benefit livestock.

I’m “anti-vegan” because people try to tell me that a person keeping pet chickens is disgusting if they eat or sell the infertile eggs the chickens lay, and because the ARA movement inherently treats a small scale farm that treats all animals well the same as it treats the most cartoonishly abusive and sadistic strawman of a factory farm.

I have never been against people who for their own ideals choose to not eat anything that comes from an animal. People can make their own dietary decisions that isn’t my business.

What is my business is when a diet that is not possible for everyone to live on is pushed onto others and they are considered to be bad people if they aren’t interested in trying.

I take issue with the idea of completely abolishing all animal agriculture because, like it or not, humans are omnivores and not everyone can survive and thrive without ANY animal material in their diet.

I take issue with people feeding obligate carnivores such as cats and dogs vegan diets that slowly kill them.

I take issue with the idea that vegan diets are affordable for everyone just because a banana or can of beans alone are cheap.

I take issue with people spreading blatant lies to the tune of “all dairy bulls are shot dead at birth to steal all their mothers milk and to make veal” or “calves are born on trailers going to the slaughterhouse and fall out and are left to die!” because lying about something to turn people against it by spinning a false narrative is bad actually.

But yeah man I’m a bootlicker for Big Anag or whatever because there’s NO OTHER EXPLANATION for me not liking you than me being a secret shill for Tyson chicken or something.

One concern about Scout no one discusses is that steers only sit around and get fat which is why we eat them. Beasley is probably morbidly obese at this point and will probably die of heart problems somewhat soon. It’s not funny, it’s sad.

obsessed with the implication that a steer is just destined to become fat with no means of preventing this. All steers will simply look like this if not eaten at one year on the dot.

Anon we eat steers because they are a livestock animal that isn’t going to breed or produce milk. If you aren’t keeping pet cattle there is nothing else to do with a steer but eat it.

[rainbowsnakes]

Animal Products, Sustainability and Animal Welfare

This post was inspired by several keynote talks given at conferences I attended last summer. 

It is a topic that can become very emotive.    

Disscussions on animal production and addressing the challenge of global food security in the face of climate change normally falls in to one of two narratives.  

The Production Narrative, aiming for “sustainable intensification” 

Or

The Comsumption Narrative, “Stop eating all animal products.” 

But what about the third option? 

Is there a place for animal agriculture in the future of farming that meets sustainability goals while still protecting  animal health and welfare?   

1) The Production Narrative: 

We can not continue to produce animal products in the way we do currently. It is NOT sustainable. The production narrative seeks to produce more food with a smaller footprint of rescources by increasing yeilds; selectivly breeding animals for increased feed efficiency (which basically reffers to how much food an animal has to eat to produce a unit of usable animal product). 

This approach seeks to rear animals that grow fast and produce high yeilds at higher stocking densities in the pursuit of “ sustainable intensification.”

This is path we are currently on. It is not the best option for animal welfare- 

and It’s is not whats best for the environment. 

I reject the opinion that farmers don’t care about their animals (All the farmers I’ve personally worked with do). Farmers want what’s best for the health and welfare of their animals, but are ultimatley constrained by very narrow profit margins.  

The problem is not “greedy farmers”. The problem is that as a society animal products do not have enough value.  There is a pressure for costs to be driven down by retailers...and good welfare costs money.  

In some cases the suggestions made (or scientifically shown) to improve animal welfare, such as selecting animals with slower growth rates, keeping them at lower stocking densities, or providing specific environmental enrichments will conflict directly with reducing the energy consumption of food production. 

In intensive systems welfare and sustainability are often in direct conflict.  

eg)  Production method 1 rears 4000 slower growing chickens per flock which go to slaughter at 60 days..  Production method 2 rears 6000 fast growing meat chickens which go to slaughter at 42 days both methods use the same amount of space.

The longer rearing time of production method 1 means the flock eats more food per kg of meat produced (and components of chicken feed like corn or wheat could have directly fed humans instead).  Production method 1 will also rear less chickens per year....So overall this is much more costly for the envrionment.

BUT production method 1 uses a slow growing strain of chicken with significantly less issues with leg deformities. The lower stocking density also means it is easier to maintain their environment within the parameters needed for good welfare.. They are overall healthier and more active. 

The consumer has pay the difference for this higher production cost and higher welfare standard.  Meaning high welfare foods are not equally accessible to everyone and come at the cost of sustainability.

On a grand scale, this system isn’t going to work. 

There is a capacity, and a real drive, to improve the welfare of animals in agriculture.. standards are improving. 

But in the face of climate change Is welfare going to remain a priority? Is it acceptable to have a split market where maybe a small % of farm animals are reared (ineffeciently) with a good quality of life for those that can afford to pay for welfare....While the reamining majority of farm animals are kept in sub-optimal conditons?

And of course there is a flip side to that argument. 

If suddenly it is decideded that yes, because animal products involve the lives of sentient beings, high welfare systems should become mandatory... The price of animal products will shoot up to reflect that. Is it ethical to deprieve people who can’t afford the new price of the choice to eat animal products? 

Without fixing equality issues within society....We can’t actually fix this problem with agriculture within the production narrative.  

2) The comsumption Narrative               

If there is no animal agriculture then there is no welfare problem.   

So is the awnser for everybody to stop eating animal products all together?

Not really, No.   

The whole world is highly unlikely and in some cases unable to become entirely vegan or vegetarian... It is simply not an option for every individual in all parts of the world. 

Feasibility aside not everybody has an ethical problem with ending the life of an animal for food in the first place. However,  MANY people  (for a variety of different reasons) do care about the quality of life an animal had and their capacity to suffer. 

Is the comsumption Narrative the best option for the environment and for global food security? 

- Arguably not.   

-Even plant based diets still harm the environment and indirectly harm animals. It’s an almost inescapable part of intensive modern agriculture.  

- Not all animal agriculture is bad for the envioronment. It can be well managed to the benefit of people and animals (wild and domestic).  

  Which leads us to the final narrative... 

3)  The Circular Narrative 

The circular narrative assumes that a given area of land that is used for agriculture in the most efficient way possible for food production. 

Some land which is unsutible for growing crops can be utilized by grazing cattle or sheep and managed humanely and sustainably to produce food / textile for humans.   

For land use to be efficient and sustainable one cruicial factor is food that humans could eat directly can not be fed to animals.... Instead animals would be fed using rescources that would otherwise be wasted... eg) sugar beet tops or other crop parts inedible for humans, food waste ect. 

In many cases using these rescources to feed animals and produce food is more efficient than using them for something else like biomass or biofeul. 

Its all about turning our current wasteful, linear production food chains into something that all works together.   

This option produces LESS animal product over all (so animal product consumption would still need to be reduced for this to work) ...because animals in these systems would be kept primarily for biomass utility, not pushed to their highest possible productivity yields. 

This is the easiest kind of system to pair with high welfare.  And there are already agro-forestry and silvopastoral systems that are moving towards this kind of goal.  

But this option requires the way the agricultural industry works, the way society percives animal products, and the way land is managed to fundamentally change...

Conclusion ? 

I don’t really have awnsers. 

I only made this post because Iv’e been thinking about all this a lot while collecting data on farms and when attending conferences in the field of animal welfare. (Most notably Prof. Imke de Boer’s Keynote at the 7th International Conference on the Assessment of Animal Welfare at Farm and Group Level.)  

If you eat animal products then I guess try go for high welfare stuff if you can, and if possible eat less animal products to mitigate the fact its not as sustainible.

That way, as a comsumer of animal products, you are still “voting” that welfare matters to you.  If people aren’t prepared to pay for higher welfare then there won’t be as much money put in to improving and progressing farm animal husbandry. 

I just so rarely see disscussions that don’t boil down to either “ ALL ANIMAL AGRICULTURE IS BAD” or dialogue that just comes too close to accepting current intensive systems as being compleatly fine. 

This is not a farming is bad post.... As some current farming systems do allow animals to have a life worth living, but ultimatley not enough of them... 

Too many welfare issues are inherently linked to the genetics of the production animals themselves....If I have the time maybe I’ll add some further sources or go into more detail in another post if people are interested.  

Also as a disclaimer this isn’t a bash against veganism / vegitarianism because we do need to reduce our overall consumption of animal products, and veganism becoming more mainstream makes plant based meals more accesible and is ultimatly it is a very good thing.  

However I think the vegan movement has a tendency to put too much focus on individuals consumer habits, morals and personal choices- rather than actually adressing the wider problems with modern agriculture...and captialism.

If you are interested in the circular narrative,  the future of farming and the dynamics of animal welfare and sustainability then the sources below may be of interest. 

www. wur. nl/en /Dossiers/ file/ Circular-agrofood-system. htm  (tumblrs weird about links so take the spaces out and paste that link it will take you to Wageningen Universities page on circular Agrofood systems where there is a pretty good video summerising it.) 

Feed sources for livestock: recycling towards a green planet, Thesis by Hannah van Zanten 

de Olde, E.M., Moller, H., Marchand, F. et al.  When experts disagree: the need to rethink indicator selection for assessing sustainability of agriculture (2017) Environ Dev Sustain 19:4 1327–1342.

Grazed and confused? : Food Climate Research Network

 Animal Husbandry Regained: The Place of Farm Animals in Sustainable Agriculture by John Webster

The future of animal farming: Renwing the ancient contract edited by Marian Stamp Dawkins and Roland Bonney

[italkstostrangers-blog]

#3- Andy

You meet a lot of interesting people in Nashville. The majority of them are all transplants and hell bent on making it in the music industry. I spend a lot of time there writing and networking...but the more time I spend there the less and less I find myself wanting to call it home. Something in me says that I have different work to do...this isn’t a post about me though..this is a post about Andy. On one of my trips I decided to check out a local brewery, while sitting at the bar enjoying my beverage a man dressed in business casual sat 3 seats to my left. We made small talk that eventually spawned into this wonderful and soul feeding conversation. Andy’s story is inspiring and all sorts of interesting, we sat and talked for hours and hours outside the interview and I am thankful to have met him. 

Name: Andy 

Age: 32

Culture: Irish 

Photo: J.Bartholomew

“What are you passionate about?”

- Without hesitation he said “Animals”. I don’t think I've ever had anyone answer so quickly and so confidently... especially since his occupation has nothing to do with the subject. Turns out this city guy grew up on a farm with cattle, horses, pigs...the whole shebang. The crazy part is they never sold the cattle and they only kept them as pets! He currently has 3 dogs and was fortunate enough to inherit a large piece of property that he is slowly turning into an animal sanctuary from his grandfather. He has ponds stocked full of fish and has barred the local hunters from using the land for sport. They are NOT happy...

people always surprise me with their answers to this question and it is teaching me more and more each time not to judge a book by it’s cover. Everyone has something they are passionate about and that is so far beyond simply what they do for work. 

“Who is your hero?”

-  Andy answered this also without hesitation. 

“my grandad”

He was always encouraging Andy to be outside, and followed through with his promises. One of the memories he reflects on most fondly is watching his grandfather deliver a baby calf at the age of 7. If I remember correctly Andy might have actually been the one to deliver the baby cow and his grandfather was the one to coach him through it...either way and adorable story. 

I found out via this question that Andy had never met his father and his grandfather was a father figure for him. 

“What is the most difficult thing you’ve been through and how did you cope?”

- When Andy was 21, he left a fraternity at a late hour of the night and hit another car head on in his big pick-up. He shared with me that the driver of the other car had been hurt considerably and that he had to go to court because he had been drinking. So bad that he had to wear an ankle monitoring system the last 6 months of his college career so that he could get it wiped from his record. 

When he talked about the cost of this collision, he mentioned that he was ordered to pay an INSANE amount of money...(he told me the actual number and it was a hell of a lot of $$) to pay for the medical bills and other expenses for the injured driver. I mean it was just a large amount of money for anyone, let alone a 21 year old. Due to the guilt he felt and his inherently kind heart he and his family worked to double that number so the injured driver would have more to use as a resource while they were healing.

I won’t lie, at this moment I kind of grilled him on if he came from a wealthy family or not. For a family to raise that kind of money didn't seem possible unless they were loaded... he assured me that all of his uncles, aunts and his mother worked tirelessly and made a ton of sacrifices to make that happen. From humble beginnings still working to do right by their fellow human. I love that. I love that so much. 

“What would you tell your younger self?”

- “Take a step back.”

really think about what you are about to do.

“Any hopes or aspirations that you haven’t accomplished yet?”

- “Becoming a vet”

I asked him what I always ask as a follow up...

“what’s stopping you”

He mentioned that he was already well rooted in his current career. The change would be difficult and costly. 

I didn’t mention this to him in the moment but reflecting on it now I wish I would have. I don't understand why you would let outside forces stop you from doing something you know would be more fulfilling. Life is not about sticking to the same job for the rest of your days and wishing that you could try something you are truly passionate about. You career is how you spend a significant portion of your life...it might as well be everything you want it to be. That raises the question of if when we change as individuals that a career change should be acceptable. I’m only 24 and I’ve already changed my career focus twice...now that could be because I didn’t go the traditional route, but still. 

Ask yourself this and share it with me...what’s stopping you? 

I genuinely want to know. 

I asked Andy if he had anything else he wanted to add to our conversation and he mentioned his tattoos. He had one in particular he was passionate about...the words on his arm that read- 

“Courage is knowing what not to fear”

his life motto as put by plato.

THINGS WE HAVE IN COMMON:

- We both didn’t meet our fathers until later in life. 

-We both share a love of fishing.

-We both enjoy a good tattoo story.

-We both enjoy good (and local) beer. 

-We are Irish as heck.

-We both have embraced and learned from our biggest mistakes and value growth and connection because of them. 

Andy taught me how important it is to hold your judgments. On the outside he looked like a clean cut, white collar, business dude. I might have even pegged him as entitled just because he's a millennial white guy making good money and living in an incredibly expensive city. Andy has been through the ringer, more so than I even let off in this writing...he didn’t allow those hardships to harden him however. He chose to let those mistakes and difficult situations soften and shape him into a caring man who understands how good he has it. I feel so blessed to know that the universe is always bringing people into my path who can teach me something I need to learn just by sharing their story. 

There is power in experience

There is power in wisdom 

There is power in failure 

[kawuli]

hrovitnir replied to your post: I always have to write the snarky first draft of...

I only recently learned NZ is one of the few countries that do *not* subsidise farmers (as of the 80s)… if you feel like it (I understand if you don’t!), could I get your informed opinion on this? Because I had no idea most of the world did it, and if it was just the US I would take a poor view as it just sounds like more subsidising businesses (I recognise farming can be a risky business, but nonetheless.)

From the West Wing’s “20 Hours in America” episode:

“What am I supposed to say to people who ask why we subsidize farmers when we don’t subsidize plumbers?”

“Tell them they can pay ten bucks for a potato.”

And yeah, that’s a big part of why subsidies exist--it keeps food costs low. It’s also...well I used to say literally nowhere could farmers make anything like a half-decent living without subsidies, but perhaps New Zealand is the exception?

Farming is inherently risky, yeah, and farming staple crops has really small margins: a couple hundred dollars an acre is pretty typical in the US. If you want to provide for a family, you need more than that. This is why farms in the US are fucking enormous--and even then, on all but the biggest places, farming isn’t the sole source of income. More often it’s the side job after you get home from the job that pays the bills.

So okay, but if there were no subsidies ANYWHERE the prices for basic commodities would go up, which would suck for buying groceries but then farmers would make a better living. Except that you have to get everyone, everywhere to agree to drop the subsidies or you end up competing against Americans or Europeans who can make a profit selling at a lower price because of subsidies. This exact thing happens with European-made milk powder in Africa--it’s sold at below the cost of production, because European governments subsidize dairy farmers. Because they want to preserve small-scale farming, as a cultural...thing, among other reasons (environmental protection is another big one). Great for the Dutch dairies which are super productive and well-kept-up and picturesque, bad for the Malian dairy industry which can’t get started because....okay well a lot of things, starting with roads, refrigeration, etc, but the point is it’s not even worth bothering with that stuff so long as imported milk powder is so fucking cheap.

.......of course, the fact that milk powder is so fucking cheap means kids are more likely to get it--they’d buy little sachets at the store by my house and eat it like candy--which, in a country where over half of kids are malnourished, is a really good thing.

Malawi started subsidizing fertilizer on the argument that it’s cheaper than bringing in food aid when people can’t buy fertilizer and then can’t feed themselves. There’s some uncertainty about how effective that’s been, but it’s sound logic. 

If you want food to be cheap enough for poor people, you have to either subsidize the food or subsidize the farmers (or both). Are there better ways to do it than what happens currently? I’m sure. See also: most US corn and soybeans go to feeding cattle (or for ethanol as of 2012ish), which is stupid. But it’s cheaper than feeding grass or hay, in large part because of grain subsidies. 

Are subsidies for agriculture inherently a bad idea? no. are they inherently a good idea? fuck if i know. is the whole thing currently an enormous clusterfuck? Definitely.

tl;dr it’s really fucking complicated. Also, 20 Hours in America is an excellent West Wing episode.

[thevegansinner-blog]

Dear Barbara, Tyler, Mia, and Mariel

I’ve just watched Always Open #42 and there’s some thoughts I want to share with you. You're well within your rights to ignore, dismiss, or argue against what I have to say, but equally I have a right to speak my own mind and ask for a smidgen of your time. What I have to say is something that is incredibly close to my heart, something I feel passionately about, and I was raised to believe that when you are passionate about something then you should share it with the world.

I wasn't particularly surprised or offended when you guys started ribbing on vegans and vegetarians. I get it. For the first 28 years of my life I ate meat and thought vegans were a bunch of extremist nutjobs. I hated the implication that there was something inherently evil in eating the foods I enjoyed, in living my own life, in making my own personal choices. I also can't stand it when people tell other people how to live their lives. It's rude, and unnecessary.

It was with that attitude that I watched my first ever vegan YouTuber. She'd stirred up some controversy and I was intrigued. I loaded up one of her most popular videos fully prepared to think she was an idiot, an extremist, a bitch, even. What completely shocked me was that I couldn't actually disagree with anything she said. I watched another video, then another, then I found these documentaries, and I spent about two weeks going down a rabbithole and having my mind blown wide open.

And I realised something profound. Vegans aren't close-minded; they're the exact opposite. It takes the abandonment of ego, tradition, family ritual, social pressure, pervasive advertising, culture, habit, and convenience to go vegan. I cannot tell you how many vegans I've met who've described the process as like opening their eyes and really seeing the world for the first time. It's not an acquisition of prejudice; it's the opposite.

One of the things I've found most interesting over the past 18 months of being vegan is that even among my most liberal, empathetic, socially aware friends there is a blind spot. If I stand up (and I do) for LGBT rights, BAME rights, women's rights, no one has a negative thing to say about it (no one I consider a friend anyway). If I campaign for equality on any other front the beautiful, kind, compassionate people in my life support me 100%. It's a wonderful thing.

But once I started to fight for an end to the exploitation of some of the most oppressed and powerless beings on the planet? That group of sentient beings whom we've said for years that we love? Animals? As soon as I started to stand up and shout for their right to live free of exploitation, for their liberation from the most despicable and cruel conditions in industrial farms, for true and equal compassion that includes pigs, cows, sheep, fish, and chickens alongside cats, dogs, horses, and hamsters, that's when I noticed the defensiveness and resistance that lived within the people I loved the most.

[fuck you, little guy]

And I realised that I had lived with that same defensiveness for a long time myself, and made the same shitty jokes, and programmed myself, and allowed society to program me, not to care about the suffering and unnecessary death of the animals we use for our food, clothes, cosmetics, toiletries, medicine, and entertainment. We keep our eyes closed tight in the face of our own participation in some of the cruellest and most exploitative industries on the planet. We make excuses. We make jokes. We choose not to think about it too much. This might even be the paragraph that makes you stop reading.

I'm writing to you now not because I think I have the power to 'make you go vegan'. I'm not even going to ask you to go vegan, or say that you should, or that you're a bad person for not (I don't think I was a bad person for the 28 years I ate meat, so nor do I think anyone else is). I just want to share this Maya Angelou quote with you-

“I did then what I knew how to do. Now that I know better, I do better”

-and ask you to open your minds to the fact that it is not only possible, but easy, to do better.

To that end, I'm including a list of just some of the resources that helped to open and change my mind. It would be amazing if you found the time to look into just some of these.

1 – Earthlings (found at http://www.nationearth.com/)

2 – Cowspiracy (Netflix)

3 - Forks Over Knives (Netflix)

4 – What the Health (Netflix)

5 – Okja (Netflix)

6 – James Aspey - This Speech is Your Wake Up Call (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KHOcox2lvQo&t=1140s)

7 – Gary Yourofsky - Best Speech You Will Ever Hear (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_K36Zu0pA4U&t=4s)

There are two things I know every vegan to have said in their lives. The first, 'I would never go vegan', and the second, 'I wish I had gone vegan sooner'. It pains me when I hear people I admire, people I believe to be kind and compassionate, being so dismissive of the best decision I have ever made. Not because it hurts my feelings – this shit has nothing to do with me – but because there is such an abundant opportunity to know better, and thus to do better, and that despite this billions of thinking, feeling, loving, curious, gentle, intelligent animals are exploited, abused, and slaughtered every year. Just because we like the taste of their bodies and excretions. For a reason as slight as that.

If you believe that it's possible to rear and slaughter animals without their suffering, that there truly are farms that raise happy animals, I ask you this: that if I killed your pets while they were sleeping, and guaranteed that they neither saw it coming nor felt pain, and then I ate them, would you not still feel that something injust and inhumane had happened? If I killed you? Crept up behind you one day and bonked you on the head. Would a jury let me off because you'd led a happy life and felt nothing when you died? Of course not.

So why do we believe it's okay to treat other animals in this way? Because it is convenient for us to do so? Because it's legal? Because we've been doing it for years? Those same reasons have been used to justify so many evil things. Oppression is oppression. Discrimination is discrimination. Exploitation is exploitation. Violence is violence.

There is nothing humane about the way we use animals. I bet you couldn't watch a group of piglets being ushered into a gas chamber, terrified and screaming, and tell me that you feel good about it. Watch a cow get a bolt gun to the head. A chicken get the end of its beak cut off with a hot blade. A dairy cow impregnated over and over and over again and having her calves taken away from her so that we can drink her milk. A baby lamb having its throat slit.

You can't deny violence when you see it. You can live your life pretending that it isn't happening, that you're powerless to prevent it, that it's somehow justified because it's happening to an other, or because it benefits you in some way. But violence is always violence. Suffering is always suffering. Once you've seen it, and let it touch your heart, it becomes obvious how wrong it is.

[a gas chamber for pigs]

It's fine that you laugh at vegans. We don't give a shit what you say about us. We just want you to face the truth that drives us and tell us if it doesn't move you, too. There is a global movement to end this exploitation and we want you on our side.

And it's easier than ever! They even have vegan Ben and Jerry's now, I shit you not. It's not bad (the peanut butter flavour's my favourite). There are countless pro athletes ditching animal products from their diets and seeing their health and fitness only improve. Tyler, there are vegan bodybuilders who build muscle easily on plant protein alone. Even Arnie's ditching meat. More and more doctors are discovering the data and coming to understand that a fully vegan diet is not only possible, but also potentially healthier. Dairy has been linked to both breast and prostate cancer. Processed meat is now a class 1 carcinogen alongside smoking and asbestos. A plantbased diet is the only diet that has been proven to reverse the US' number one killer, heart disease. Check out the work of Drs Neal Barnard, Michael Greger, Pam Popper, Cauldwell Esselstyn T. Colin Campbell for more information.

[This dude’s vegan, just saying]

And the environment! Did you know that if the USA just switched out beef for beans you'd near enough reach your climate change goals? That 91% of Amazon deforestation is due to animal agriculture? That we could be seeing fishless oceans by 2048 if we don't stop fishing? That it takes 18x more land to feed an omnivore than it does a vegan? That animal agriculture contributes more greenhouse gas emissions than any other industry on the planet? I don't know about you, but I have godkids and a nephew, and I want them to be able to grow up and thrive on this Earth. I don't want more and more devastating hurricanes. I don't want us to so deplete the soil that we can no longer grow crops. I don't want the oceans to be covered in dead zones from the run-off from cattle feed. And more than anything I want them to grow up and know that I did everything I could to protect this planet and the animals that share it with us.

And that includes writing to you. This could change your life, change all our lives, if you let it.

Just think about it.

With love and respect,

Hannah

[trkstrnd]

in the spirit of the new year i am going to post some controversial takes

as of january first 2023 i feel

-ice is a social construct

-fancams are edits but edits are not fan cams

-capitalism is a concept fed to people by power hungry politicians who want you to believe that giving everything to keep them in power is better than living a safe, secure life.

-socialism is the way to go.

-dogs are better than cats but only by the tiniest morsel of a whisker upon their fluffy little faces and both are infinitely better than humans

-all reptiles are friend shaped. we just need to be able to read body language.

-insulin should be free (sincerely, a diabetic)

-garlic salt is a completely valid seasoning

-garlic is best vegetable

-vampires need to come up with a vaccine for garlic aversion

-garlic

-rafael silva and sierra mcclain carry 911 lone star on their backs

-tarlos > buddie

-but buddie is cool too

-be kind to each other

-diet cherry coke needs to go back into production

-cool colors are prettier than warm colors

-my friends are the coolest

-lettuce is the worst, most heinous, unethical food to create even in a world with the cattle industry

-climate change is real

-even if you don’t believe it’s real there is quite literally no reason to keep not caring about the environment around you

-like i’m not picking up trash at the park solely because of climate change im picking it up bc the animals might get hurt and it is not aesthetically pleasing

-abolish straws

-or at least just make them a medical supply

-some disabled people need them and that is okay but u don’t need them bestie just lift ur cup

-wood is a better material than plastic to make dishes from.

-small businesses are so good

-only buy from amazon if you need to.

-the extra shipping and time is worth it to help people who need your sales

-billionaires are inherently evil

-and no that is not jealousy

-the ‘american dream’ relies on gentrification

-if you can act, look, sound, like a white man you’ll be successful

-equal opportunity is bullshit

-fatphobia is real

-over the ear headphones > in ear

-ibuprofen is the superior pain relief medication

-flautas are exquisite

-there should be an age cap on all held government positions

-seriously george bush bill clinton and donald trump were all born in the same year, joe biden before them and have held office for the past twenty years

-stop letting people born in the 1940s run a country in 2023

-queer people aren’t indoctrinating your kids. your kids are finding safe spaces.

-dragons are fuckin cool

-let people be who they want to be as long as they don’t harm anyone.

-sharks are BAD ASS

-fish are friends AND food

-good, authentic sushi is worth the investment

-the world has nuance

-sometimes nuance is hard to understand especially to neurodivergent people

-please explain the nuance instead of attacking people who may not get it.

-music has both evolved and devolved

-carlos reyes is autistic.

-autism isn’t a bad thing

-autism speaks is an inherently terrible organization that supports eugenics.

-most addicts, if not all of them, do not choose to be addicts

-let people be people

-be a kind person

-thank you

-i love you all