Choices
If I care about animals, but still eat animal products, isn't better to buy "Humane" animal products"?
It is admirable and important to investigate the impact our actions have on others, and when we find that there is a change we can make that will do less harm to others, it is right to pursue it. However, it is equally important to be realistic and well informed, and not to take actions in the name of compassion that soothe our conscience while not necessarily addressing the violence and injustice being experienced by others.
The animal-using industry has a decades-long track record of misleading the public, on everything from the health benefits of consuming their products to the living conditions and mode of death of the animals who are killed to create those products. The statements of former farmers, animal rescuers, humane police officers and investigators raise troubling questions to this effect. Positive-sounding labels are guaranteed to increase sales of more expensive "humane" products, but the evidence suggests that this is where the guarantees end. Click to continue reading...
Aren't "humane" animal products more sustainable?
Quite often, those promoting "humane" animal products suggest that these products are more sustainable than animal products from large industrialized operations. At first glance, this may seem to be true. When one pictures a traditional small-scale farm with large open pastures, and then, in contrast, a huge industrial facility surrounded by giant lagoons of waste products slowly leaching into the countryside, it seems clear that producing animal products on a small scale is better for the environment. However, the reality is far more complicated than these simple images may suggest. A more fundamental question to ask is whether any form of animal agriculture, if practiced on the scale needed to meet existing demand for animal products, is good for the environment, or sustainable. Click to continue reading...
For animal advocates
Isn't it counter-productive to raise issues about the work of animal advocacy groups that do lots of good work for the cause?
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Is this site in danger of implying that there would be nothing wrong with using animals if it these places truly were like "Old MacDonald's farm?"
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