Animal cruelty in the farm??

Question

http://getactive.peta.org/campaign/smithfield_investigation

Answer 1

Yes.  It's awful but true. I just visited PETA last week and decided to go veg. You should probably visit this link to find out more: http://petakids.com/vegetarian.html

I hope this was what you wanted!

Answer 2

Sadly, there's a lot of animal cruelty around - not just where farm animals are concerned.

By all means become a vegetarian - but in my opinion it's rather an empty gesture, it makes you feel better about yourself but doesn't do much for welfare. There simply aren't enough vegetarians around to make an impact and not enough people will give up eating meat now or in the near future to change that.

There are, however, lots of people who will shop for animal products which have a welfare component  - e.g. when I was a child there were no free range eggs in supermarkets but campaigning and consumer power has changed all of that. If you buy British outdoor reared pork, then the welfare standards are the highest in the world. It doesn't mean that everyone is perfect but people are trying to improve the situation - it won't happen though unless people buy the products.

If you still think the vegetarian route is the one for you then:

you need to give up dairy products as bobby calves (male calves from dairy industry) still have a rotten life (used to be kept in veal crates);

you should join something like compassion in world farming which campaigns for all livestock wherever they may live to try and improve their lives.