Children recruited into animal cruelty

1692:

Those of us who don’t subscribe to the supremacy of economic rationalism, who think all using of animals is wrong, also realise that animal protein is unnecessary. It is often harmful to health, especially in the overindulgent way it is consumed in the West. We also see it as a tragedy for both animals and young people, since each are powerless victims of the human habit of consuming animal-based foods.

Kids can’t fend for themselves. They must do as they’re told and eat what they’re given. Almost every child is misinformed or kept uninformed about how animal-based foods are produced.  Consequently, they come to believe what they are told, by adults, that it is necessary to farm animals for food. They grow up being told little about what life is like for farm animals. In fact most adults also know very little, since everything is kept secret. These days almost no one is encouraged to study animal farming or visit intensive farms or abattoirs.

         

If we, as a society, weren’t ashamed of our treatment of farm animals, we’d allow and encourage students to see it all for themselves, at every stage of the processing of animals for food. Children would be taken to factory farms and processing plants and shown how meat, milk and eggs are produced. Then, when they are old enough, they’d be in a better position to decide for themselves whether they should use food produced from animals. But since that would likely have a serious affect on  the fortunes of the animal-food market, it doesn’t happen!