Innocent Animals

Love animals, don't eat them.

What makes it wrong to eat a pet that has a unique and lovable personality, but okay to slaughter other animals and put them on the dinner table?

The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated.
Mahatma Gandhi
Pacifist and spiritual leader, (1869-1948).

It’s true that pets often earn a special place in our hearts. When you get home from work and your dog runs up and licks you in the face to welcome you--wagging his tail wildly—you can’t help yourself. Your dog loves you and you can’t help but love him back. Some would say that’s because, indeed, there is a person inside there. We often feel deep compassion for such animals.

But what about cows, calves, pigs, chickens, turkeys, ducks, geese, and other animals we find cute and endearing in so many ways? Are they not deserving of your compassion, too? For those who enjoy eating meat, which is really the flesh of slaughtered animals, trying to answer this question can lead to a painful realization.

Animals on today’s factory farms are subject to cruel and inhumane treatment including neglect, mutilation, genetic manipulation, subjection to drug regimens that produce results for selfish commercial gain, and gruesome and violent slaughter.

The factory farming system of modern agriculture strives to maximize output while minimizing costs.

A human can be healthy without killing animals for food. Therefore if he eats meat he participates in taking animal life merely for the sake of his appetite.
Count Leo Tolstoy
Russian novelist & philosopher, (1829-1910).

Cows, calves, pigs, chickens, turkeys, ducks, geese, and other animals are kept in small cages, in jam-packed sheds, or on filthy feedlots, often with so little space that they can't even turn around or lie down comfortably. They are deprived of exercise so that all their bodies' energy goes toward producing flesh, eggs, or milk for human consumption.

They are fed drugs to fatten them faster and to keep them alive in conditions that would otherwise kill them, and they are genetically altered to grow faster or develop commercially desirable traits than what they would naturally.

Until mankind can extend the circle of his compassion to include all living things, he will never, himself, know peace.
Albert Schweitzer
Alsatian philosopher and medical missionary, 1952 Nobel prize recipient, (1875-1965).

The animals who survive this hellish ordeal are hung upside-down and their throats are slit, often while they're completely conscious. Many are still alive while they are skinned, hacked into pieces, or scalded in de-feathering tanks.

Animals on today's factory farms have no legal protection from cruelty that would be illegal if it were inflicted on dogs or cats. Yet farmed animals are no less intelligent or capable of feeling pain than are the dogs and cats we cherish as companions.

Each year around the world, more than 47 billion animals are killed in food production — 10 billion of those animals are slaughtered in the United States alone. These figures do not include the countless fish who are killed for human consumption. Given the suffering these animals endure, and given that all our nutritional needs can easily be satisfied without eating these animals, vegetarianism is morally required. The fact is that eating animals is unnecessary because nature has provided ample vegetables, fruits, grains, legumes and dairy products for human sustenance. Therefore, the slaughter of animals for food is a luxury rather than a necessity and is morally wrong.

We all love animals. Why do we call some pets and others dinner?
K.D. Lang
(Canadian pop and country singer-songwriter).

A vegetarian lifestyle awakens our spirit of compassion and guides us towards a kinder, gentler society in which we exercise a moral choice to protect animals—not exploit them.

Down to Earth’s slogan is Love Life!—based on the idea that it is better to love animals, not eat them.