To satisfy America’s unrivaled appetite for meat and dairy, we raise and kill 10 billion animals every year. At that scale, egregious abuse (torture isn’t too strong a word) is all but inevitable, while the routine use of antibiotics required to sustain such an unnatural system has become a public health menace. Despite the best (and sometimes preposterous) efforts of industrial meat producers to hide inhumane and dangerous practices from consumers, the horrors of factory farming have been well documented.
Vastly improving this system requires action on multiple fronts: meat distributors and producers mandating better living conditions for animals; the F.D.A. cracking down on antibiotics; increased support (both governmental and personal) for farms that value animal welfare as much or more than the bottom line. Progress is being made, but slowly.
Of course, the best way to protect animals is to consume fewer of them. It’s that simple, and while meaningfully curbing the country’s demand for meat could take decades, you can start doing your part at the dinner table tonight. In this chapter, a look at both the problems and the potential solutions.