Much of our experience of the food we eat as Americans is removed from its production. Most of us purchase food from grocery stores and have very little idea how it got to that point. We may hear things on the news or in a magazine that make us think we should avoid genetically modified food or that we should buy organic or free range, but few of us understand what modern industrial farms look like. After all, the pictures on our food labels look like a scene from Charlotte’s Web. We assume that companies must represent themselves truthfully. We all understand that animals have to die if we’re going to eat them and we know that the beef we’re eating wasn’t raised lovingly in someone’s home and euthanized the way that our aging pets are. We understand that there is a degree of violence in our meat consumption and we point to our canines as proof that “it’s only natural,” disregarding the reality that many mammals with canines bigger than our own are herbivores.
Whether or not we choose to eat animals, it makes sense that we should be aware of the practices of a “$140-billion plus a year industry that occupies nearly a third of the land on the planet, shapes ocean ecosystems, and may well determine the future of earth’s climate” (Foer, 32). Instead of preserving land and animals with the abundant resources in our country, we contribute to the destruction of our lands by using vast portions of it to raise animals for food, a practice which is rife with animal cruelty and results in serious pollution of our land and spread of disease among its people.
Never mind that our justification for our animal consumption as “natural” looks very little like lions racing through African landscapes after antelope. Most of us don’t even hunt food from a distance with a rifle. The way we obtain our food looks more like Captain Picard from Star Trek: The Next Generation asking a computer to materialize his Earl Grey tea than it does a tiger stalking its prey or even an imaginary farmer from a children’s book. We buy food wrapped in plastic and cut into neat rectangles that remind us very little of whatever animal it came from. It is packaged to appear clean and sterile, wrapped in styrofoam and plastic, with a reminder in small print that if it is not thoroughly cooked, it may make us sick, because while it appears sterile and clean, factory farms breed disease by overcrowding animals into unsanitary spaces and giving them antibiotics to combat these conditions. “Institutions as diverse as the American Medical Association, the Centers for Disease Control, the Institute of Medicine…, and the Word Health Organization have linked nontherapeutic antibiotic use on factory farms with increased antimicrobial resistance and called for a ban” (Foer, 141). While many argue that research about antibiotic use in inconclusive, it seems reasonable that we should be concerned and aware of the the things we put in our bodies and the long term effects that they will have on us. Not only do the unsanitary farm conditions lead to periodic recalls of unsafe meat that spreads disease (we all remember the swine flu and mad cow disease), but we may be creating resistance to the drugs which can combat such diseases.
The way we eat in today’s world is absurd. Our farms display human capacities for greed and cruelty more than our desire for nutritious and affordable food. Animal production is hidden and locked down like a Google campus. It’s subsidized by our taxes; it’s protected by our laws. Animal agriculture’s practices are defended in the name of efficiency and cost effectiveness while it should be logical to us that animals take more space and are more a drain on our natural resources than plant farming. “It takes six to twenty-six calories fed to an animal to produce just one calorie of animal flesh” (Foer, 211). We could feed more people if we focused on produce and foods that can be raised more sustainably.
As Christians, we should remember the story of Genesis. While many find in its stories a justification for human dominance over animals, we can also see that God called all of creation good, including the elements of creation we treat as food. God’s creation and abundant life is given to all creatures. “‘To every beast of the earth, and to every bird of the air, and to everything that creeps on the earth, everything that has the breath of life, I have given every green plant for food.’ And it was so. God saw everything that [God] had made, and indeed, it was very good” (Genesis 1:29-31). This passage shows a God who shows concern for people and animals, calling us to share our food and calling the animals good, just like humans. If animals share the same goodness as humans and if they are created to participate in the abundance of life as we are, it stands to reason that they should be treated with respect. Whether we see them as a source of food or as spiritual equals, we can see that torturing animals and creating conditions of abuse and cruelty for them to live their lives in are not in line with the spirit displayed in Genesis. In Job, animals are portrayed as sources of wisdom to be learned from. God implores Job to “ask the animals, and they will teach you, or the birds of the air, and they will tell you; or speak to the earth, and it will teach you, or let the fish of the sea inform you” (Job 12:7-9). It is hard to suggest that a God who sees animals as teachers of wisdom would respect a culture complicit in animal cruelty.
While cows raised for beef are arguably the most humanely treated animals raised on factory farms, that truth is only because of how terrible conditions are for other animals. While a cow’s natural lifespan can be 25 years, cows raised for beef are killed within the first few years of their life (aspca.org). Within the first year of their life, they are sent to feedlots, where they are without pasture and made to stand in their own filth. They are fed an unnatural diet of grain, which causes illness and digestive disorders which are painful and sometimes lead to earl(ier) deaths. Cows are castrated, branded, and have their horns removed without painkillers (aspca.org). While these conditions sounds terrible, they are far better than the conditions found among pork production. Pigs, which are as smart are smarter than dogs, have a natural lifespan of 15 years, although they are killed on factory farms at 6 months (aspca.org). Pigs are raised in dark buildings without windows or outside access and are kept in pens that are roughly the size of their body and which prohibit them from being able to turn around. For nearly their entire lifespan, they are only able to sit and stand. Because of the levels of waste, ammonia in their facilities rises to dangerous levels. Since pigs are intelligent, curious animals, being confined to dark, unhealthy spaces where they are essentially unable to move makes them very frustrated and they sometimes begin to chew the tails of the pig adjacent to their pen. Because of this, most farms cut off pigs’ tails without painkillers (aspca.org). While these cruelties are deplorable, there are many other cruelties that pigs and cows experience on the vast majority of America’s farms.
Beyond the treatment of animals in farms, factory farms are also major sources of carbon emissions and pollution. Studies by the United Nations show that “the livestock sector is responsible for 18 percent of greenhouse gas emissions, around 40 percent more than the entire transportation sector– cars, trucks, planes, trains, and ships– combined” (Foer, 58). Larger animals like pigs and cows require a significant amount of space and consumption and the farms that raise them create substantial amounts of pollution. Animal agriculture in the U.S. is responsible for “130 times as much waste as the human population… and yet there is almost no waste-treatment infrastructure for farmed animals… [or] guidelines regulating what happens to it” (Foer, 174). This pollution has led to higher rates of disease among surrounding populations. Residents living near hog farms report “nosebleeds, earaches, chronic diarrhea, and burning lungs while legislation passed to regulate such pollution “are often nullified or… unenforced” due to the powerful influence of the agricultural lobby (Foer, 176).
The United Church of Christ, my home denomination, considers climate change and environmental degradation to be important issues within our tradition (ucc.org). The UCC maintains that climate change and pollution are issues of justice not only because of the effects on our natural resources, but because these effects will disproportionately impact the poor and people of color (ucc.org). It is our responsibility to understand how our own ways of living contribute to global climate change. Animal agriculture, especially that of larger animals, is a major contributor to global climate change with many studies suggesting that is the largest source of greenhouse gases. Since global climate change is a serious concern for our future as a species, it is imperative that we respond with action to prevent the destruction of our planet. One of the most meaningful and effective ways we can do that is by cutting down on our consumption of animals, most especially beef and pork.
Most of us seek to lead ethical lives in which we do more good than harm. As a matter of utility, it is clear to see that reducing our consumption of beef and pork is a meaningful way to slow global climate change, an issue that affects all of humanity. Our consumption of such animals is a leading contributor to global climate change, with animal agriculture contributing more greenhouse gases than all transportation combined. Consideration of Kant’s Categorical Imperatives can show us that reducing our consumption of beef and pork can lead to more autonomy with principles that can be universally applied. Reducing or giving up consumption of beef and pork are responsible decisions that most of us can easily make and that can help the human family fight global warming by reducing the leading source of greenhouse gas emissions. My tradition, the United Church of Christ, recognizes that global warming is a serious issue that we should all be engaged in. It is an issue of justice. Reducing our consumption of beef and pork is also in line with our values as Christians. We see in scripture that God values the lives of animals; our current system is inherently cruel to God’s creation. It is time that we recognize that some of our habits which we tend to think little about are having a real negative impact on our environment and involve complicity in animal cruelty. Not only are the vast majority of farms deplorable in their treatment of animals, they are a major cause of global warming. A simple way to fight these injustices is to make more responsible food choices– choices that are easy for most of us to make.
Works Cited
1. Foer, Jonathan Safran. Eating Animals. New York: Little, Brown and Company, 2009.
2. “ASPCA.” ASPCA. http://www.aspca.org (accessed May 14, 2014).
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