The Welfare of Animals

Omnivorous diets are detrimental to the animals enslaved, tortured, and slaughtered for food. Eating and exploiting these innocent creatures is brutal. It leads to massive amounts of suffering. Modern industries make this abuse worse than ever, prioritizing profits over the thoughts, feelings and sensations these creatures experience.

The vast majority of animals raised in captivity live miserable lives. They are born, live, and die in slavery. They are split from their families, and abused in every possible way. The only thing they know is a life of pain, torment, and suffering.

Some people believe this is the animals’ role. They believe animals were placed on this earth to be food for humans. Other people believe humans are superior to animals. This gives them the misplaced right to abuse and kill these creatures with no mercy. Gary Youself, the most popular animal rights activist in the world, defines these perspectives and attitudes as “speciesism”.

Speciesism is the attitude that one species, such as humans, is better than another species, such as cows, pigs, and chickens. This philosophy goes in hand with sexism, racism, and similar hierarchical ideologies. They create separation, conflict, abuse, torture, and pain, by placing one group over another.
Humans aren’t more important than animals, not in absolute terms. We are all living beings, blessed with the gift of life, and the right to be ourselves. Humans are better than animals at building phones and rockets. This doesn’t mean that our lives are more important than theirs.

Racism is foolish in the same way. Black people were taken from their native Africa, against their will, and brought to the United States in horrible conditions. They were enslaved, abused and forced to work against their will for almost nothing, and sometimes less. Many died, and many continue to endure the disadvantages of being a person of color. All because a group of self-entitled white men decided to take advantage of a whole race, justifying their actions with the color of their skin.

Every single black person knows this is an injustice and wishes to be seen as an equal. They want to be treated with care and respect. However, the great majority of black people also eat animal products every day. They know the pain and suffering their people have endured, but are numb to how they contribute to the same suffering on other living beings.

This results from an awful education system that encourages separation and selfishness. Many white kids in the United States haven’t been taught to respect black people. Likewise, many black kids haven’t been taught to respect animals. The same goes for Jews, Arabs, Mexicans, gays, and all groups who suffer from discrimination. A few decades ago women were treated the same way, and in many ways, they still are.

Mango Wodzak shares some beautiful ideas about this in his book, “Destination Eden”. He explains that to move from omnivorism to fruitarianism, we need to expand our circle of empathy to include all living beings. Empathy and ethics are at the core of his fruitarian philosophy.

We all have a circle of empathy, there are no exceptions. Most people’s circle of empathy include themselves, their parents, their children, relatives, and friends. As our love for humanity expands, we include coworkers, peers, and even people we don’t know.

Vegetarians don’t eat meat because they include animals in their circle of empathy. Vegans don’t drink milk or eat eggs, because they empathize with the suffering of animals trapped in those industries. Some vegans’ circle of empathy is large enough to include bees, to the point that they no longer consume honey. Everyone can expand their circle to include anything, the key requirement is awareness.

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