Scientific Power of the Vegetarian Diet

Roughly a billion pigs are raised and hundreds of millions of pigs are killed every year, and each one of these is a reason to become vegetarian. These lively, sociable, and intelligent creatures’ lives are mercilessly short and full of nothing but intense suffering. The pigs’ lives are so dismal that they often die for no known reason beyond the stress of their intense confinement.

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Pigs are born and suckled in a small, enclosed “farrowing” unit. They are brought to slaughter weight in an indoor feed unit—typically in six months. Their entire lives are spent indoors, on hard, concrete flooring or slatted wood flooring, both of which cause foot, hoof, and leg injuries. For the vast majority of pigs, not once do they see the sunlight, or feel the warmth of the sun on their backs, or taste fresh air.

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However, stress, boredom, and intense crowding are the least of their problems. Like chickens, the greatest abuse is the foul air the pigs are forced to breathe. As we have seen, animal waste creates ammonia, methane, and a number of other pollutants. The more animals, the more waste, the more pollution. The ammonia and methane destroy the pigs’ lungs, scorching them with every breath to the degree that over eighty percent of U.S. pigs have pneumonia upon slaughter.[1] The EU, Japan, Mexico, and South America show similar figures. Like the chicken farmers, pig farmers must flood their animals with antibiotics in order to keep the pigs alive while they suffer from these chronic respiratory diseases. Humans wear masks and hazmat suits when feeding and watering the pigs, but of course, the pigs have no such luxury. The smells hint at the agony brought by breathing this pollution day and night. Keep in mind the fact that pigs have a far more acute sense of smell than people and a strong inclination for cleanliness.

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Some unfortunate female pigs will not make it to slaughter in the first half year of their lives. Instead they will be put into pig production. Pig farmers think of these sows as pig-producing machines. They place the creatures in small stalls, and if that weren’t bad enough, they keep the animals tethered within them. For the rest of her life, the pig cannot move in any direction.

Here is a description of from Peter Singer’s Animal Liberation:

 

The sows throw themselves violently backward, straining against the tethers. Sows thrash their heads about as they twist and turn in their struggle to free themselves. Often loud screams were emitted and occasionally individuals crashed bodily against the side boards of the tether stalls….

 

These violent attempts to escape can last up to three hours. Afterwards the sows lie still for long periods, often with their snouts thrust under the bars, making occasional quiet groans and whining noises. After a further period the sow shows other signs of stress, such as gnawing at the bars of her stall, chewing when there is nothing to chew….

 

That’s it, that’s the rest of her life. She will produce baby pigs.

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Industry authorities estimate that approximately twenty percent of these pigs die prematurely from exhaustion and stress due to the severe confinement and inhumane breeding schedules. This practice is so egregious that it is now banned in the United Kingdom, the European Union and a handful of states in the USA.

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Once the piglets are born, they will be allowed to stay with their mother for one week before they are taken away. The trend is to shorten even this brief period. As anyone with an ounce of sense realizes, one of the cruelest things to do to a mother is to separate her from her offspring.

 

“The animals of the world exist for their own reasons. They were not made for humans any more than black people were made for whites or women for men.”

—Alice Walker, author, The Color Purple

 

[1] Horrigan, L., Lawrence, R. S., Walker, P. (1999). How Sustainable Agriculture Can Address the Environmental and Human Health Harms of Industrial Agriculture. Johns Hopkins University’s Center for a Livable Future.