Vox: All Posts by Brian Katemanhttps://cdn.vox-cdn.com/community_logos/52517/voxv.png2023-05-09T09:40:00-04:00https://www.vox.com/authors/brian-kateman/rss2023-05-09T09:40:00-04:002023-05-09T09:40:00-04:00At the Kentucky Derby, horses are worked to death for human vanity
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<figcaption>The field heads to the first turn during the 149th running of the Kentucky Derby on May 6, 2023. | Michael Reaves/Getty Images</figcaption>
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<p>The horse racing industry is egregiously cruel. We should end it yesterday.</p> <p id="gNIhYm">Amid the ostentatious <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/05/06/style/hats-kentucky-derby.html">hats</a> and mint julep parties, a dark cloud hung over the 149th running of the Kentucky Derby this Saturday. Seven horses were <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2023/05/06/sport/horse-deaths-kentucky-derby-spt/index.html">dead</a> before the main event.</p>
<p id="Pj4NIb">It <a href="https://www.si.com/horse-racing/2023/04/27/kentucky-derby-wild-on-ice-death-after-injury">started</a> with Wild On Ice, a horse who had been transported to an equine hospital after injuring his left hind leg during his final training on April 27. Two days later, it was Code of Kings who <a href="https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2023/05/06/sport/horse-deaths-kentucky-derby-spt/index.html">broke his neck</a> after flipping and Parents Pride who died suddenly of causes yet to be <a href="https://www.kentuckyderby.com/uploads/wysiwyg/assets/uploads/20230503_Statement_From_Churchill_Downs_Racetrack.pdf">identified</a>. Then it was Take Charge Briana and Chasing Artie who both <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rN_or-zixgs">collapsed</a> during races. And on the day of the Derby, Chloe’s Dream and Freezing Point were <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/horses/triple/derby/2023/05/06/chloes-dream-dies-at-churchill-downs-on-kentucky-derby-day-per-report/70191157007/">euthanized</a> after sustaining a front knee and ankle injury, respectively. (<a href="https://www.npr.org/2023/05/07/1174634368/horse-deaths-kentucky-derby-racing-churchill-downs">Different</a> sources are <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/sports/seventh-horse-dies-at-churchill-downs-sparking-more-controversy-at-the-kentucky-derby">inconsistent</a> on the order of the deaths.) All were five years old or younger. (For reference, a domestic horse’s <a href="https://www.livescience.com/50714-horse-facts.html">natural</a> lifespan is 25-30 years.)</p>
<p id="ZOWJ9Y">Representatives from Churchill Downs, the racetrack where the Kentucky Derby takes place, described the deaths as “<a href="https://www.churchilldowns.com/racing-wagering/news/churchill-downs-incorporated-statement">anomalies</a>” in a press release. In truth, they were anything but — instead, they reflect a pattern of cruelty pervasive in the horse racing industry. </p>
<p id="iy9qRn">Just weeks prior, at the Grand National Festival — a popular horse race held annually in England — a 10-year-old horse named Hill Sixteen <a href="https://www.express.co.uk/sport/horseracing/1758724/Grand-National-Hill-Sixteen-Aintree-deaths/amp">died</a> during the main event. After falling, veterinarians determined he had sustained a fatal injury, so they put him down. Two more horses — Envoye Special and Dark Raven — had <a href="https://www.bbc.com/sport/horse-racing/65288023.amp">died</a> in the days prior at the same event. Hill Sixteen was the 62nd horse to have <a href="https://www.walesonline.co.uk/sport/uk-sport-news/grand-national-horse-death-hill-26707360">died</a> at the Grand National since 2000.</p>
<p id="MRlDO2">For years, <a href="https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/article/horse-racing-risks-deaths-sport">there</a> <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-australia-50257902">have</a> <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/horse-racing-abattoir-panorama-investigation-b1886551.html">been</a> <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/culture/archive/2014/03/the-ugly-truth-about-horse-racing/284594/">rumblings</a> in the world of horse racing about ugly, abusive practices. Even those with minimal interest in the sport are likely to have heard something or other about doping, physical abuse, or the early mortality of race horses. </p>
<p id="BJvBB0">A 2012 New York Times <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/25/us/death-and-disarray-at-americas-racetracks.html">report</a> detailed widespread doping and high mortality among US race horses relative to horses in countries with stricter regulations around drugging horses. Two years later, the Times <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/20/sports/peta-accuses-two-trainers-of-cruelty-to-horses.html">covered</a> a PETA investigation into the stables of prominent trainer Steve Asmussen, which discovered injured horses forced to run, inappropriately over-drugged horses, and horses shocked with a buzzer — a practice ostensibly banned in the sport. Though Asmussen has faced temporary <a href="https://www.chron.com/sports/article/Horse-trainer-Asmussen-faces-doping-suspension-1647695.php">suspensions</a> for doping in the past, he is in the <a href="https://www.racingmuseum.org/hall-of-fame/trainer/steven-m-asmussen">Racing Hall of Fame</a> and was recently recognized as the first US trainer to win <a href="https://www.americasbestracing.net/the-sport/2023-hall-fame-trainer-asmussen-makes-history-milestone-10000th-win">10,000 races</a>. </p>
<p id="PJrGDa">The same abuses seem to crop up <a href="https://www.walesonline.co.uk/sport/uk-sport-news/grand-national-horse-death-hill-26707360">again and again</a>, despite repeated <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/culture/archive/2014/03/the-ugly-truth-about-horse-racing/284594/">media reports</a> and racing authority interventions. The last few years have seen a slew of disturbing developments. The Santa Anita racetrack in Southern California shut down for most of March 2019 after 23 horses died in the span of just <a href="https://www.npr.org/2019/04/09/711536538/scrutiny-continues-for-santa-anita-race-track-after-23-thoroughbreds-die-in-3-mo">three months</a>. In late 2021, the horse Medina Spirit, the winner of that year’s Kentucky Derby, died <a href="https://www.npr.org/2021/12/06/1061848652/kentucky-derby-winner-medina-spirit-collapsed-and-died">suddenly</a> at just three years old. Two months after his death, the horse was officially <a href="https://www.npr.org/2022/02/22/1082291230/kentucky-derby-winner-medina-spirit">stripped</a> of his title due to his having failed multiple drug tests. As a result, the horse’s trainer, Bob Baffert (who had been <a href="http://www.chrb.ca.gov/veterinary_reports/baffert_sudden_death_report_final_1121.pdf">investigated</a> for doping in 2013 as well), was handed a 90-day <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2022/feb/21/medina-spirit-stripped-of-kentucky-derby-title-two-months-after-death">suspension</a> by the Kentucky Horse Racing Commission and fined $7,500. (He was also banned by Churchill Downs for <a href="https://www.cbssports.com/general/news/2023-kentucky-derby-why-trainer-bob-baffert-is-suspended-from-the-race-for-a-second-consecutive-year/amp/">two years</a>, so was unable to have any of his horses in this year’s Kentucky Derby.)</p>
<h3 id="kDLIE0">Race horses are worked to death so that humans can profit</h3>
<p id="WBPOik">Beyond the abuses that are clear-cut violations of the rules, even the customary practices that horse racing depends on are unethical and might be unreformable. “There is no other mainstream sport where carnage and indifference occur so regularly — and are as tolerated,” Elizabeth Banicki, who used to work in the horse racing industry but left due to its cruelty, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2023/may/08/another-weekend-of-death-at-the-kentucky-derby-but-dont-expect-change">wrote</a> in the Guardian this week. “The horses are unable to withstand moving at such speed when they are so young and underdeveloped. They are pushed to exhaustion. The repetitive percussive drill of training and running kills some of them, and ruins others for life.”</p>
<p id="4eed6e">The ribbons, trophies, prize money, and <a href="https://www.americasbestracing.net/the-sport/2022-us-horse-racing-betting-industry-handle-surges-highest-years">gambling</a> winnings earned in exchange for horses’ suffering might mean everything to jockeys and fans, but they mean nothing to the animals themselves. Horses can’t consent to racing, let alone to the brutal training that precedes it. The racing world often refers to them as their “equine partners,” a cynical euphemism at best. The animals are worked to death so that people can profit. </p>
<p id="7siH4M">Despite all this, horse racing remains exceptionally popular: an estimated 500 million people around the world <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2023/04/13/sport/grand-national-animals-rights-protests-spt-intl/index.html">tune in to</a> the Grand National; some <a href="https://www.usnews.com/news/business/articles/2022-05-10/can-you-believe-it-more-people-watched-kentucky-derby-later">36 million</a> watched last year’s Kentucky Derby. While <a href="https://environmentat5280.org/du-env-blog/wild-horses-are-these-symbols-of-american-spirit-trampling-the-west">horses</a> have a particular kind of importance and charisma in the American imagination, they are, like all non-human animals, considered property — like a mug or a chair — and <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/chattel#:~:text=Chattel%20is%20a%20catch%2Dall,to%20tangible%20movable%20personal%20property.">deprived</a> of meaningful protection under the law. This means that as long as people want to watch, participate in, or profit from horse racing, it’ll be exceedingly hard to end it. </p>
<p id="ncUGCw">Some reform may be on the horizon. In 2020, Congress passed a <a href="https://www.ftc.gov/legal-library/browse/statutes/horseracing-integrity-safety-act-2021-consolidated-appropriations-act">bill</a> that created the <a href="https://hisaus.org/">Horseracing Integrity and Safety Authority (HISA)</a>, a national regulatory organization tasked with standardizing the rules of the sport, such as which medications are permitted and whether whips can be used — rules that currently <a href="https://www.npr.org/2022/05/07/1096791414/horse-racing-kentucky-derby">vary</a> from state to state, as do the penalties for breaking them. HISA penalties would prevent trainers who violate the rules from jumping between states, for instance, to simply practice in Kentucky while under suspension in California.</p>
<p id="00Gc6N">Standardizing animal welfare rules, and raising the penalties for those who break them, aren’t bad ideas. But it seems highly unlikely that these regulations will meaningfully change the sport when many of the practices they target are already banned, while other forms of cruelty remain unchallenged, integral parts of the sport. Trainers knowingly use drugs and <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/28/sports/new-light-on-seamy-role-of-buzzers-in-horse-racing.html">electric buzzers</a> even when it’s against state or sport rules. They’re given a <a href="https://www.app.com/story/sports/2021/09/16/monmouth-park-jockeys-suspended-10-years-using-electrical-device-race/8362926002/">slap on the wrist</a> and simply resume their careers once their suspensions end. The problem with regulating horse racing as a sport is that it treats it as a game, in which infractions can be remedied with simple penalties, rather than a fundamental violation of animals’ autonomy and well-being. </p>
<p id="epJMV2">HISA apparently failed to prevent the deaths at this year’s Kentucky Derby, and <a href="https://hisaus.org/news/hisa-statement-on-churchill-downs">said</a> in a statement that Churchill Downs was “in full compliance with [its] rules and processes.” Imagine if athletes were routinely dropping dead at the Olympics while the relevant regulatory body declared, “nothing to see here.”</p>
<h3 id="FkOSKx">Retired race horses could end up on someone’s dinner plate (really)</h3>
<p id="CRzY0T">HISA also can’t prevent what may be the darkest consequence of horse racing: what happens to horses once their racing careers are <a href="https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/article/how-us-racehorses-end-up-on-dinner-plates?loggedin=true&rnd=1683571522015">over</a>. Because it’s less expensive to kill them than to keep them alive, horses can end up <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/may/02/kentucky-derby-horsemeat-pipeline">slaughtered</a>. </p>
<p id="uV1Yi8">Horse slaughter is effectively banned in the US, but the slaughter of American horses has continued due to loopholes. According to a National Geographic report, more than 20,000 horses were <a href="https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/article/how-us-racehorses-end-up-on-dinner-plates">exported</a> to Mexico or Canada in 2022, where they’re subsequently slaughtered; their meat is then exported for human and other consumption to countries around the world. Poorly enforced bans on horse slaughter domestically have “essentially created this rogue industry and economy that continues to operate in the shadows, and our horses are suffering terribly,” said Caroline Howe, founder and executive director of the Horse Welfare Collective on the <a href="https://noellefloyd.libsyn.com/do-you-know-whats-going-on-with-horse-slaughter-in-the-us"><em>Equestrian Voices</em></a> podcast. Howe said she has witnessed severely injured or dead horses destined for slaughter on transport trailers. </p>
<p id="TeMJDA">A <a href="https://www.congress.gov/bill/117th-congress/house-bill/3355/text">bill</a> pending in Congress, the Save America’s Forgotten Equines Act, would ban the export of horses for slaughter. Animal advocates have unsuccessfully been trying to end horse export for slaughter for years, facing <a href="https://www.avma.org/about/unwanted-horses-and-horse-slaughter-faq">opposition</a> <a href="https://www.avma.org/sites/default/files/resources/IB_Horse_Slaughter_17April2013.pdf">from</a> organizations like the American Veterinary Medical Association. </p>
<p id="cLMkRb">Among the many grave threats facing non-human animals, horse racing is admittedly low on the list. The meat industry slaughters <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/16/opinion/factory-farming-animals.html">80 billion</a> land animals globally every year; laboratory experiments kill <a href="https://www.hsi.org/news-media/about/">tens of millions</a> of animals annually. For <a href="https://www.courier-journal.com/story/sports/horses/horse-racing/2019/03/27/churchill-downs-horse-fatalities/3284846002/">comparison</a>, only <a href="https://jockeyclub.com/pdfs/eid_14_year_tables.pdf">7,602</a> horses in North America suffered fatal racing injuries between 2009 and 2022.</p>
<p id="ob8yfa">But ending the use of horses in sports ought to be a low-hanging win for animal welfare. We should be able to agree as a society that horse racing represents a nonessential and gratuitous form of cruelty. We can have our sports, mint juleps, vibrant spring parties, and flamboyant hats — but we can leave the horses out of it. </p>
<p id="eXxuia"><em>Brian Kateman co-founded the </em><a href="http://www.reducetarian.org/"><em>Reducetarian Foundation</em></a><em> in 2015, an organization advocating for the reduction of animal product consumption. His writing has appeared in the Atlantic, the Los Angeles Times, Fast Company, NBC, and the Washington Post, among other outlets. His latest book and documentary is </em><a href="http://www.meatmehalfway.org/">Meat Me Halfway</a><em>.</em></p>
https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/23716052/kentucky-derby-horse-deaths-grand-national-racing-crueltyBrian Kateman2020-12-29T11:30:00-05:002020-12-29T11:30:00-05:00Meatless meat is going mainstream. Now Big Food wants in.
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<figcaption>Packages of “Impossible Foods” burgers and Beyond Meat made from plant-based substitutes for meat products sit on a shelf for sale in New York City. | Angela Weiss/AFP via Getty Images</figcaption>
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<p>Companies are pledging to sell you more plant-based meat and dairy to fight climate change (and cash in on a growing trend).</p> <p id="ArR7Jq">In a year of splashy news for plant-based meat — <a href="https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/2020/5/5/21247286/plant-based-meat-coronavirus-pandemic-impossible-burger-beyond">skyrocketing sales!</a> <a href="https://www.eater.com/2020/11/9/21556647/mcdonalds-plant-based-burger-is-the-mcplant-chicken-sandwich-wars-2021">the new McPlant!</a> —one of the biggest developments in the field went oddly underreported.</p>
<p id="dyLQ5I">In the last three months of 2020, some of the biggest companies in the world announced major moves into the plant-based meat space. </p>
<p id="LQytKx">In September, Tesco — the UK’s largest supermarket chain — announced plans to increase sales of plant-based products <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-54338754">300 percent by 2025</a>. Last month, Unilever — the world’s 19th largest food and beverage manufacturer — <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-unilever-outlook-plantbased/unilever-sets-1-billion-euro-sales-target-for-meat-dairy-alternatives-idUSKBN27Y001">set a new annual global sales target</a> of $1.2 billion from plant-based meat and dairy within the next five to seven years, about five times what it forecasts it will make from plant-based sales in 2020. And a few days later, <a href="https://www.ikea.com/us/en/this-is-ikea/newsroom/ikea-restaurant-meals-50-plant-based-by-2025-pub7a69f760">Ikea announced</a> that half its restaurant meals and 80 percent of its packaged food offerings would be plant-based by 2025. </p>
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<p id="fdRpcp">Those announcements were just the latest notable steps some major restaurant chains and food companies took in the last year or so toward plant-based products. This isn’t Big Food’s first foray into plant-based meat and dairy, though. Over the last few years, some food companies have acquired plant-based startups or launched their own meatless meat products. But these latest announcements — pledging to significantly increase plant-based sales by 2025 — represent a much bigger investment in the future of animal-free protein than we’ve seen in the past. </p>
<p id="CV7duZ">These moves have largely been made in response to growing consumer demand. The last few years have seen the new wave of <a href="https://www.vox.com/2019/5/28/18626859/meatless-meat-explained-vegan-impossible-burger#:~:text=Every%20year%2C%20more%20than%209,could%20help%20change%20that%20equation.">meatless meat achieve something of mainstream status</a>, and the pandemic has only added to the momentum. Concerns about the spread of the coronavirus at meatpacking facilities and supply-chain troubles at grocery stores early in the pandemic <a href="https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/2020/5/5/21247286/plant-based-meat-coronavirus-pandemic-impossible-burger-beyond">seemed to contribute to greater demand for meatless meat</a>. </p>
<p id="l5xgra">Some of these<strong> </strong>companies are touting their pledges as initiatives to help them meet their broader sustainability goals, which is a good bet. Meat, milk, and egg production accounts for <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/environment/meat-climate-change-paris-agreement-vegetarian-b1621033.html">14.5 percent of greenhouse gas emissions</a>, and in numerous reports scientists have called on world leaders to use dietary change as a tool to curb emissions. Despite animal agriculture’s outsized impact on the environment, governments have been slow to enact <a href="https://www.vox.com/21562639/climate-change-plant-based-diets-science-meat-dairy">policies to reduce animal product consumption</a>, so these corporate pledges are meaningful steps in the fight against climate change and our hyper-industrialized farming system.</p>
<p id="CnVPlU">To be sure, these recent pledges are voluntary, and progress on corporate sustainability has been mixed. A recent <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2020-company-emissions-pledges/">Bloomberg analysis</a> found that out of 187 companies that set climate pledges to be achieved by 2020 or earlier, three quarters of the companies met their goals — but some goals were quite modest, and a tenth of companies didn’t even report their progress.</p>
<p id="dZBiAZ">So time will tell if companies make good on their word to significantly increase their plant-based offerings. For now, these moves are worth cautiously celebrating. Plant-based meats account for a tiny portion of US meat sales, but the upside seems obvious to the industry. Big Food isn’t composed of nonprofit organizations, and the largest among them have a fiduciary responsibility to their shareholders to maximize returns. A move to invest more in plant-based food suggests they think there’s a real market here. </p>
<h3 id="q9mkdg">Plant-based food enters the mainstream </h3>
<p id="CCvkBD">Once a niche sector reserved for vegetarians, <a href="https://www.vox.com/2019/5/28/18626859/meatless-meat-explained-vegan-impossible-burger">plant-based food has crept into the mainstream</a> over the past few years. The percentage of vegetarians and vegans has remained low — <a href="https://news.gallup.com/poll/238328/snapshot-few-americans-vegetarian-vegan.aspx">about 5 percent and 3 percent</a> respectively — but the number of “flexitarians,” people who often turn to plant-based foods instead of animal products, seems to be rising. (There is no standard measure of how much or how little meat is included in such diets, however.) </p>
<p id="2Y19KD">In 2018, <a href="https://www.mintel.com/press-centre/food-and-drink/veganuary-uk-overtakes-germany-as-worlds-leader-for-vegan-food-launches">more than one in three Brits</a> said in a consumer survey that they had recently reduced their meat consumption, up from 28 percent in 2017. <a href="https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/flexitarianism-on-the-rise-in-us-reports-packaged-facts-301154622.html">Similar trends</a> have been reported in US consumer research, as <a href="https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/flexitarianism-on-the-rise-in-us-reports-packaged-facts-301154622.html">36 percent</a> now say that they follow a part-time carnivorous lifestyle. During those years, the market for plant-based foods in the US grew to <a href="https://www.nutritionaloutlook.com/view/us-plant-based-food-sales-reach-31-billion-81-over-2016">$3 billion</a>, and today it’s at <a href="https://www.supermarketnews.com/consumer-trends/plant-based-food-retail-sales-reach-5-billion">$5 billion</a>. </p>
<p id="kjLKcY">So what happened? How did plant-based food go from niche to mainstream? </p>
<p id="ZkEu8M">According to insiders, health and sustainability are the driving forces.</p>
<p id="E8UZjS">“We see several trends in plant-based food and beverage driving people to enter and explore the category,” says Domenic Borrelli, who oversees plant-based products for yogurt maker Danone, which in 2018 <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaelpellmanrowland/2018/10/26/danone-triple-plantbased/">pledged to triple</a> its worldwide plant-based sales to around $6 billion by 2025. “Some are following the latest wellness trends, incorporating plant-based alternatives into their diets as a step toward their personal health. … Some choose plant-based for dietary reasons, such as lactose intolerance. Consumers also opt for dairy alternatives to be mindful of our planet.”</p>
<p id="l1QKG1">Earlier this year, <a href="https://www.eater.com/2020/1/13/21063512/panera-breads-vegetarian-menu-sustainability-climate-change">Panera Bread</a> announced that it plans to make half of its menu items vegetarian or vegan by 2021, citing sustainability goals and its growing base of flexitarian customers, and Nestlé, the world’s largest food company, announced plans to open its first <a href="https://www.nestle.com/media/news/nestle-china-investment-factories-pet-food-plant-based">plant-based food production facility in China</a>.</p>
<p id="D5BXMA">Sodexo, the third-largest foodservice company in the US, which provides food at hospital and university cafeterias, is also backing plant-based food. Last year, it committed to reduce carbon emissions by <a href="https://us.sodexo.com/media/news-releases/reduction-carbon-footprint-2025.html">34 percent by 2025</a>, and anticipates that half of its carbon reduction target globally will be achieved through changes in its supply chain, including increasing plant-based purchases. </p>
<p id="NUczcJ">“In order to achieve this target,” says Lara Seng, who manages sustainability initiatives for Sodexo, “we must address the emissions related to our supply chain, of which 70 percent result from animal-based food purchases in the United States.”</p>
<p id="qO1ViV">Indeed, industrial animal agriculture is wreaking havoc on our planet. The rearing of livestock is not only a major driver of climate change; it’s also <a href="http://sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0048969715303697">a leading cause</a> of other environmental problems like soil degradation, water and nutrient pollution, and biodiversity loss. Raising animals for food is a resource intensive practice: <a href="https://www.smithsonianmag.com/travel/is-the-livestock-industry-destroying-the-planet-11308007/">One-third</a> of the planet’s arable land is used to grow crops as farm animal feed, and those crops are responsible for nearly <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2212371713000024">one-third</a> of all the water used in agriculture. </p>
<p id="IB0KN1">“Of note, a half-gallon of Silk [the plant-based milk brand] takes significantly less water to produce than traditional dairy milk,” Borrelli says.</p>
<p id="wCQp7G">You might think that <a href="https://news.gallup.com/poll/282779/nearly-one-four-cut-back-eating-meat.aspx">consumer awareness</a> around the health and sustainability benefits of plant-based foods especially among <a href="https://www.greenbiz.com/article/americans-especially-millennials-and-gen-z-are-embracing-plant-based-meat-products">millennials and Gen Z</a> is the main driver of the trend. But that’s only a small part of the story.</p>
<p id="n2VPMX"><a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5303533/">Research suggests</a> that people primarily choose food based on three factors — taste, price, and convenience. And for a long time, vegan food was — to put it kindly — gross, expensive, and hard to find. But that began to change when leveled-up versions of plant-based meat became available. </p>
<p id="s8YScE">Startups like Beyond Meat and Impossible Foods poured <a href="https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/2019/4/25/18514798/beyond-meat-ipo-vegan-sustainable-food">many years and many millions of dollars</a> into research and development, innovating plant-based products that rivaled the taste, texture, and even the smell of their animal-based counterparts. Rather than market them to vegetarians, these startups appealed to flexitarians and meat-eaters, partnering with athletes like Kyrie Irving and Shaquille O’Neal and celebrities like Snoop Dogg, Kevin Hart, and Octavia Spencer to appear in their advertising. </p>
<p id="yc7jHA">At the same time, according to Julie Emmett of the Plant Based Foods Association, “new data-driven initiatives like <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-beyond-meat-retail-focus-idUSKCN1T7162">placing plant-based meat in the meat department</a>” drove sales even higher. And finally, plant-based burgers on <a href="https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/2019/4/1/18290762/burger-king-impossible-whopper-plant-based-meat">Burger King and White Castle</a> menus turned the plant-based trend into a food industry mainstay.</p>
<p id="UOlGjb">Then the pandemic hit.</p>
<h3 id="CmatcP">Pandemic boosts plant-based sales</h3>
<p id="GsPhmO">In the early months of the coronavirus crisis, a wave of meatpacking plants shuttered, as workers — who toil shoulder to shoulder — <a href="https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/2020/5/1/21243300/meat-supply-coronavirus-plant-shortage-food-chain">got sick</a>. These closures created temporary meat shortages, which caused Wendy’s to<a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/wendys-runs-out-of-burgers-at-some-locations/"> run out of hamburgers</a> and supermarkets like Kroger and Costco to <a href="https://www.axios.com/wendys-burgers-meat-shortages-coronavirus-ed212a1f-564b-4ac1-b07d-c2deb43e7d43.html">place restrictions</a> on the amount of meat that customers could buy. Where it was available, <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/08/05/business/grocery-prices-rising/index.html">prices went up</a>. </p>
<p id="uwH3ty">Amid slaughterhouse closures, plant-based food sales — including everything from vegan cheese to tofu — enjoyed a boost, increasing <a href="https://www.fooddive.com/news/plant-based-food-sales-outpace-growth-in-other-categories-during-pandemic/578653/">90 percent in mid-March</a> compared to sales during the same time last year. In the following month, plant-based food sales grew 27 percent faster than in 2019 and 35 percent faster than the food category in general.</p>
<p id="bIODWS">Plant-based meat in particular boomed. Grocery store sales of meatless meat increased<a href="https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/2020/5/5/21247286/plant-based-meat-coronavirus-pandemic-impossible-burger-beyond"> 264 percent</a> during the first nine weeks of the pandemic. </p>
<p id="EYGzo7">“The pandemic disrupted consumer food purchase behavior, as out-of-home consumption in restaurants and non-commercial foodservice plummeted and consumers shifted to more in-home consumption sourced from retail and direct-to-consumer channels,” says Kyle Gaan, a researcher at the Good Food Institute (GFI), a nonprofit that promotes meat alternatives. (Disclosure: I worked at GFI for a year, beginning in 2015.) </p>
<p id="HXdWtO">“This shift in consumption seems to have led to new consumers trying plant-based meat and integrating it as a regular part of their diet,” Gaan notes.</p>
<p id="0i7aWj">Gaan <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/press-releases/2020-08-27/emerging-consumer-behavior-shifts-six-ways-food-beverage-innovation-is-evolving-in-the-face-of-covid-19">cited research</a> that found in the US, 18 percent of alternative protein buyers purchased their first plant-based protein during the pandemic. And in Germany, the UK, and the Netherlands, 80 percent of consumers said they were likely to continue eating plant-based meat alternatives beyond the pandemic. </p>
<p id="zVfpnR">This tracks with what some Vox readers are saying. Over the summer, Vox staff writer Sigal Samuel surveyed readers about what <a href="https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/2020/6/9/21279258/coronavirus-pandemic-new-quarantine-habits">pandemic habits they want to continue</a> once the pandemic is over, and eating less meat was one of them: </p>
<blockquote><p id="qjEJ9Q">Specifically, people want to cook more vegetarian meals and lean away from meat-eating. The impulse seems to be coming not only from the fact that there are meat shortages in some US grocery stores, but also from the knowledge that <a href="https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/2020/4/15/21219222/coronavirus-china-ban-wet-markets-reopening">a live-animal market in China may have given rise to the coronavirus</a> and that <a href="https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/2020/4/22/21228158/coronavirus-pandemic-risk-factory-farming-meat">the giant factory farms that supply 99 percent of America’s meat are a pandemic risk, too</a>.</p></blockquote>
<p id="yqNXjC">But advocates of flexitarianism should temper their excitement. Even as plant-based meat has surged, the appetite for animal-based meat has proven resilient. Some experts <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-06-09/virus-to-cut-american-meat-consumption-for-first-time-in-6-years">predicted</a> the coronavirus could cause a record drop in meat consumption; now, the USDA predicts Americans will eat just <a href="https://www.ers.usda.gov/publications/pub-details/?pubid=100070">one less pound of meat in 2021</a> than they did in 2020. <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/meat-was-once-in-short-supply-amid-pandemic-now-its-on-sale-11600614000">US meat production bounced back</a> in the fall. </p>
<h3 id="psQuQk">How Big Food could get plant-based wrong</h3>
<p id="ioP7eS">There is another reason for skepticism about the emergence of the new wave of meatless meat — and specifically the decision by Big Food companies to enter the market. </p>
<p id="KOQ5rZ">Despite major food companies betting big on plant-based, the vast majority of their sales will still come from foods they themselves admit are unsustainable. For example, last month Greenpeace and the Bureau for Investigative Journalism documented Tesco and other companies <a href="https://unearthed.greenpeace.org/2020/11/25/brazil-fires-deforestation-tesco-nandos-mcdonalds/">selling meat from chickens</a> that had been fed soy that was grown on deforested land in the Amazon rainforest. </p>
<p id="GYSFjz">Kari Hamerschlag, deputy director of food and agriculture at Friends of the Earth, an environmental nonprofit,<strong> </strong>made a similar argument for <a href="https://www.vice.com/en/article/pkynky/big-meat-is-selling-veggie-burgers-but-its-not-because-they-care-about-you">Vice</a> in September: “I actually think that these large company investments will do very little to cut the massive impact of the world’s largest meat companies,” she said, commenting on the rise of animal-based meat companies like <a href="https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/2019/3/22/18273892/tyson-vegan-vegetarian-lab-meat-climate-change-animals">Tyson and Perdue</a> that had developed their own versions of familiar plant-based foods like burgers and chicken nuggets. “Unless these companies actually slash their emissions, then they are not doing what they need to do to address the climate crisis.”</p>
<p id="mbl3kN">Certainly the early entrants in the space have some mixed feelings. “Because our mission is so urgent we welcome any and all companies to this work,” says Jessica Appelgren, a spokesperson at Impossible Foods. “Issues arise, however, when market entrants create sub-par products that negatively influence a consumer’s experience of meat made from plants. ‘Plant-based anxiety’ is a real barrier to long-term adoption and we can only control the taste of our own products.”</p>
<p id="r5y5ng">The evidence backs up Appelgren’s concern. Despite enthusiasm for plant-based meat, <a href="https://news.gallup.com/poll/282989/four-americans-eaten-plant-based-meats.aspx">not everyone has given it a try yet</a>. A survey suggests that among those who have tried it, 18 percent of people <a href="https://www.foodnavigator-usa.com/Article/2020/07/14/SHIFT20-How-are-consumers-thinking-about-plant-based-eating-Mattson-unveils-new-survey-data">associated plant-based meat with poor taste</a>, though whether they didn’t like what they had in the distant past or what is available today is unclear. Mouthfeel — how well faux meat producers can imitate the texture and chewiness of meat — in particular may be lagging behind, as 31 percent of respondents in a separate survey said they found <a href="https://www.fooddive.com/news/study-consumers-try-plant-based-meat-because-theyre-curious/571615/">the texture of plant-based meat was not similar</a> to animal-based meat. If the plant-based market is going to continue to grow, it’ll need to win over more customers, and have them come back again and again.</p>
<p id="H4d1hk">So there is much to be wary about. But there is also much here to be hopeful for. Unlike the young, smaller vegan startups, these titans of industry are swimming in capital and therefore are capable of not just meeting the demand for these plant-based options, but also increasing it. They have huge distribution channels that date back decades, as well as the resources to innovate on these existing products, manufacture large quantities of them at a cost-competitive price, and pay fancy PR and advertising firms to market them. </p>
<p id="OHziAD">The reality is that we’re not on the verge of plant-based meat dominating the<a href="https://begin.berkeley.edu/2017/08/17/uc-berkeley-launches-new-lab-to-take-on-1-trillion-meat-industry/"> $1 trillion global meat market</a>. Plant-based meat still makes up less than 1 percent of meat sales in the US — where the market is most developed — and even less globally. In fact, animal-based meat consumption is rapidly rising in much more populous countries like China and India, as people tend to eat more meat as they climb out of poverty. But the fact that big food companies are bullish on plant-based meat is, on the whole, good news in the fight for a more sustainable world.</p>
<p id="zuIgdC">“Meat is the largest segment of the food category globally, and we’ve just begun to scratch the surface,” a Beyond Meat spokesperson said, echoing an upbeat take on the matter. “It is really exciting to be in such an emerging space where there is a lot of energy and enthusiasm for the category we’ve created.”</p>
<p id="f4UGtl">If you can’t beat them, why not welcome them when they join you?</p>
<p id="BzP4Ip"><em>Brian Kateman is the co-founder of the </em><a href="http://reducetarian.org/"><em>Reducetarian Foundation</em></a><em>, an organization advocating for the reduction of animal product consumption. </em></p>
<p id="uguFIn"><a href="https://www.vox.com/future-perfect-newsletter"><em><strong>Sign up for the Future Perfect newsletter.</strong></em></a><em> Twice a week, you’ll get a roundup of ideas and solutions for tackling our biggest challenges: improving public health, decreasing human and animal suffering, easing catastrophic risks, and — to put it simply — getting better at doing good.</em></p>
https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/22196077/impossible-foods-tesco-ikea-paneraBrian Kateman2017-06-19T09:10:02-04:002017-06-19T09:10:02-04:00How to stop cruel factory farming: start with one animal
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<img alt="Slaughtered pigs are stored at a cooled warehouse of a state of the art slaughterhouse on December 15, 2005 in Mannheim, Germany" src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/hkSjmk32MS9LcktLQft6z5nLR8k=/900x0:3000x1575/1310x983/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/55325945/GettyImages_56453499.0.jpg" />
<figcaption>People might be willing to stop eating some charismatic, intelligent animals, including pigs, before they commit to vegetarianism. | Ralph Orlowski / Getty</figcaption>
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<p id="xDMcSh">A <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/21/dining/beef-consumption-emissions.html?smid=fb-nytscience&smtyp=cur">recent study</a> released by the Natural Resources Defense Council found that Americans cut their beef consumption by nearly one-fifth from 2005 to 2014. For those who care about animals and the environment, that’s a hugely promising development, right? Ethically speaking, it’s a little more complicated than that. </p>
<p id="A21EeX">The basic concern that some animal advocates raise is rooted in the following observation: When people stop eating cows, they don’t eat tofu steaks and mushroom burgers instead; they generally don’t become vegetarians or vegans. What a lot of them do is simply eat more chicken. Many people may have made the switch not out of concern for animal welfare but because they’ve heard about the health risks of eating lots of red meat. They’re “switchetarians,” moving from one kind of animal consumption to another.</p>
<p id="QtRbbR">If that’s the case, then their choices might not actually translate into an overall drop in animal consumption. In fact, the National Chicken Council shows that when pork and beef consumption decreases, <a href="http://www.nationalchickencouncil.org/about-the-industry/statistics/per-capita-consumption-of-poultry-and-livestock-1965-to-estimated-2012-in-pounds/">poultry consumption goes up</a>. After all, current science, and the resulting science-section news articles, place less emphasis on the health risks posed by eating chicken and fish. (Though the presence of antibiotics and mercury mean that these still may not be the healthiest options.)</p>
<p id="9AHRUT">Their own health aside, people might also be eating less red meat because of growing awareness of how much cows, in particular, suffer on factory farms. Cows — pigs, too, for some people — seem to inspire more compassion than chickens and fish. They are mammals with big soulful eyes, and their slaughterhouse deaths, wherein they are electrocuted via the brain or the heart then hoisted in the air to have their throats slit, are gruesome. </p>
<p id="S3Rpbe">From a strict animal rights perspective, however, the fact that mammals like cows and pigs <em>generate</em> more compassion than non-mammals tells us nothing about whether they <em>deserve</em> more compassion. As the philosopher Peter Singer and the advocate and writer Karen Dawn have argued, it is not clear, despite people’s intuitions, that chickens and fish feel less pain than mammals do. </p>
<p id="Oo1rOx">Singer and Dawn go on to make another observation, one rooted in utilitarian logic: Because chickens and fish are so much smaller than cows or pigs, many more individuals must be killed in order to yield the same amount of meat. If we replace our burgers and steaks with chicken fingers, turkey bacon, and fish sticks, the total amount of animal suffering worldwide — in terms of the number of creatures who live diminished lives, suffer, and die so that we might eat them — <a href="http://commons.pacificu.edu/eip/vol18/iss1/7/">might actually go up rather than down</a>. </p>
<p id="zQCyGn">This is the dark side of <a href="http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=cutetarian">cutetarianism</a>, defined on Urban Dictionary as a diet “in which a person does not eat ‘cute’ animals.” It’s not only the charismatic animals who feel pain.</p>
<h3 id="hYCO4e">Why PETA argued (facetiously) that people should eat whales</h3>
<p id="kk8f5C">Cutenarianism is not exactly the most rigorous ethical approach. People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) made a point similar to Singer’s and Dawn’s back in 2001 with their somewhat tongue-in-cheek “<a href="http://www.peta.org/blog/eat-whales/">Eat the Whales</a>” campaign. Knowing full well the emotional attachment many people have to whales, and hoping to challenge the arbitrary lines we draw when it comes to the animals we eat, PETA observed that the meat we get from killing one whale is equivalent to the meat we could get from killing about 1,200 pigs. The advocacy group suggested that people who want to do less harm with their meat eating, yet can’t abide the thought of going meatless, ought to switch to consuming giant singing cetaceans.</p>
<p id="y4iitY">Given the widespread ban on whaling, that would be illegal in most countries today. But plenty of us could choose to eat cows and pigs instead of chickens and fish, switching to physically larger animals if we thought this would be a good way to reduce animal suffering without major sacrifice. Then there’s the environmental component, which also may be contributing to the move away from beef. </p>
<p id="2ZWE5J">Studies conflict on the exact percentage of greenhouse gas emissions directly linked to animal farming, but there’s no doubt the number is high, and that methane from cow burps constitutes a massive part of it. Moreover, the inefficiency of converting land, water, and crops into beef also helps to make cows the worst animals to farm from an environmental perspective. Drastically reducing our beef consumption may be a really good thing to do if we want humanity to stick around for a while. </p>
<p id="FglIxw">But for now, let’s stick to the ethics of meat-eating from the animals’ perspective. In a popular post entitled “<a href="http://slatestarcodex.com/2015/09/23/vegetarianism-for-meat-eaters/">Vegetarianism for Meat Eaters</a>,” the blogger Scott Alexander explained his own take on switchetarianism, and added yet another twist. He wrote that he cared about animal suffering, detailing how chickens are “mutilated [and]...experience severe musculoskeletal pain.” </p>
<p id="buunx2">Yet Alexander didn’t think he could live happily as a vegetarian for very long — “I really, really hate vegetables” — so he devised what he felt was a prudent compromise. He decided to eat beef instead of poultry, on the grounds that fewer animals would die — and that, moreover, in his view, chickens lead more miserable lives in factory farms than cows do. </p>
<p id="MRQNCm">The twist was that he offsets the suffering he caused cows by donating to charities that work to reduce such suffering. Consider, he suggested, groups that encourage people to eat less meat (by lobbying for “Meatless Mondays” in school cafeterias, for instance). Estimates of the effectiveness of donations to such groups vary widely, but a conservative estimate he cited was that you can save one animal for every dollar you contribute. Carry that logic forward, Alexander observed, and you could theoretically be a more effective animal-welfare advocate by making targeted donations than by stopping eating meat.</p>
<p id="li2tuY">This methodology feels morally icky. (Imagine the horror you’d feel if a friend justified owning slaves by donating to abolitionist advocacy groups.) Emotional objections and the appearance of hypocrisy aside, the strategy also fails to help us reach a satisfactory endpoint. There is a finite number of “convertible” eaters who Alexander’s funds could impact. As he himself points out, the more people who try this approach, the more expensive each conversion becomes. </p>
<p id="91wRII">But Alexander is on to something with his utilitarian switchetarianism. As complicated as it may be to weigh all relevant factors, if you’re going to be a switchetarian instead of a reducetarian or vegan, it makes sense to attempt a reasoned calculation about which meat you think does the least harm, and choose that one. </p>
<h3 id="2CDTLm">How to look at the bright side in the switch from cows to chickens, instead of seeing only irrationality</h3>
<p id="4iThs0">Which brings us back to the drop in beef consumption. Admittedly, if we’re taking the purely mathematical approach, it looks bad in the short term when we stop eating cows to eat more chicken and fish instead. But this drop is more interesting and hopeful when we think about long-term strategies to further animal welfare. </p>
<p id="yyJkZi">Even if things like adorableness — or irrationally distributed sympathy more generally — play a part in the choice to stop eating beef, maybe we should take progress wherever we can find it. Maybe animal liberation won’t happen all at once. Maybe it will come one species at a time.</p>
<p id="YuKGvq">A lot of animal advocates like to think about the end of animal exploitation in terms of a circle of moral concern that expands quite quickly. First all oppressed humans gain equal standing, and then comes freedom for all animals! But why should we assume it will happen for all animals at once? The dismantling of human oppression has obviously not been ordered or logical — and certainly not sudden</p>
<p id="fRRSY7">And the evidence is indisputable that plenty of people come to care passionately about some nonhuman animals while caring little about others. People love their pets without caring much about the equally intelligent animals they eat. The director of <em>The Cove</em>, a harrowing documentary that exposed the horror of Japanese dolphin hunting, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/film/2009/oct/19/the-cove-interview">kept on eating fish</a> until he discovered that his mercury levels were ridiculously high. He had not been overly troubled by the inconsistency between being a pescatarian and opposing dolphin hunting.</p>
<p id="wp21Wy">Debates over switchetarianism bear a resemblance to disputes amongst animal rights advocates over the value of “single-issue campaigns.” These are defined by Rutgers University law professor Gary Francione as campaigns “identifying some particular use of animals or some form of treatment and making that the object of a campaign to end the use or modify the treatment.” Francione strongly objects to this approach, because he feels it fails to directly achieve his desired end: complete and total animal liberation. For example, the effort to ban veal crates leaves the rest of the cattle industry untouched — to say nothing of other animals. </p>
<p id="lvDUUJ">Yet rather than quibble over the ethical value of a drop in beef consumption among people who continue to eat other animals, or criticize any reform that stops short of veganism, maybe it’s worth embracing single-issue campaigns — and by extension perhaps “single-animal campaigns” or “single-species campaigns,” too. Consider what might happen if we as consumers united in refusing to consume one particular type of animal. We could end the farming of that animal — full stop. What we lose in logical consistency we might gain in public attention and public sympathy. </p>
<p id="QSS0By">At this point, it’s difficult to imagine consumers in the US uniting on that goal. But activists could get the ball rolling in that direction by focusing more of their activism on a particular species of animal instead of on farm animals as a whole. And for this strategy to be effective, it likely shouldn’t be chicken or fish. It would have to be a big, personable animal such as cows or pigs.</p>
<h3 id="gpSpfj">The case for starting with pigs</h3>
<p id="L8cD7F">Even though beef consumption is what has dropped most dramatically, if factory farming is going to crumble one species at a time, I could see pig farming being the first to go. Many farmed animal species have impressive cognitive abilities (<a href="https://www.springer.com/gp/about-springer/media/research-news/all-english-research-news/think-chicken---think-intelligent--caring-and-complex--/11952522">chickens can do math</a> and <a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1106884/Three-second-memory-myth-Fish-remember-months.html">fish have excellent memories</a>), but pigs appear to be the most intelligent. They can recognize themselves in mirrors. They can play video games. They were the tyrannical revolutionary leaders in the classic dystopian novel <em>Animal Farm</em>. And they are the farm animal most likely to double as a pet. </p>
<p id="SbSer4">Consider the case of Bob Comis, a former pig farmer featured in the <a href="http://www.thelastpig.com/about-the-film/">new documentary film <em>The Last Pig</em></a><em>. </em>Comis treated his pigs as well as any farmer could, but eventually stopped raising hogs and went vegan to escape the weight of guilt he felt for sending so many pigs to slaughter. <em>The Last Pig </em>shows Comis upending his life to satisfy his conscience, and <a href="http://www.thelastpig.com/about-the-film/">the trailer</a> is powerful. In it, Comis narrates while walking with his pigs: </p>
<blockquote><p id="snU9Zt">They follow me. Curious. Interested. What they don’t know is that this communion is a lie. I am not their herd mate. I am a pig farmer, and sometime soon, I’m going to have them killed. I really love being around these incredible animals. I feel an obligation to give them the best life that I can. After 10 years of looking into thousands of pig eyes, I’ve come to understand that they’re never vacant. There’s always somebody looking back at me. I’ve taken 2,000 pigs to the slaughterhouse, and I’ve become haunted by the ghosts of those pigs. I don’t want to have the power to decide whether something lives or dies anymore. He is one of the last pigs that I will ever have slaughtered.</p></blockquote>
<p id="5HnGnN">Imagine that instead of being a pig farmer talking about his herd, Comis was a poultry farmer talking about his chickens, or a fish farmer talking about his salmon. As an animal advocate who is concerned with animal suffering in all forms, I would not find this bizarre at all. But I expect that to the average person, talking to chickens this way might seem absurd. But audiences relate to the guilt Comis feels about his pigs. His love is similar to the love many of us have for our dogs and cats. </p>
<p id="kOzKBr">If we as consumers and activists were actually going to go all-in on the abolition of pig farming, there would be a lot of hurdles to overcome. Bacon is a big one — although I would like to think that improvements in plant-based meat alternatives, as well as advances in <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/apr/18/veggie-burger-clean-meat-revolution-plant-foods-animals">meat cultured from cells</a>, could help with that. </p>
<p id="SdrPxd">But as difficult as this would be, the challenges to ending the farming of one animal species do not seem insurmountable. They are certainly not as intractable as those we would face if aiming to abolish all animal farming at once. A lot of people who could not be convinced to give up meat altogether — because they would miss the general taste and texture, or because they are persuaded that they need some meat for their health — might agree to give up the consumption of at least one species of commonly farmed animal.</p>
<p id="AYnic2">If we stop farming one species, will we just step up our farming of every other type? Some people will indeed switch from beef to chicken and never give the issue a second thought. But for others, the move may show them they can fairly easily give up foods they may have thought they couldn’t live without. If they made the move for ethical reasons, further reflection might lead them to see that similar issues apply to other farmed species. And as meat consumption drops, better plant-based and cultured meat would continue to be developed, so that eventually we could give up all factory farmed meat without a shift in consumption levels.</p>
<p id="xIL4fQ">Ponder, as well, the potential psychological impact of a once ubiquitous animal product disappearing from the shelves because people objected to the suffering and killing of that animal. Ending the commodification of even one popularly farmed animal would cause a widespread shift in perspective; all animal farming would likely be questioned to a much greater degree. </p>
<p id="FpGsLg">To be clear, I’m certainly not saying we should be eating fish and chickens instead of cows and pigs. But I do think the drop in beef consumption may be a positive development with respect to the long term. We live in a time when almost everyone considers it perfectly acceptable to eat as many animals as they please. If<strong> </strong>pigs and cows have an unfair advantage over chickens and fish because of their big eyes and lashes, we animal-rights advocates may need to accept that — for now. </p>
<p id="DBhWr4">This does not mean the moral sphere of concern will never reach the other animals we also want to save. In fact, it may be one promising road to our final goal.</p>
<p id="mpKnVG"><em>Brian Kateman is president of the Reducetarian Foundation and editor of </em><a href="http://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/541796/the-reducetarian-solution-by-edited-by-brian-kateman/9780143129714/">The Reducetarian Solution: How the Surprisingly Simple Act of Reducing the Amount of Meat in Your Diet Can Transform Your Health and the Planet</a>.</p>
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https://www.vox.com/the-big-idea/2017/6/19/15827828/factory-farming-switchetarian-beef-chickenBrian Kateman