Why we should question our Attitudes towards Animals.

Being a social species we inherited traits like empathy and compassion, because it helped us to survive. Since we are mammals, these traits are key for early mother-child communication and as a species that lived in tribes, empathy and compassion helped surviving by compensating weaknesses of one another which led to more cohesive, strengthened tribes.
These traits are the cause of reacting disgusted, angry, or sad when we see people suffer. But it doesn’t stop there: because we are able to expand the circle of compassion to other animals, we might feel the same, if we hear about a dog being put to sleep, a cat that got run over, or even a whale that stranded and died. Although we are pleased by showing our kids lambs in a petting zoo, a deer in the woods, being excited by their excitement, we still manage to behave in ways our value system would never allow in different contexts.

Over 300 million cows, 1.4 billion pigs, and 50 billion chickens are killed for meat counsumption every year (excluding male chicks and ‚unproductive hens‘ killed in egg production).
If we include all animals, we total at 72 billion land animals, and 2.7 trillion aquatic animals killed every single year^{1 2}. And even if not all of them have the same kind of cleverness as a dog (a standard which seems important to many people – although pigs for example have), all of them have a central nervous system, and thus can experience pain. The strange thing about this numbers: the exploitation of animals to such an extent is not able because we are a species of blood-thirsty predators, but because societal norms and ‚animal agriculture‘ manages -intentionally and unintentionally- to supress our innate reaction to this killing.

The Relevance of Animal Agriculture.

The Animals

Billions of land, and almost three trillion of aquatic animals are killed every year. As already mentioned, all of these animals have a central nervous system, which is the foundation of pain processing. Since the central nervous system and particular parts of the brain (also in fish!) developed through evolution in a way that leads animals to avoid pain and seek pleasure (just as us), one can conclude that killing them is not in their interest. But isn’t it in ours? Don’t we need to kill and consume them, if we want to thrive?

The Health Argument

When vegan diets are well-planned, they contain all nutrients we need, for all stages of life – this is the position of the worlds biggest dietetic association: the American Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics. A plant-based diet is not only not unhealthy, but shows many advantages. It is associated with:

lower blood pressure³ and cholesterol^{4 5 6 7 8}, and by that 43% lower rates of heart disease³ ⁹
lower rates of type 2 diabetes (50-73%)^{3 4 6} ^{10 11 12}
lower cancer rates (prostate, breast and colon cancer, about 15%)^{4 13 14 15 16}
higher life expectancy^{3 17 18 19}

So with this nessecity out of the way, there is not much of an argument left for perpetuating this system of exploitation – but a lot against it.

The Environmental Damage

Animal agriculture is responsible for about a fifth of all greenhouse gas emissions (18%)²⁰, which is more than the combined exhaust from all transportation (13%)^{20 21}. Cows produce 586 billion kilograms of methane per day²² which is 86 times more potent than CO₂²³. N₂O (Nitrous oxide) is 296 times more potent than CO₂ and animal agriculture is responsible for 65% of all human-related emissions of N₂O^{20 24}. As these numbers suggest animal agriculture shows to be the second greatest contributor of climate change (after fossil fuels). But that’s not all: it is also a leading cause of deforestation, water and air pollution as well as biodiversity loss²⁰.

In the US, it is responsible for 55% of all water consumption (private homes consume 5%)²⁵. Regarding the whole world, 33% of all fresh water is used for animal agriculture²⁶. A third of the worlds ice-free land surface is used for ‚livestock‘²⁷ while a third of the grain production is being fed to ‚livestock‘²⁸ – if these areas were used for humans instead of animal agriculture, we would be able to sustain 10 billion people^{29 30}. 75% of the deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon rainforest can be attributed to the growing of (mostly) soy, which is fed to animals³¹. 75% of the world’s fisheries are overfished or depleted^{32 33} and for every 1kg of fish caught, about 5kg of unintended species are caught and discarded as by-kill³⁴. Because of this pace of fishing, about half of the ocean plastic is made up of fishing net³⁵. In the US, 80% of antibiotics are used for livestock³⁶, which raises cases of multidrug resistance.

What can be done?

While many societal and environmental problems can’t be solved without political intervention and legislation, all of the mentioned would be solved (or at least massively reduced) if everyone would choose to eat a vegan meal instead of the one that is perpetuating this exploitive system. Of course political change is required reagarding issues that affect all of humanity (like climate change), but until there is a mojority for these issues, choosing plant-based products is the easiest one thing anyone could do, while having the greatest effect.

Sources

¹ FAOSTAT
² Fish count estimates
³ Lap, T. L., Sabaté, J. (2014). Beyond meatless, the health effects of vegan diets: findings from the Adventist cohorts. Nutrients, 6 (6), 2131-47.
⁴ Dinu, M., Abbate, R., Gensini, G., Casini, A., Sofi, F. (2017). Vegetarian, vegan diets and multiple health outcomes: A systematic review with meta-analysis of observational studies. Critical Reviews in Food Science and Nutrition, 57 (17), 3640-3649.
⁵ Mishra, S., Xu, J., Agarwal, U., Gonzales, J., Levin, S., Barnard, N. (2013). A multicenter randomized controlled trial of a plant-based nutrition program to reduce body weight and cardiovascular risk in the corporate setting: the GEICO study. European Journal of Clinical Nutrition, 67 (7), 718-724.
⁶ Barnard, N., Cohen, J., Jenkins, D., et al. (2006). A low-fat vegan diet improves glycemic control and cardiovascular risk factors in a randomized clinical trial in individuals with type 2 diabetes. Diabetes Care, 29 (8), 1777-1783.
⁷ Macknin, M., Kong, T., Weier, A., et al. (2015). Plant-based, no-added-fat or American Heart Association diets: impact on cardiovascular risk in obese children with hypercholesterolemia and their parents. The Journal of Pediatrics, 166 (4), 953-9.e93.
⁸ Wang, F., Zheng, J., Yang, B., Jiang, J., Fu, Y., Li, D. (2015). Effects of Vegetarian Diets on Blood Lipids: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of Randomized Controlled Trials. Journal of the American Heart Association, 4 (10), e002408.
⁹ Global Burden of Metabolic Risk Factors for Chronic Diseases Collaboration (BMI Mediated Effects), Lu, Y., Hajifathalian, K., et al. (2014). Metabolic mediators of the effects of body-mass index, overweight, and obesity on coronary heart disease and stroke: a pooled analysis of 97 prospective cohorts with 1·8 million participants. Lancet, 383 (9921), 970-983.
¹⁰ Tonstad, S., Butler, T., Yan, R., & Fraser, G. (2009). Type of vegetarian diet, body weight, and prevalence of type 2 diabetes. Diabetes care, 32 (5), 791–796. (click here for the whole article)
¹¹ Gojda, J., Patková, J., Jaček, M., et al. (2013) Higher insulin sensitivity in vegans is not associated with higher mitochondrial density. European Journal of Clinical Nutrition, 67 (12), 1310-1315.
¹² Craig, W. (2009). Health effects of vegan diets. The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, 89 (5), 1627-1633.
¹³ Zhu, B., Sun, Y., Qi, L., Zhong, R., Miao, X. (2015). Dietary legume consumption reduces risk of colorectal cancer: evidence from a meta-analysis of cohort studies. Scientific Reports, 5: 8797.
¹⁴Oyebode, O., Gordon-Dseagu, V., Walker, A., Mindell, J. (2014). Fruit and vegetable consumption and all-cause, cancer and CVD mortality: analysis of Health Survey for England data. Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health, 68 (9), 856-862.
¹⁵ Zhang, C., Ho, S., Lin, F., Cheng, S., Fu, J., Chen, Y. (2010). Soy product and isoflavone intake and breast cancer risk defined by hormone receptor status. Cancer Science, 101 (2), 501-507.
¹⁶ Li, F., An, S., Hou, L., Chen, P., Lei, C., Tan, W. (2014). Red and processed meat intake and risk of bladder cancer: a meta-analysis. International Journal of Clinical and Experimental Medicine, 7 (8), 2100-2110.
¹⁷ Pramil, N., Joan, S., Fraser, G. E. (2003). Does low meat consumption increase life expectancy in humans? The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, 78 (3), 526–532.
¹⁸ Orlich, M. J., Singh, P. N., Sabaté, J., Jaceldo-Siegl, K., Fan, J., Knutsen, S., Beeson, W. L., & Fraser, G. E. (2013). Vegetarian dietary patterns and mortality in Adventist Health Study 2. JAMA internal medicine, 173(13), 1230–1238.
¹⁹ Orlich, M. J., Fraser, G. E. (2014). Vegetarian diets in the Adventist Health Study 2: A review of initial published findings. American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, 353–358.

²⁰ Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (2006). Livestock’s Long Shadow: environmental issues and options.
²¹ Environmental Protection Agency. Global Greenhouse Gas Emissions Data.
²² Miller, S. M., et al. (2013). Anthropegnic emissions of methane in the United States. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 110 (50).
²³ Shindell, D. T., et al. (2009). Improved Attribution of Climate Forcing to Emissions. Science, 326, (716).
²⁴ U.S. Energy Information Administration. (2011) Emissions of Greenhouse Gases in the United States.
²⁵ Jacobson, M. F. (2006). Six Arguments For a Greener Diet. Washington, DC: Center for Science in the Public Interest.
²⁶ Mekonnen, M. M. & Hoekstra, A. Y. (2012) A Global Assessment of the Water Footprint of Farm Animal Products. Ecosystems, 15, 401-415.
²⁷ FAO Newsroom. (2006) Livestock: a major threat to environment. Remedies urgently needed.
²⁸ Prajal P., et al. (2013). Embodied crop calories in animal products. Environmental Research Letters, 8 (4).
²⁹ Cassidy, E. S., et al. (2013). Redefining agricultural yields: from tonnes to people nourished per acre. Environmental Research Letters 8, 034015.
³⁰ Seufert, V., Ramankutty, N., Foley, J. (2012) Comparing the yields of organic and conventional agriculture. Nature, 485 (7397), 229-32.
³¹ Machovina, B., Feeley, K. J., , Ripple, W. J. (2015). Biodiversity conservation: The key is reducing meat consumption. Science of The Total Environment, 536, 419-431.
³² United Nations Environment Programme. Overfishing: a threat to marine biodiversity.
³³ United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization. General situation of world fish stocks.
³⁴ FAO: Fisheries and Aquaculture Department. Discard and bycatch in Shrimp trawl fisheries.
³⁵ Lebreton, L., Slat, B., Ferrari, F. et al. (2018). Evidence that the Great Pacific Garbage Patch is rapidly accumulating plastic. Scientific Reports, 8, 4666.
³⁶ Flanders, T., et al. (2012). A Review of Antibiotic Use in Food Animals: Perspective, Policy, and Potential. Public Health Reports, 127 (1), 4-22.

Our Relationship towards Animals