MORTALITY

This section presents summaries from scientific studies of mortality for various diet groups, broken down by overall mortality (total, or total minus mortality from cancer and heart disease), as well as mortality arising specifically from heart disease or cancer.

• OVERALL MORTALITY

Le, Lap Tai, and Joan Sabaté. "Beyond meatless, the health effects of vegan diets: findings from the Adventist cohorts." Nutrients 6.6 (2014): 2131-2147.

Study design: Adventist Health Study 2; prospective; 96,194 participants; adjusted for age, race, smoking, alcohol, excercise, education, marital status, region, and income.

Key finding: Vegan males experience a 28% reduction in all-cause mortality relative to nonvegetarians (significant). Vegan females have 14% reduced risk of all-cause mortality relative to their nonvegetarian counterparts; however, this is not statistically significant. 

Key finding: Vegans have 26% reduced risk for all non-heart disease and non-cancer mortality relative to nonvegetarians (significant). Lacto-ovo vegetarians have 9% reduction in all non-heart disease and non-cancer mortality, relative to nonvegetarians, though this difference is not statistically significant. 

Appleby, Paul N., et al. "Mortality in vegetarians and comparable nonvegetarians in the United Kingdom." The American journal of clinical nutrition (2015): ajcn119461

Study design: EPIC-Oxford and Oxford Vegetarian Study cohorts; prospective; 60,310 participants; adjusted for smoking, alcohol, marital status, health history, and BMI. 

Key finding: Vegetarians (all combined) have 10% reduced risk for all-cause mortality compared with regular meat eaters. 

Springmann, Marco, H. Charles J. Godfray, Mike Rayner, and Peter Scarborough. "Analysis and valuation of the health and climate change cobenefits of dietary change." Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 113, no. 15 (2016): 4146-4151.

Study design: Region-specific global health model. Global mortality and disease burden attributable to diet and obesity were compared to disease rates for different diet patterns. Diseases included heart disease, stroke, diabetes, and cancer. Diet patterns included meat eater, lacto-ovo vegetarian, and vegan. 

Key finding: Switching to a vegetarian diet would save 7.3 million lives annually, which amounts to 114 million life years. Switching to a vegan diet would save 8.1 million lives worldwide every year, amounting to 129 million life years saved. 

• MORTALITY FROM HEART DISEASE

Le, Lap Tai, and Joan Sabaté. "Beyond meatless, the health effects of vegan diets: findings from the Adventist cohorts." Nutrients 6.6 (2014): 2131-2147.

Study design: Adventist Health Study 2; prospective; 96,194 participants; adjusted for age, race, smoking, alcohol, exercise, education, marital status, region, and income.

Key finding: Vegan males had 55% reduced risk of mortality from ischemic heart disease relative to nonvegetarians (significant). Lacto-ovo vegetarians had 24% reduced risk of mortality from ischemic heart disease, which was not statistically significant. 

Key finding: Vegan males experience a 42% reduced risk of motality from cardiovascular disease (significant).  Male lacto-ovo vegetarians also experience significant protection (23%), relative to nonvegetarian males, from cardiovascular disease mortality, 

Huang, Tao, et al. "Cardiovascular disease mortality and cancer incidence in vegetarians: a meta-analysis and systematic review." Annals of nutrition and metabolism 60.4 (2012): 233-240.

Study design: Meta-analysis from seven studies. 124,706 total participants. Adjusted for age, gender, smoking, alcohol, and BMI in most included studies.

Key finding: Vegetarians have a significant, 29% reduced risk of mortality from ischemic heart disease relative to nonvegetarians.

Dinu, Monica, et al. "Vegetarian, vegan diets and multiple health outcomes: a systematic review with meta-analysis of observational studies." Critical reviews in food science and nutrition -  just accepted (2016).

Study design: Meta-analysis of 96 studies; ~325,000 total participants.

Key finding: Vegetarians have a significant, 25% risk reduction of dying from ischemic heart disease, compared with their nonvegetarians counterparts. 

• CANCER MORTALITY

Appleby, Paul N., et al. "Mortality in vegetarians and comparable nonvegetarians in the United Kingdom." The American journal of clinical nutrition (2015): ajcn119461.

Study design: EPIC-Oxford and Oxford Vegetarian Study cohorts; prospective; 60,310 participants; adjusted for smoking, alcohol, marital status, health history, and BMI. 

Key finding: Vegetarians have a significant, 19% reduced risk of mortality from cancer, relative to nonvegetarians. Pescatarians have a significant, 25% decrease in cancer mortality, 

Key finding: In this study, vegetarians realized a significant, 56% decreased risk of dying from pancreatic cancer, relative to nonvegetarians. Flexitarians had a significant, 46% reduced risk of mortality from pancreatic cancer. 

HEART DISEASE

This section presents summaries from scientific studies on the impact of diet on heart disease. Risk of mortality from heart disease is listed here, as well as in the section on mortality. 

Le, Lap Tai, and Joan Sabaté. "Beyond meatless, the health effects of vegan diets: findings from the Adventist cohorts." Nutrients 6.6 (2014): 2131-2147.

Study design: Adventist Health Study 2; prospective; 96,194 participants; adjusted for age, race, smoking, alcohol, exercise, education, marital status, region, and income.

Key finding: Vegan males had 55% reduced risk of mortality from ischemic heart disease relative to nonvegetarians (significant). Lacto-ovo vegetarians had 24% reduced risk of mortality from ischemic heart disease, which was not statistically significant. 

Key finding: Vegan males experience a 42% reduced risk of mortality from cardiovascular disease (significant). Male lacto-ovo vegetarians also experience significant protection (23%), relative to nonvegetarian males, from cardiovascular disease mortality,

Huang, Tao, et al. "Cardiovascular disease mortality and cancer incidence in vegetarians: a meta-analysis and systematic review." Annals of nutrition and metabolism 60.4 (2012): 233-240.

Study design: Meta-analysis from seven studies. 124,706 total participants. Adjusted for age, gender, smoking, alcohol, and BMI in most included studies.

Key finding: Vegetarians have a significant, 29% reduced risk of mortality from ischemic heart disease relative to nonvegetarians.

Dinu, Monica, et al. "Vegetarian, vegan diets and multiple health outcomes: a systematic review with meta-analysis of observational studies." Critical reviews in food science and nutrition just-accepted (2016): 00-00.

Study design: Meta-analysis of 96 studies; ~325,000 total participants.

Key finding: Vegetarians have a significant, 25% less of incidence of ischemic heart disease, compared with nonvegetarians.

CANCER

This section presents summaries from scientific studies on the impact of diet on cancer. Results are provided for total cancer risk and for anatomical site-specific cancer risk. Risk of mortality from cancer is listed here, as well as in the section on mortality.

• TOTAL CANCER

Dinu, Monica, et al. "Vegetarian, vegan diets and multiple health outcomes: a systematic review with meta-analysis of observational studies." Critical reviews in food science and nutrition just-accepted (2016): 00-00.

Study design: Meta-analysis of 96 studies; ~325,000 total participants.

Key finding: Significantly reduced risk of cancer for vegans (15%) and lacto-ovo vegetarians (8%), relative to non-vegetarians. 

Appleby, Paul N., et al. "Mortality in vegetarians and comparable nonvegetarians in the United Kingdom." The American journal of clinical nutrition (2015): ajcn119461.

Study design: EPIC-Oxford and Oxford Vegetarian Study cohorts; prospective; 60,310 participants; adjusted for smoking, alcohol, marital status, health history, and BMI. 

Key finding: Vegetarians have a significant, 19% reduced risk of mortality from cancer, relative to nonvegetarians. Pescatarians have a significant, 25% decrease in cancer mortality, 

Tantamango-Bartley, Yessenia, Karen Jaceldo-Siegl, Jing Fan, and Gary Fraser. "Vegetarian diets and the incidence of cancer in a low-risk population." Cancer Epidemiology Biomarkers & Prevention 22, no. 2 (2013): 286-294.

Study design: Adventist Health Study 2; prospective; 69,120 participants; adjusted for age, race, smoking, alcohol, family history of cancer, and education.

Key finding: Vegans (both genders combined) had a significant, 16% reduced overall cancer incidence.

Key finding: Vegan women had a significant, 34% reduction in female-specific cancers (breast, vulva, vagina, cervix, uterin, endometrial, ovary). 

• PANCREATIC CANCER

Appleby, Paul N., et al. "Mortality in vegetarians and comparable nonvegetarians in the United Kingdom." The American journal of clinical nutrition (2015): ajcn119461.

Study design: EPIC-Oxford and Oxford Vegetarian Study cohorts; prospective; 60,310 participants; adjusted for smoking, alcohol, marital status, health history, and BMI. 

Key finding: In this study, vegetarians realized a 56% decreased risk of dying from pancreatic cancer, relative to nonvegetarians. Flexitarians had a significant, 46% reduced risk of mortality from pancreatic cancer. 

• PROSTATE

Tantamango-Bartley, Yessenia, et al. "Are strict vegetarians protected against prostate cancer?." The American journal of clinical nutrition 103.1 (2016): 153-160.

Study design: Adventist Health Study 2; prospective; 26,346 male participants. Adjusted for race, family history of prostate cancer, education, screening for prostate cancer, energy intake, and BMI.  

Key finding: Significantly reduced risk for 35% for vegans and a non-significant 4% reduction for lacto-ovo vegetarians, relative to nonvegetarians. Conversly, non-significant increased risk for pescatarians and semi-vegetarians.

• COLORECTAL

International Agency for Research on Cancer. "IARC Monographs evaluate consumption of red meat and processed meat." World Health Organization (2015).

Study design: The World Health Organization's (WHO) cancer research group—the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC)—reviewed 800 observational and experimental on meat consumption and cancer. 

Key finding: Red meat is a Group 2A carcinogen, second only to Group 1 carcinogens for their established role in causing human cancers. The report cited stong mechanistic evidence for the role of red meat in causing colorectal cancer, and to a lesser degree evidence of a causal role in pancreatic and prostate cancers. 

Key finding: Processed meat (e.g., deli meat or cured meat) is a Group 1 carcinogen, a category comprised of the substances most known to cause cancer in humans. Other Group 1 carcinogens are tobacco smoke, diesel exhaust, and asbestos. 

DIABETES

Le, Lap Tai, and Joan Sabaté. "Beyond meatless, the health effects of vegan diets: findings from the Adventist cohorts." Nutrients 6.6 (2014): 2131-2147.

Study design: Adventist Health Study 2; prospective; 96,194 participants; adjustments given with findings because they differ. 

Key finding: Vegans have a significant, 78% reduced risk of having diabetes relative to nonvegetarians. Similarily, lacto-ovo vegetarians realize a significant, 61% reduced risk of diabetes relative to nonvegetarians. Adjusted for age, gender, and race. 

Key finding: Significant decrease in odds of having type-2 diabetes for both vegans (49%) and lacto-ovo vegetarians (46%), relative to nonvegetarians.  Adjusted for age, gender, ethnicity, education, income, physical activity, sleep habits, television watching, BMI, and alcohol. 

Key finding: Significantly reduced odds of having diabetes mellitus for vegans (62%), including a 57% reduction for non-blacks and a 70% reduction for blacks. Similarily, lacto-ovo vegetarians had significantly reduced odds of having diabetes mellitus (38%), including a 32% reduction for non-blacks and a 53% reduction for blacks. Reference group is non-vegetarians, and type-1 diabetes cases were excluded. Adjusted for age, gender, ethnicity, education, income, physical activity, sleep habits, television watching, BMI, and alcohol. 

HYPERTENSION

Le, Lap Tai, and Joan Sabaté. "Beyond meatless, the health effects of vegan diets: findings from the Adventist cohorts." Nutrients 6.6 (2014): 2131-2147.

Study design: Adventist Health Study 2; prospective; 96,194 participants; adjusted for age, gender, and race.

Key finding: Vegans have a significant, 75% reduced risk of developing hypertension, compared with non-vegetarians. Similarly, lacto-ovo vegetarians have a significant, 55% reduced risk of developing hypertension.

OBESITY

The section presents results from scientific studies on meat intake and obesity. The results from this section are important in the context of the above articles, because body mass index (BMI; a measure of obesity) is often "adjusted for" in studies of dietary patterns and health. This "adjustment" is done because reviewers of scientific studies often want to know if vegans are healthier than consumers of meat, eggs, and dairy simply because they are thinner. As many of the above studies indicate, meat eating is associated with decreased life expectancy and higher disease rates even if BMI is accounted for. As the emerging science is showing, meat intake is a risk factor for obesity even when calories and exercise differences are accounted for. 

You, Wenpeng, and Maciej Henneberg. "Meat in Modern Diet, Just as Bad as Sugar, Correlates with Worldwide Obesity: An Ecological Analysis." Journal of Nutrition & Food Sciences 2016 (2016).

You, Wenpeng, and Maciej Henneberg. "Meat consumption providing a surplus energy in modern diet contributes to obesity prevalence: an ecological analysis." BMC Nutrition 2.1 (2016): 1.

Study design: Country-specific obesity rates matched with per-capita, per-day availability of meat, sugar, starch, fiber, fruit, and fat. Data for GDP, exercise, and calorie intake were also included. Study design is similar for the above two citations (authors are the same). 

Key finding: Meat availability is more highly correlated with obesity than is the availability of starch, fiber, fruit, and fat. This finding remains, and is still highly significant when adjusting for excercise, calorie intake, and wealth.

Key finding: Sugar and meat availability have the same impact on country-specific obesity, even when accounting for exercise, total calories, and GDP. 

GREENHOUSE GAS (GHG) EMISSIONS AND POLLUTION

Goodland, Robert, and Jeff Anhang. "Livestock and climate change: What if the key actors in climate change are... cows, pigs, and chickens?" World Watch (2009).

Key finding: Raising livestock for food accounts for more than one half (≥51%) of all human-caused GHG emissions. This article attempts to correct for undercounting from the 2006 UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) article below, which was also not addressed in the subsequent 2013 FAO report (also below). 

Steinfeld, Henning, Pierre Gerber, T. D. Wassenaar, Vincent Castel, and Cees de Haan. Livestock's long shadow: environmental issues and options. Food & Agriculture Org., 2006.

Key finding: Livestock production is responsible for 18% of GHG emissions, which is more than all transportation combined. 

Gerber, Pierre J., Henning Steinfeld, Benjamin Henderson, Anne Mottet, Carolyn Opio, Jeroen Dijkman, Allessandra Falcucci, and Giuseppe Tempio. Tackling climate change through livestock: a global assessment of emissions and mitigation opportunities. Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), 2013.

Key finding: Livestock sector contributes 7.1 gigatonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent annually, which accounts for 14.5% of total GHG emissions. 

Scarborough, Peter, Paul N. Appleby, Anja Mizdrak, Adam DM Briggs, Ruth C. Travis, Kathryn E. Bradbury, and Timothy J. Key. "Dietary greenhouse gas emissions of meat-eaters, fish-eaters, vegetarians and vegans in the UK." Climatic change 125, no. 2 (2014): 179-192.

Study design: Self-reported eating habits from approximately 55,000 participants from the EPIC-Oxford health study. Eating habits were referenced against a list of 94 food items with known global warming potential. Diet groups included high meat eaters (≥ 100 g/day), medium meat eaters (50-99 g/day), low meat eaters (< 50 g/day), pescatarians, vegetarians, and vegans. Average GHG emission were calculated from a 2000 calorie/day diet and were adjusted for age and gender. 

Key finding: A high meat-eating diet produced an average of 7.19 kilograms of CO2 equivalents per day (KgCO2/day), the medium meat-eating diet produced 5.63, the low meat-eating diet produced 4.67, the pescatarian diet produced 3.91, the vegetarian diet produced 3.81, and vegan diets produced and average of 2.89 kgCO2/day.

Sabaté, Joan, and Sam Soret. "Sustainability of plant-based diets: back to the future." The American journal of clinical nutrition 100, no. Supplement 1 (2014): 476S-482S.

Key finding: Dietary GHG emissions are 22% lower for UK vegetarians and 26% lower for UK vegans, relative to the standard UK diet. Finnish vegans create 48% less agricultural GHG emission and 36% lower overall food-system GHG emission than do Finns eating their standard diet. A US vegan diet creates 33% less GHG than the standard American diet, meaning US vegans reduce their total GHG emissions by 8% from diet alone. Worldwide reductions in GHG emissions of 17% from CO2 (carbon dioxide), 24% from CH4 (methane), and 21% from N2O (nitrous oxide) from a global shift to a plant-based diet. 

Key finding: Meat and dairy production accounts for more than 80% of food-based GHG emissions, and 24% of total global GHG emissions. 

Key finding; In the US alone, livestock produce 1.4 billion tons of waste (5 tons for every citizen). This waste creates more than 100 strains of zoonotic pathogens that contaminate US food and water supplies. 

Key finding: Emissions of acidifying substances, pesticides, and metals are 7, 6, and 100 times greater, respectively, for producing protein from meat, compared with producing the same amount of protein from plants. 

FOOD, ENERGY, & FRESH-WATER CONSUMPTION

Pimentel, David, and Marcia Pimentel. "Sustainability of meat-based and plant-based diets and the environment." The American journal of clinical nutrition 78, no. 3 (2003): 660S-663S.

Key finding: The amount of grains fed to US livestock is sufficient to feed about 840 million people following a plant-based diet.

Key finding: Amount of fossil fuel energy required to produce 1 calorie of protein energy from various sources: plants, 2.2 calories; chicken, 4 calories; turkey, 10 calories; milk, 14 calories; pork, 14 calories; eggs, 39 calories; beef, 40 calories; lamb, 57 calories. 

Key finding: Kilograms of grain required to produce 1 kilogram of food from various animal sources: chicken, 2.3 kilograms; turkey, 3.8 kilograms; pork, 5.9 kilograms; eggs, 11 kilograms; beef, 13 kilograms; lamb, 21 kilograms. 

Key finding: Producing animal protein requires 100 times more water than grain protein.

Key finding: Approximately 12,000 gallons of water are required to produce 1 lb of beef on a mix of forage and grain, and approximately 24,000 gallons of water are required to produce 1 lb of beef on forage alone.  

Sabaté, Joan, and Sam Soret. "Sustainability of plant-based diets: back to the future." The American journal of clinical nutrition 100, no. Supplement 1 (2014): 476S-482S.

Key finding: Depending on the animal source, deriving protein from animals uses 4 to 26 times more water, compared with producing the same amount of protein from plants.

Key finding: Depending on the animal source, deriving protein from animals uses 6 to 20 times more fossil fuels, compared with producing the same amount of protein from plants.

Key finding: It takes 2.9 times more water, 2,5 times more primary energy, 13 times more fertilizer, and 1.4 times as many pesticides to feed a nonvegetarian from California agriculture, compared with a vegetarian. 

Hoekstra, Arjen Y. "The hidden water resource use behind meat and dairy." Animal Frontiers 2, no. 2 (2012): 3-8.

Key finding: A vegetarian diet uses 1,300 L (350 gallons) less water daily than does a standard meat-eater's diet. A vegan diet saves 1,900 L (500 gallons) of water every day, relative to that of a standard meat-eater's diet. 

BIODIVERSITY LOSS, LAND USE, & EXTINCTION

Machovina, Brian, Kenneth J. Feeley, and William J. Ripple. "Biodiversity conservation: The key is reducing meat consumption." Science of the Total Environment 536 (2015): 419-431.

Key finding: Livestock production is the predominant driver of natural habitat loss worldwide.

Key finding: Animal agriculture has resulted in more than 75% of all Amazon deforestation.

Key finding: More than half of all of Costa Rica's rainforest has been cleared for livestock. 

Key finding: Livestock production utilizes 1/3 of the earth's ice-free land, which is the largest anthropogenic use of land. 

Key finding: Current global rates of extinction are about 1,000 times the estimated background rate of extinction, and animal product consumption by humans is likely the leading cause. This is because animal product consumption by humans is a leading cause of deforestation, land degradation, pollution, climate change, overfishing, sedimentation of coastal areas, facilitation of invasions by alien species, and loss of wild carnivores and wild herbivores.

Krausmann, Fridolin, Karl-Heinz Erb, Simone Gingrich, Christian Lauk, and Helmut Haberl. "Global patterns of socioeconomic biomass flows in the year 2000: A comprehensive assessment of supply, consumption and constraints." Ecological Economics 65, no. 3 (2008): 471-487.

Key finding: Average global efficiency of the conversion of feed intake into output of primary products from livestock is 4%. In Europe, this figure reaches 8–10%, i.e. roughly 10 kg feed are converted into 1 kg of animal products. In Sub-Saharan Africa, Latin America and Southern Asia conversion efficiency is much lower. In these regions 50– 100 kg of feed are required for 1 kg of primary animal product, i.e. the efficiency is 1–2%.

Key finding: Livestock plays a dominant role in the global biomass and land use system. Almost 60% of all globally harvested and used biomass is entering the livestock subsystem as feed or bedding material. In some regions (e.g. Latin America and Oceania), this share even reaches 75%.

Peters, Christian J., Jamie Picardy, Amelia F. Darrouzet-Nardi, Jennifer L. Wilkins, Timothy S. Griffin, and Gary W. Fick. "Carrying capacity of US agricultural land: Ten diet scenarios." Elementa: Science of the Anthropocene 4, no. 1 (2016): 000116.

Key finding: The standard American meat-eating diet requires eight times more land than does a vegan diet. 

CHICK CULLING

Hundreds of millions of baby chicks are ground alive and suffocated every year.  Male chicks cannot lay eggs, so they are of no use to the egg industry. They are also useless to the meat industry, because layer chickens (for laying eggs) and broiler chickens (for meat) are different breeds. As such, within the first few days of their lives, male chicks are tossed into a blender while alive and fully conscious (called "maceration" by the industry), or thrown into a plastic bag or gas chamber and suffocated to death. This process is the same for eggs derived from so-called "cage-free", "free-range", "humane", or, "organic" sources. 

United Egg Producers confirm that approximately 200 millions baby chicks are ground alive annually by the US egg industry.  

Undercover cameras at the Hy-Line hatchery in Ohio show the chick culling process. 

Hy-Line alone grinds up 150,000 fully conscious baby chicks every day. 

Millions of baby chicks ground to death or gassed in the UK annually.  

More than 180 million baby chicks are ground alive in India per year. 

Importantly, eggs are so unhealthy for human consumption that the American Egg Board can no longer legally advertise eggs as "nutritional", "safe", "healthy", or "a good source of protein". Why? Because eggs are none of these things. Eggs can be advertised as "recognizable" or "edible" (you're probably familiar with "the incredible edible egg" ads). Additionally, eggs are just about the most environmentally costly food that humans consume (see Environmental Research). When you buy eggs or baked goods containing egg, some of your money is being used to grind baby chicks alive and stuff them into gas chambers, and what you get in return is something that is entirely unhealthy for you and for your planet. 

RAPE RACKS & CATTLE IMPREGNATION

Cattle for meat and dairy production are not typically conceived via natural reproductive methods, but are instead the product of artificial insemination (AI). The AI process for cattle production is extremely painful, so the female must be restrained by a device known as a "rape rack". This process is so painful because the female is sodomized by a whole human arm, and her cervix positioned from within her rectum so that vaginal insertion of a steal rod can optimally deliver frozen semen. This is how most of the milk you drink, cheese you eat, and burgers you BBQ begin their lives. This is standard industry practice regardless if your label reads "free range", "humane", or "organic".

An instructional video from a 20-year professional performing the AI procedure.

In Europe, 90% of all dairy cattle are conceived by this method, according to the trade journal Livestock Science in 2016. 

As of 2009, already 75% of all dairy cattle in the United States were conceived using the AI method. 

DAIRY & VEAL CALVES

Just like all mammals, female cows must give birth to produce milk. After a nine-month gestation, a mother gives birth to her baby calf. Her baby is stolen so that humans can take her milk...milk that was naturally intended for her baby. The calf and mother struggle to stay together, and often cry out to one another for days. If the calf is female, she will enter the same life course that her mother endured: repeated sodomy and rape by humans; her babies repeatedly stolen from her; extreme confinement most of her life; hooked up to machines that give her life-long painful infections; murdered at less than a quarter of her natural life expectancy.

Short, non-graphic video overview of the life of a dairy cow. 

Excellent, five-minute infomercial-style video (narrated, with clips).

A two-minute tear-jerker (non-graphic)...a must-see. 

Some farmers separating mom and baby, and briefly discussing the emotional trauma. 

Mom chases farmer in truck as he takes her baby away to be murdered for veal.

A three-minute video showing the torment (non-graphic) of several different moms in our food system. 

Male calves can never produce milk, so they are useless to the dairy industry. Therefore, the newborn boys are tied to the ground and/or confined in crates so that they cannot move. This confinement prevents their muscles from developing, thus keeping them tender to satisfy an acquired human taste. These babies never fulfill their natural desire to bond with mother or fellow herd mates. Their lives end in less than 24 weeks, stunned and bludgeoned to death, or cut up alive. This brutal and perverse practice is maintained because humans have adopted the unusual and unhealthy custom of bottle feeding for their entire lives, from another species. This is the fate of all males born into the dairy industry, irrespective of "free range", "humane", or "organic" labels. Veal is a co-product of the dairy industry; if you consume milk, cheese, or yogurt, you subsidize veal production.   

Stolen from mom, here is how a veal cow lives the remainder of its short life. Footage from a family farm in Canada.

Expose hosted by Bob Barker, shows the life cycle of a veal calf. Filmed at an Ohio farm. A five-minute must watch. 

FULLY CONSCIOUS MUTILATION

The label on our meat, dairy, and eggs might seem to promise a more humane existence for the life ultimately deprived of by our purchases; but, all of these living creatures are subject to a standard industry practice that includes being mutilated while fully conscious. While reading this section, you might afford the bare minimum respect to these innocent individuals, and really consider the terror associated with being "operated" on while fully aware. 

• Dehorning. Horn removal is a decision of economics and domination. You can "pack" animals tighter if they don't have horns, and standard industry operation is always to cram as many animals into as small of a space as possible. When you pack horned animals into an unnaturally small space, they can pose a danger to each other and their handlers. Rather than give these innocent beings adequate space to live, their heads are pinned to a cage with various restraining devices, while humans go to work on them with saws, bolt cutters, blow torches, and/or caustic chemicals.

In the U.S., approximately 80% of these procedures are performed by non-veterinarians and without anesthetic.

A farmer demonstrates the so-called "wire saw" procedure.

A couple of farmers demonstrate the bolt-cutter method. 

Done with fire. Apparently, this aired on ABC News.

The "surgical" procedure, apparently with some anesthesia and potentially performed by professionals. 

• Castration. Male farm animals are castrated for reproductive control, to improve yield (intact males don't get as fat), to improve taste (male sexual hormones do not taste good to humans), and to minimize aggression. This procedure is typically done to infant males, fully aware and without pain killer. As you can see below (and probably have no trouble imagining), this is an exceptionally painful experience. If you eat male body parts, then you pay to have this procedure performed (even if the label on the package reads "humane" or "organic").

Ranchers demonstrate calf castration. In this two-minute video, grown men beat, choke, and mutilate a baby. The men appear to be laughing at times, while the baby repeatedly cries out in agony.

Demonstrating the "single slit" approach of piglet castration.

An official demonstration from the U.S. Pork Checkoff. As the spokesperson indicates, piglets are castrated because the human palate finds male porcine hormones unpleasing.

An article from the Canadian Veterinary Journal commenting that the pain is acute, last hours to days, and is almost never treated with an anesthetic.

There are no U.S. FDA-approved regimens for pain relief in livestock. 

• Debeaking. Whether raised in battery cages, or on a "free range" or "cage free" operation, chickens and turkeys are crammed into spaces so small that their beaks become a danger to one another. Rather than lose any profits and provide these innocent birds with adequate or natural space, part of their face is amputated. This procedure is performed without pain relief, and is typically done with a red-hot blade (the heat cauterizes the wound). Cauterization is essential because beaks are living tissue with active blood and nerve supply. 

This one-minute video demonstrates the latest technology for debeaking and partial foot amputation. The machine uses a restraint to hold the young bird in place by the head, as the carousel positions its face for amputation and cauterization.  

This 30-second clip shows the commonly used manual debeaker, demonstrated here on baby chicks.

A chick's beak contains nerves and pain receptors, and debeaking can cause acute and long-lasting pain, and even phantom-limb syndrome (persistent pain projected at the location of the amputated limb).

• Teeth cutting and tail docking. These procedures are often performed on piglets at the same time. Without the use of any anesthesia, piglets' teeth and tails are chopped off using what is essentially an industrial wire cutter. This is done so that more and more pigs can be "safely" crammed in smaller spaces, thus maximizing profits. Furthermore, breeding and management practices have resulted in increasing litter size and frequency of conception, meaning the demand on mothers is increasingly severe—removal of teeth can reduce some suckling damage caused by the unnatural reproductive cycles in animal farming.   

A short demonstration of teeth cutting and tail docking on a young piglet. 

A homemade video of a group of farmers demonstrating the teeth cutting procedure.

• Hot-iron branding. Branding is done to prove ownership. This procedure entails heating metal until it glows, and pressing it against the body of an animal until their flesh melts, resulting in permanent tissue damage (i.e., the brand). Obviously this is extremely painful, and was in fact used in previous centuries to torture humans. The intense pain is further compounded by the mechanical contraptions necessary to hold the animal in place while they writhe and fight to escape the pain. 

Approximately 30 million beef cows are raised annually in the U.S., and 20% (or 6 million) are branded with a hot iron.

Large dairy operations (500+ cows) account for half of all U.S. dairy cows—25% of these operations practice hot-iron branding

Hot-iron branding at a ranch in New Mexico. 

Some cattle ranchers demonstrating hot-iron branding in a "Squeeze Chute". 

EXTREME CONFINEMENT

Standard industry practice in all sectors of animal farming includes extreme confinement. As an example, "extreme confinement" for a chicken would be the equivalent of about eight humans trapped in an elevator their entire lives, urinating and defecating on each other, For a pig, a common analogy is being stuck in an airplane seat your entire life, covered in your own excrement. If you're a male calf in the dairy industry, you spend your short 4-6 month life strapped to the ground or in a crate too small to move around in. It is important to note that the terms "free range" and "cage free" have either a negligible or nonexistent legal definition (depending on state or region); these terms are only used to alleviate consumer concerns and maximize profit, not to improve the well-being of farmed animals. 

• Gestation and farrowing crates. A breeding pig (sow) spends her entire adult life in a gestation crate (during pregnancy) and farrowing crate (while nursing). Sows are kept constantly pregnant via artificial insemination, producing 2-3 litters a year for about four years, and are then slaughtered at one-quarter of their natural life expectancy. Thus, they spend virtually every moment of their lives in crates that are too small to turn around in, often unable to stand or lay down fully, and living in their own waste. 

A four-minute short showing New Zealand pigs in farrowing crates. Very heartfelt narration.

A young artist narrates a very thoughtful Claymation vignette showing the life of a gestation-crated pig. A must see. 

On behalf of the Pork Checkoff, a Michigan farmer shows off a new gestation system and claims that pigs are perfectly happy to have only enough room to stand up (though she acknowledes the difficulty of convincing the public that this is true).

An informative three-minute video showing the life of expecting mothers in Canadian gestation crates.  

• Veal crates. The veal crate is designed to prevent muscle development in baby calves, so that their bodies stay tender to satisfy human taste. This is accomplished by housing them individually so that they cannot socialize, and in crates small enough to severely limit, or prevent entirely, any movement. To further ensure minimal movement, these babies are often tethered to the ground. In some veal-crate systems, calves are kept in the dark, and without bedding their entire lives. Veal is a co-product of the dairy industry, and exists in its current form because male dairy cows cannot produce milk, and are therefore of no use to the dairy industry. Veal crates are legal in Canada, more than 40 states in the U.S., and many places throughout the world. 

A two-minute video showing veal crates and the short life cycle of veal calves. 

A short video of baby calves in their Canadian crates. 

An open house at a family veal farm. This video shows the more contemporary, "improved" veal crates with outdoor access; however, their unfulfilled desire for freedom and affection is on full display. 

• Battery cages. While abuse is legal, standard practice in all sectors of animal farming, it could be reasonably said that caged layer hens have the most tortured existence among all livestock. With four or five adult birds stuffed into a space no larger than a standard file cabinet, they can never spread their wings, their muscles and bones waste away, their feet become lacerated, and their bodies become covered in festering open wounds. They live in excrement and urine, inhaling caustic ammonia fumes 24 hours a day. For every 34 hours that one of these innocent beings endures this unimaginable torment they produce a single egg. Given that eggs are so unhealthy they can't legally be advertised as "safe", and that eggs have one of the largest environmental footprints of any food, it seems reasonable to conclude that this practice exemplifies the intersection of moral depravity and thoughtlessness like few other human endeavors. 

The One-Step Pledge. If you want to maximally reduce suffering with a single change to your diet, give up chicken. The case is convincingly made in this well-produced, non-graphic, two-minute video. 

Life in the battery cages (filmed in Maryland, U.S).

Anatomy of a battery cage explained in one minute by a scientist.

Despite some recent coporate pledges for a cage-free future, more than 90% of all U.S. layer hens still spend their entire lives in battery cages. 

• Cage-free and free-range eggs. Cage-free eggs are, as the name implies, eggs laid outside of battery cages. Additionally, free-range eggs are laid by chickens that have theoretical access to the outdoors (even if only for zero minutes per day). In the U.S., there are no federal laws governing what these terms mean, and correspondingly there is no enforcement of such standards. While it seems uncontroversial that these standards represent a meaningful improvement realtive to life in battery cages, it is important to recognize that cage-free and free-range animals suffer existences similar to that of caged hens. These designations are an industry strategy to appease a growing minority of consumers that have become uneasy regarding the pain caused by their consumption. 

A cage-free chicken farm in Australia. It isn't clear from the video if this would additionally qualify as free range. 

Five minutes of undercover footage from a free-range chicken farm.

Undercover investigation of cage-free chicken farm conducted by Mercy For Animals. 

This is actually a promotional video released by the United Egg Board, showing off a cage-free facility. Notice that it looks like the facilities in the other videos, except that they cleaned up a bit, and left out the outright abuse and mishandling - the severe and unnatural overcrowding is still very much on display.