Part 5: What’s different today?

It used to be the death of the animal is what we were concerned with as that was the worst thing to happen to it. But today the treatment of an animal during it’s life is actually worse than it’s death, which puts it out of its misery. Today we kill animals while they are extremely young, within weeks, a months, or a few years. Today, we eat twenty to thirty times more animal products then we used to, but to raise and kill animals on such a scale is only possible by with a great deal of animal suffering. Such animal suffering never before existed in history.

Why is the topic of animal suffering (tzaar baalei chayim) so prominent and well known today? In the past, factory farming did not exist. Before refrigeration and modern transportation, people rarely ate meat. Today with technology the situation is completely different.

In the past, new born calves were not separated from their mothers right after birth, chicken beaks were not seared off, there were no chicken battery cages (which provide a living space of 8” per chicken), male baby chicks were not ground up alive, egg laying chickens who can live to fifteen were not electrocuted at two years old.

In the past there was very little animal suffering during their lives. Animals were living long lives, they were slaughtered for eating from time to time.

A chicken in nature would lay about 30 eggs per year. Today, we manipulate them to lay over 300 eggs a year, and we destroy their bodies in the process.

After two years of confinement we electrocute egg laying chickens. We manipulate cows to produce ten times more milk than they naturally do, and then kill them after five years, even though they can live twenty.

Animal lives were not problematic before because they had good lives. Today this is the problem. Today we abuse animals in order to cheaply eat their products three times a day.