In this post I want to talk about the ethical reasons for going vegan a little more detailled than I did in my first article on this topic. My main reason for going vegan was that I just couldn’t go on supporting the suffering of animals anymore. So if you are not vegan yet, maybe this brutal truth written down here will help you to become vegan. At least I started thinking about it when I heard the truth and watched some horrible videos. I know, this does not work for all people, some become vegan for their health and learn about the ethical aspects later but I know some people, just like me, need to hear what’s really going on. Especially when you consider yourself an animal lover and you can’t bear seeing animal cruelty, I believe, going vegan is the only option for you to find inner peace when knowing the truth. With time I just couldn’t eat animal products anymore without thinking of all the suffering behind it, it didn’t bring me any joy anymore, so I stopped.

And of course animals not only suffer for food but also for clothes, cosmetics,.. for almost anything. So this is why you should stop buying any animal products. It can be difficult and you can’t be 100% vegan in this world, it’s just not possible, but we can all try and do what we can. For them.

So here is what you should know about the meat, dairy and egg industry:

• No matter if in the meat, dairy or egg industry: Intensive livestock farming causes stress and anxiety in animals and they often get sick when they are jammes together. This is why they get so much antibiotics.
• Most animals get mutilated, e.g. pigs get cut off their curly tail, chickens get cut off a piece of their beak and cows get burnt off their horns. Mostly all without anesthesia.
• When being slaughtered, many animals are fully conscious because there is not enough time to check if the animal is really senseless when its throat gets slit or when its thrown into a kettle with boiling water to get the hair off.
• The animals know what’s going on, they can feel it. Especially pigs, they are even smarter than dogs! Just imagine the horror these animals go through, seeing their conspecifics get slaughtered and knowing they’re next.
• To give milk, a cow has to be pregnant. The female cows get brutally impregnanted all the time. After birth the calve is taken from its mother so we can drink the milk. The calve either gets slaughtered or becomes a milk machine itself. Mother and calve cry for each other for days.
• Male chickens are useless for the egg production. Male and female chickens get separated out as babys and the male baby chickens directly get shredded or gassed.
• If you are a vegetarian (which is a first step in the right direction), you still contribute to meat production and animal cruelty when you consume dairy and eggs. Most cheese isn’t even vegetarian as lab (an enzyme out of the stomach of calves) is used in the production.
• It doesn’t make a difference if animals are kept „species-appropriate“. Those animals only get a tiny bit more space, less antibiotics and better food. But this doesn’t really make a difference, they are still suffering. Also for organic eggs the male young chickens get killed and the calves are taken from their mothers. Only freedom is species-appropriate. Most of the animals kept for food production have never seen sunlight or felt the grass under their feet.
• Before being slaughtered, which is horrible enough, the animals often have to go through a dreadful transportation to the slaughterhouse. They get stuffed together on a truck and many of them already die on the way because of dehydration or exhaustion.
• In the end all animals get killed, they are only born for our greed and pleasure. All of them live much shorter than they would in nature. Which you can consider as positive when you think about what their life is like..

If you want to learn more about the ethical side of veganism and also need some visualisation, I recommend you to watch Earthlings. I believe it’s the best documentary out there showing the truth. I have to admit that until today I have not fully watched it, for me it was just to hard and I couldn’t stop crying. I recommend anyone to watch it anyway, even half an hour should be enough..