As I wandered through the grocery store, I came across a sampling booth.  The woman staffing it asked if I wanted to try a certain brand of soy milk.  “No thanks,” I replied.  “I’ve been using it for years.”  Then I asked her what kind of reaction she received from most people, and so we struck up a conversation.

“Anything that takes some of the pressure off of the cows, I’m all for,” I said.  The clerk eyed me with suspicion.  After explaining that I am a Vegan, and that anytime one drinks milk or eats anything with milk in it, one automatically supports the veal and a cruel dairy industry, she answered, “See, I don’t have a problem with that.  That’s what they are raised for.”

I was taken aback.  I was certain that she must not know what bull calves go through to become gourmet meat.  So I started to point out how the animal lives its four-month life, chained so that it cannot turn around, without bedding, and no sucking, only a bucket of milk twice per day.   Her face showed no emotion.

 So I told her about newborn chicks having their beaks cut off, and then spending their existence...  She stopped me, “Yeah, but there is the other side of that.  I saw a show about this woman who keeps chickens in her home!  It was disgusting!”

The show to which she had referred was an excellent Canadian expose about the chicken industry.  The tape showed chickens in deplorable conditions and newborn hen chicks being de-beaked.  Their male counterparts rode a conveyor belt to a box in which they were packed alive, transported to a mink farm, and thrown, still alive, into a hopper to be ground up for mink feed.

The same show introduced an animal rights activist who rescues chickens, and provides a sanctuary for them.  Dying and ill birds were treated with tenderness and respect in the woman’s very clean home.  And this is what the clerk got out of that documentary; not the horrors that humans inflict upon fellow living creatures, but that a woman would have chickens in her house.

I left the store feeling sick to my stomach.  I had been living with the illusion that most people are ignorant of the conditions on factory farms.  When educated, they might not stop eating animal products, but they would at least sign a petition to bring about better conditions.  But now I had to wonder just how many people there are, who have no compassion whatsoever for non-human animals.  I can’t help but think that they must also have no interest in setting right any wrongs on our planet.  Do they not bother to recycle, or do they burn plastics along with other rubbish, because they have the legal right to do so?  Or perhaps they give ten percent of their incomes to the United Way, thus appeasing their consciences without having to actually think about the world’s existing problems.

Even if a person feels that domestic animals are raised to provide food for people, how does that in any way condone putting these beings through a life of pain, torture, and fear?  How can we, as human beings, justify acts of cruelty either because they are being well hidden from the general public, or because they are part of the equation used to make money?

Discovering people with viewpoints like that clerk has, should shout warning alarms to society.  We must make certain that such attitudes are not nurtured.  And we need to go further; we have to start treating all animals, whether we believe we have the right to eat them or not, with dignity, respect, and compassion.  If we allow our consciences to justify any living being’s suffering, simply because we wish to be ignorant of the facts, or because it is how some people make a living, then we set up a frightening mentality.

There was a time when eating animals was important for the survival of the human species.  This is no longer true.  But even if we still feel that we have the right to eat non-human creatures, and choose to ignore the health and environmental problems that accompany that supposed right, we must remember that with every right comes obligation.  In this case, it is to make certain that these animals do not suffer needlessly.   And once again, it is up to us to educate ourselves about the issues, no matter how difficult that may be, and then act on the conclusion.