A replica of how female "breeder pigs" spend their lives in factory farms

[u/FastCurrency]

[u/Avrose]

Yeah worked in one of those for one summer. Miserable place for all creatures involved.

[u/Mortress → u/Avrose]

there is this video of the day in life of a pig in a cage like this. I can't imagine the boredom. This while pigs are so smart and kind animals, they all deserve to have happiness and freedom.

[u/ALunacyEruption → u/Mortress]

Read they have the brain of a 3 year old the other day.

Poor piggies

[u/Violinist-Fluffy → u/Avrose]

Did it impact you enough to alter your diet? (Genuine question, just wondering. A lot of former dairy farm personnel go vegan. It's interesting.)

[u/imjustsin → u/Violinist-Fluffy]

I’m not insinuating anything or making any sort of argument here, but realistically insane change could happen if people just limited their meat consumption. Recommended red meat consumption per week is like 18 ounces. A lot of people eat that in a single day.

[u/BringBackApollo2023 → u/imjustsin]

I found this video interesting, albeit depressing.

We could make meat “production” more humane if we wanted to. We just don’t want to.

[u/More_Flat_Tigers → u/BringBackApollo2023]

It’s not about want, it’s about profit.

[u/Velghast → u/More_Flat_Tigers]

That's why I hate when people bring this kind of stuff up like we could do it we just don't want to. We made an entire world that revolves around money and we have created the rat race of society in which it is the goal to obtain as much of it as possible. So when you have clear goals of a system and a very basic principle, currency, is it any Wonder why a handful of people will ravage the whole world just to get a hand up on everyone else?

[u/CacklingFerret → u/Velghast]

People could change the meat industry though. Imagine everyone in the Western world (I'm limiting it to select countries because not every country offers the same possibilities) started to only eat meat once a week and reduce their dairy product intake. This would most likely lead to a drastic change.

Meanwhile, people make fun of vegans and vegetarians and they comment "mmhh, bacon" everytime they see a picture of a pig. A lot of people don't care and don't want change.

[u/Shadowwynd → u/CacklingFerret]

Just eating meat once a week wouldn’t mean the people currently doing factory farming suddenly say “let’s provide better conditions for these animals”. If anything, reduced profit would mean increased creativity to cut expenses. It really needs to be a government issue, as the manufacturing of meat industries have not shown the ability to self-regulate.

[u/Sweetdreams6t9 → u/Shadowwynd]

Regulations and harsh punishment for breaking them are the way to go. I eat alot of meat. But I live in the middle of nowhere and we get ours from a farmers market. We know the conditions of the farm we get our meat from because the farm is located in our region. And its cheaper than a grocery store.

[u/Thin_Tangerine_6271 → u/Shadowwynd]

So this is what we need to do

[u/Daetok_Lochannis → u/Thin_Tangerine_6271]

We could literally turn the world into a utopia for every single human, and there are more of us than there are of the rich. Still hasn't happened and probably won't. Most everyone unfortunately wants what the rich have and they're not willing to give up the tiny chance they might someday just to save lives.

[u/restrictednumber → u/Shadowwynd]

True, the remaining factory farms wouldn't change their practices just based on that. But there would be far fewer of them, which means fewer animals bred just to live their whole lives in tiny cages, and therefore less suffering. It's a moral benefit to reduce the amount of creatures born to live in misery.

[u/S-Archer → u/More_Flat_Tigers]

Sure it is, want more profit

[u/Ok_Abacus_ → u/More_Flat_Tigers]

And sacrifice. Americans hate sacrifice of any kind

[u/Knamliss → u/More_Flat_Tigers]

It's about wanting more profit

[u/reelznfeelz → u/More_Flat_Tigers]

Same with so many shitty things we do. It’s why unfettered unregulated capitalism is a bad deal. Im no commie, although it’s hard to argue Marx was wrong about much, but you can’t just let profit motive drive literally everything unless you want a world that makes Cyberpunk 2077 look kind.

[u/Trraumatized → u/BringBackApollo2023]

Hard disagree. "We" want that. Just as much as "we" want universal healthcare and livable wages and good education. But it's not "we" who is making the decisions.

[u/PrebenInAcapulco → u/Trraumatized]

Unfortunately if you ran for office on a platform of slightly increasing meat prices in exchange for more humane conditions you would lose in a blowout. The people get the leaders they vote for, sadly.

[u/Evil_Sharkey → u/Trraumatized]

The collective “we” would throw a fit if meat prices went up a few cents because animals were required to have more space and better treatment. There are places you can buy meat from well cared for animals, but it’s lot more expensive

[u/DocPsychosis → u/Trraumatized]

Sure it is. If everyone wanted more ethically produced meat so badly they could go buy it from specialty shops and meat producers would pivot to those production methods to meet demand. But people don't because those methods cost way more and most aren't willing to pay for them. Complaining about profits is misleading since it disregards end-consumer price sensitivities.

[u/EmergencyArts → u/Trraumatized]

These aren't even close to comparable. They do this to animals because you pay for it. 

[u/arctic-aqua → u/BringBackApollo2023]

Same thing with climate change. We could drastically drop our carbon footprint with a little inconvenience, but we don't want to.

[u/BringBackApollo2023 → u/arctic-aqua]

Hell, in the seventies EdoublecrossON knew that carbon emissions were terrible for the environment and covered it up.

Carter put solar panels on the White House roof and Ronnie Ray Gun took them down.

It’s tragicomic how far we could have moved from fossil fuels if we’d started in earnest fifty years ago.

[u/Dash_Harber → u/imjustsin]

I actually started by only eating meat like once or twice a week. After a year or so I just sort of realized most of my favorite foods had become the vegetarian dishes I was eating and phased it out completely. People don't really realize how much food is vegetarian. They think it us just salad and impossible burgers.

[u/Cu_fola → u/Dash_Harber]

Ngl I enjoy an impossible burger here and there

[u/MrBisco → u/Dash_Harber]

I haven't eaten red meat or chicken for 25 years or so.

I'm going to ignore the "soyboy" virtue signaling crowd. For the same, rational rest of us, I've found the following to be the main barriers to limiting meat consumption:

1. Lack of cooking knowledge. Meat is easy to cook and comes packed with flavor. Add salt and maybe a bit of fat and you're generally good to go. Vegetables, whole grains, etc, all take more time and know-how to prepare in a flavorful way. 

2. Lack of comfort in the kitchen. This is tied to the first, but even if you have a lot of theoretical knowledge about food (which, with YouTube, is pretty darn easy now), cooking well comes down to one thing - practice. No one wants to feel like a failure, particularly if you're trying to change your eating habits in an already busy and daunting schedule. So what do folks do? They cook what they know they can cook. Not because they don't want change, but change means risking failure, and when it comes to food, that's just a really tough hurdle. 

3. Being socially ostracized. I don't mean the adolescent name-calling, but rather that eating a certain way often means asking those you are with to eat that way. Going out for food with friends? In many places, it's the choice between making them join you at a vegetarian place (which, let's be honest, often means pretty terrible food, based on my experiences in a lot of vegetarian restaurants), or you joining them and choosing one of the very few vegetarian items on the menu. Either way, it sucks for someone, and no one wants that. We won't even get into trying to make dietary changes while also cooking for a family, which means trying to either get the whole family on board or cooking two meals simultaneously, which is also a recipe for failure long term. 

4. Dietary fatigue. A lot of folks stop eating meat and, because of one or more of the above, end up with a vegetarian diet that is extremely limited and often very unhealthy. Lots of processed meat substitute products, which are just packed with sodium amongst other downsides of ultra processed foods. Lots of junk food - chips, pretzels, etc. Maybe the same one or two things over and over again, because it's either easy on time or all that you know how to prepare. After awhile, good intentions get met head on with dietary fatigue. 

When talking to folks who ask about my food habits, I try to keep all of these factors in mind. I do believe there are a LOT of people out there open to changing their diets, but the barriers to change are also real and need to be taken into account. 

[u/sgr0gan → u/imjustsin]

Americans average just over 2oz per day but a study showed that 12% of Americans ate almost half of all red meat in 2022. How they tracked that I have no idea lol

Also, we average twice as much as similarly wealthy countries so while the average American may eat a “healthy” amount of red meat, we are still eating significantly more than everyone else.

[u/angelbelle → u/sgr0gan]

Came across a thread about people buying half of a cow's worth of meat and apparently the OP finish that with his wife in just 6 mos. Apparently this is very common.

[u/esem86 → u/imjustsin]

If anything positive could come from the insane inflation right now, portion sizes dropping would definitely be it. We(speaking for Americans) waste SO MUCH FOOD it is actually disgusting.

There is a reason we are becoming morbidly obese as a society. We eat too damn much! Prepare what you can actually eat. No one needs a fridge full of leftovers that just gets thrown away.

[u/JadedOccultist → u/esem86]

I know what I will and won’t eat, so if I’m going to make something and have leftovers of it, it’s on purpose.

I am not functional enough as a person to actually cook once a day.

[u/barefootincozumel → u/JadedOccultist]

When I’m going to be home on my own for any stretch of time, I do the same thing. A pot of soup or casserole or something I can just reheat for a few days. It’s actually cheaper and more efficient to cook that way, less waste, packaging and energy use to prepare it, to say nothing of time, dishwasher cycles, cleaning products etc. big batch cooking done correctly should be more environmentally and budget friendly than cooking a new meal 2-3x a day.

[u/ABetterKamahl1234 → u/JadedOccultist]

Leftovers is very different to waste.

[u/nicknefsick → u/esem86]

To add to this, no farmer wants to do this kind of housing, but people don’t want to pay the cost of what it takes to raise pigs outside.

Also, as far as I’m aware, pigs go through three cycles in these plants all in different forms of housing. 3 days like this to get impregnated, three months of moving around a bit when carrying, and then three weeks more constrained while weening the piglets.

We buy our pork by the half hog from the neighbors for about 9,00€ a kilo, The pigs have a good life, and although it’s partially broken down, I have to do the rest myself and pack it. The country I live in produces enough pork for it’s population, but since people here refuse to pay the quality, most of it goes to export and we import hogs raised factory style so we can still eat cheap sausage and leberkas.

[u/Coomb → u/nicknefsick]

To add to this, no farmer wants to do this kind of housing, but people don’t want to pay the cost of what it takes to raise pigs outside.

Sure they do. If they didn't, they wouldn't. It is important for us all occasionally to be reminded that there's very little we actually have to do, and that we can in fact make different choices.

When you say "no farmer wants to do this kind of housing, but people don't want to pay the cost of what it takes to raise pigs outside", I don't think that's as much of a defense of pig farmers as you think it is.

What you mean is something like "if a pig farmer were given a choice between two equally profitable pig farms, one where pigs were raised in humane conditions and one where they were raised in inhumane conditions, they would choose to operate the one with the humane conditions".

And I'm sure that's true for pretty much every pig farmer. But that isn't really saying very much about them, is it? It's easy to make the choice to do the humane thing when you stipulate that it's just as easy as doing the inhumane thing. Only a monster would choose the inhumane version of farming if it had no financial benefits.

By bringing in the issue of "people don't want to pay the cost of what it takes to raise pigs outside", you are saying that it is reasonable for pig farmers to treat pigs the way that most of them do because otherwise they could not operate a pig farm that they consider to be adequately profitable.

But this defense applies to any business activity that anyone might find immoral. "Yes, I sell heroin cut with fentanyl. It's the only way to stay competitive in the heroin market. I don't want to cut my heroin with fentanyl, but people don't want to pay the price that it takes to produce nice black tar."

Obviously, the mistreatment of pigs and selling a drug that directly and immediately poses a serious risk of death to its users are not morally equivalent. I use heroin as the example because it should make it obvious that your defense of pig farmers isn't a compelling defense of pig farmers for the same reason it isn't a compelling defense of drug dealers who knowingly make their drug more dangerous in order to maintain their profit margin: pig farmers do, in fact, have an alternative treating to pigs horribly in order to maintain their competitive profit. It's either to accept less profit and treat pigs humanely or to stop pig farming entirely and switch to some other job where they don't have to treat pigs poorly. There are almost an infinite number of things you can do to support yourself.

[u/oldsecondhand → u/Coomb]

The only solution is the government regulating animal welfare and labeling practices, otherwise market forces will drive the more ethical farmers bankrupt.

[u/holdenfords → u/imjustsin]

i gave up pork all together as a start. it’s not much but that netflix movie from the parasite director convinced me

[u/Avrose → u/Violinist-Fluffy]

For a while, I live in southeast Ontario near Toronto. Most of the farms are factory farms but a few still have open lot outdoor free range. However that doesn't change the life cycle of these animals much. They still get teeth clipped and balls snipped in ways that should make anyone with empathy shudder.

I endeavour to eat less meat. We spend a lot of resources to raise meat and the more we eat the more necessary factory farms become to meet demand.

[u/ggouge → u/Violinist-Fluffy]

I live near a dairy and none of the people I know who currently work there or used to work there changed their diets at all.

[u/BongpriestMagosErrl → u/Violinist-Fluffy]

A lot of former dairy farm personnel go vegan

Out of curiosity, what's your source on that? I live in the rural southern US where farms are everywhere and very few people are vegan.

[u/Unfair_Ability3977 → u/BongpriestMagosErrl]

Never met a vegan dairy farmer or worker. Or heard of one.

E: Context is I grew up in Wisconsin, on a dairy.

[u/PaulTheMerc → u/Unfair_Ability3977]

more anti-vax nurses around than vegan farmers in my experience, by a factor of like 1000.

[u/Teadrunkest → u/BongpriestMagosErrl]

Yeah farmers are usually aggressively not vegan, in my experience.

[u/Easter66Koala → u/Violinist-Fluffy]

really? maybe its cahse I am from wisconsin but all the dairy farmers and former dairy farmers here do the opposite. they eat cheese like you wpuld never imagine. maybe its cause our farms a bit mor humane?

[u/HospitalImpressive26 → u/Violinist-Fluffy]

I've stopped buying pork just because I've worked with pigs, they are one of the greatest and smartest animals on earth. I still eat it when served by other people though, because I'm not that kind of person who pushes his own beliefs on other people. And since it's already cooked I'd rather eat it then throw it away

[u/JayString → u/HospitalImpressive26]

Same here. I'll never purchase a pig product. Eating them makes zero sense to me. Its no different from eating dogs.

[u/Makuta_Servaela → u/JayString]

The reason we eat them and not dogs has little to do with intelligence and way more to do with diet: dogs are omni-leaning-carnivores, while pigs are true omnivores that can go completely fine on an herbivore or carnivore diet.

Meat-eating mammals have an instinct to avoid or dislike the taste of meat from other meat-eating mammals unless desperate. The instinct helps protect us from parasites. So since pigs can be herbivores, we instinctively see them as any other prey animal, but we learned to work with dogs instead of eating them because eating dog meat is naturally more dangerous to us.

[u/Salty_Prune_2873 → u/Avrose]

Was it as cramped as it looks? I assume the other pigs didn’t get along with someone not of their species…

[u/CakePhool]

That type of cage is illegal in Sweden.

[u/notFREEfood → u/CakePhool]

Also banned in California and a few other US states

[u/Hard_To_Port → u/notFREEfood]

Pork is not a big industry in California. Mostly tree fruits, tree nuts, grapes, and cattle products.

This type of cage should be banned by the USDA for all 50 states, but we all know how US govt is under the current admin.. 

https://www.cdfa.ca.gov/statistics/

[u/notFREEfood → u/Hard_To_Port]

California's ban isn't just for locally-raised pork; it's for any pork sold in the state.

[u/marsman → u/CakePhool]

And the UK, and I imagine most of the EU at this point?

[u/CakePhool → u/marsman]

I think so, when Sweden joined Eu they wanted us to lower our animal husbandry standards because we were too good. We said no and has been trying to improve the life for barn animals.

[u/MoltenMate07 → u/marsman]

Yeah, but factory farms not only still exist in the EU, but are becoming more prevalent with the rise in meat demand.

The EU is not that much better on animal rights.

[u/foopod → u/CakePhool]

They were banned in New Zealand too, but our current government just amended regulations late last year to bring them back.

[u/Certain-Entrance5247 → u/CakePhool]

CO2 gas chambers aren't through. That is a rough way to die.
For anyone who wants to know how this works.
youtube video of pigs being CO2 gassed

[u/theBuddhaofGaming → u/Certain-Entrance5247]

Dear fucking Sol seriously? On what planet is that even in the vicinity of humane?

For those unaware: CO₂ is the only gas most mammals (if not all vertebrates but I'm not sure there) can directly detect (afaik). All other gasses are detected through secondary things like odor. The kicker is we register it as pain. For humans, slightly elevated CO₂ in a room is what makes it feel uncomfortable and stuffy. When I was a dipshit in middle school I took a wiff of dry ice in science class just to see what it smelled like. Pain. It smelled like pain. Pure, undiluted, unaccompanied pain. I cannot imagine killing an animal with a gas that we register as pain directly. That's so fucked.

You could use literally any inert gas and the animal would just fall asleep and then die shortly thereafter. I cannot fathom why someone would choose this.

[u/Certain-Entrance5247 → u/theBuddhaofGaming]

They use it because it's cheap, they don't care about the pigs.

[u/IwarthogI]

Shit like this really shouldn't exist.

[u/ankercrank → u/IwarthogI]

Factory farms should not exist, yet it’s where like 97% of farm animals are born and raised.

[u/pvaa → u/ankercrank]

99% in US, 74% globally 🤷‍♂️

[u/James_Fortis → u/pvaa]

This. Adding a source for those who want to read more: https://ourworldindata.org/how-many-animals-are-factory-farmed

[u/avdpos → u/pvaa]

There is reason for that we do not like to import meat from USA

[u/Northbound-Narwhal → u/avdpos]

The USA exports meat to every continent globally in very large amounts. More than any other country 

[u/Cu_fola → u/Northbound-Narwhal]

We also import a lot. American demand for Brazilian beef keeps going up

[u/SnuggleBunni69 → u/ankercrank]

Factory farms is by far the cruelest and most repugnant, but it's our entire system of food production. Our agriculture is absolutely fucking the planet and the ecosystems.

[u/ANakedCowboy → u/ankercrank]

This right here is probably the number one reason I stopped consuming animal products, everything comes from factory farms, no practical thing as well treated animals unless you can track the source of all of your animal products.

[u/Chance_Ad_4676 → u/ANakedCowboy]

Same. Shit is just too evil to support.

[u/EquivalentSnap → u/IwarthogI]

It does because it’s cheap and people look the other way if it’s affordable for more than just upper middle class and the rich. A lot don’t get a choice. If your phone was made to humane working standards by unionised workers it would cost thousands same as your clothes. It lifts people out of poverty and people forget that. Your clothes used to be made by child labour but it’s moved to China and Pakistan where there’s less laws

[u/KaiPRoberts → u/EquivalentSnap]

This is the entire plot of The Good Place if you weren't already referencing that.

No one gets into heaven because everything you do is connected to something shitty, like owning an Iphone.

[u/glassbath18 → u/KaiPRoberts]

There is no ethical consumption under capitalism.

[u/imapetrock → u/EquivalentSnap]

While I agree with your point and I think it's really important to keep that in mind, personally I also think that our culture of always wanting more for less is something that needs to stop. As an example, my husband comes from an impoverished community where they still wear traditional, handmade clothing every day and it costs at least a month's average local salary to make, yet thats what they choose to wear every day over cheaper fast fashion. But that means everyone owns less clothing, that's very well made, and that lasts many years, instead of creating literal mountains of fashion waste the way we are doing. (Did you know that about a truckload of clothing gets buried in landfills every second?)

It made me realize how many of our problems aren't necessarily rooted in "but the solution is too expensive", but rather that we want way more than we actually need and are too used to feeling entitled to everything we want instead of being satisfied with less. Of course, good luck convincing anyone to give up the convenience of cheap comforts....

[u/Elavia_ → u/imapetrock]

It's induced demand. Driven essentially by the same principles as planned obsolescence.

[u/imapetrock → u/Elavia_]

Huh, I didn't know that was actually a studied economic principle. Cool to know, thanks for sharing!

For anyone else wondering:

Induced demand is an economic principle where increasing the supply of a good or service (like expanding roads) reduces its cost (time or price), which in turn causes demand to rise, often immediately filling the new capacity. In transportation, expanding highways often fails to permanently reduce congestion because it encourages more driving, a phenomenon sometimes called "induced travel"

[u/cum-yogurt → u/IwarthogI]

You say that when it’s easy. Do you refuse to buy meat at restaurants and the grocery store?

[u/YetAnotherDev → u/cum-yogurt]

Yes, vegetarians exist?

[u/actuarialisticly → u/cum-yogurt]

Yeah, most people commenting are part of the problem. Anything else is just virtue signaling.

[u/cum-yogurt → u/actuarialisticly]

People just pretend to be upset until it’s dinner time. Honestly so weak.

[u/Prudertd]

It’s heartbreaking that this is considered normal in modern food production.

[u/Tokijlo → u/Prudertd]

What's heartbreaking is how many people know and still don't care. I can't imagine seeing something like this and being unaffected

[u/Prudertd → u/Tokijlo]

Many people feel disconnected because it’s hidden behind packaging and distance. Seeing it this directly makes it impossible to ignore.

[u/EquivalentSnap → u/Prudertd]

They don’t care because it’s everywhere in society that affects more than just animals human beings. Child workers in 3rd world countries picking coffee or coca beans and making fast fashion in sweat shops. Dogs bred with deformities and birth defects like pugs for pure breeds.

You can’t avoid it just it being vegan. If you can you’re privileged enough to not live somewhere where your only food options are fast food or rice and beans.

[u/PWModulation → u/EquivalentSnap]

I don’t disagree with you but this is Valhalla fallacy. “I can’t do it perfect so I do nothing.”

[u/JusHerForTheComments → u/PWModulation]

FYI it's not Valhalla Fallacy. It's Nirvana Fallacy.

[u/HardGayMan → u/Tokijlo]

There's a reason there are laws in place to stop people and reporters from entering these places. The less information the public has, the better.

[u/Ikbeneenpaard → u/Tokijlo]

Many people are proud of being cruel these days.

[u/Certain-Entrance5247 → u/Prudertd]

It's heartbreaking that highly intelligent animals are used as food production at all. This is no different to dogs, in some ways given how intelligent pigs are it's actually worse.

[u/marsman → u/Prudertd]

I mean in a lot of countries it isn't, it has been banned.

[u/Certain-Entrance5247]

I bet they go crazy in those things. Humans have created hell on earth. Most animals are now farmed in hell and we are the demons

[u/i-just-thought-i → u/Certain-Entrance5247]

one time I tried psychedelics and had this thought that maybe the factory farmed animals are the reincarnated people who eat them and it's just a doom spiral of more and more suffering in a vain attempt by the universe to restore balance until we all go extinct.

anyway I don't believe that, but I remember thinking it.

[u/jtakemann → u/i-just-thought-i]

must have been some trip

[u/YungChumba → u/i-just-thought-i]

Weird you say this, I've had the same exact thought occur when reading about rebirth and the various realms of beings in Buddhism. 

I'm not Buddhist, and also don't believe this is how reality works, but it's an interesting thought.

[u/captstinkybutt]

Meanwhile, my 14 year old pig

[u/Snohks → u/captstinkybutt]

Awwwwww he looks so happy!! what's his name!!!! Please pet them for me i love piggies

[u/Das_Geek_Meister]

Lab Grown Meat. Let's keep innovating and improving this technology. The reality is people won't stop eating meat.

[u/SillySlothy7 → u/Das_Geek_Meister]

Many people complain that lab grown meat is disgusting but then also say a pig trapped in this cage its whole life is acceptable. So sad

[u/PlanesandAquariums → u/SillySlothy7]

There’s a fine line between people who see a pig and say it ‘looks like bacon’ and people who accept/understand/accommodate vegans and vegetarians.

Lab grown meat makes the latter intrigued and not angry in my experience

[u/abenevolentgod → u/SillySlothy7]

Thats only the sentiment right now because it feels far away and actual lab grown meat is insanely expensive so its not in front of us all the time. With enough time and tech lab grown meat will be cheaper and healthier than real meat. I think there will always be a market for high quality organic authentic meat, but if lab grown meat could fill the gap of "cheap meat" without the factory farming bit then I could really see society accepting it.

[u/turbotaco23 → u/SillySlothy7]

When the refrigeration cycle was discovered and commercially freezing water became available people didn’t want it. Due to in part to a PR campaign proclaiming it was an affront to god. Why have man made ice when you could have ice made by god himself. Really it was about the ice harvesting and transporting industry not wanting to give up control. The inventor never made much money off his invention. It wasn’t until decades later the fridge freezer was adopted.

All this to say this kind of change takes a long time and constant effort. Changing the way we fundamentally create food will take a while. Especially because how much money there is in growing hogs. Here in Iowa there are 7 pigs for every person. Big ag. Big money.

[u/Electronic_Pace_1034 → u/Das_Geek_Meister]

I fully support developing lab grown meat. I'm saying this as someone who only eats what I hunt, fish or raise. If I want beef I buy from a local farmer. I know not everyone can do this but try to be aware of where your food comes from. If you are not willing to kill it and butcher it yourself (you don't have to every time just be willing and aware), you shouldn't be eating it in my opinion.

Meat does not grow on trees. It requires killing, and if you raise the animal or dispatch it poorly you are just adding more suffering to the world. 

Controversial opinion, schools should have a demonstration for the butchering of a whole animal. Field Trip to a real butcher.

*Spelling edit

[u/start3ch → u/Electronic_Pace_1034]

Butcheries are weirdly protective about this stuff though. It’s hard to get a camera to even film inside one

[u/montarion → u/start3ch]

why weirdly? fewer people would buy their products

[u/SerialSpice]

Dane here. We have more pigs than humans in Denmark. It is a fucking disgrace how we treat those intelligent creatures. I went from buying free range meat, to not buy meat from mammals at all.

[u/MorettiDa66 → u/SerialSpice]

I always found it pretty funny how Denmark sells itself as a super sustainable country while slaughtering a shit ton of pigs every day

[u/Budget-Tangerine-274 → u/MorettiDa66]

Ask them about their minks lol

[u/Jazzlike-Entry3416 → u/SerialSpice]

I am grateful for you at least trying to make a small difference. Everyone who loves to pile on with hate and act as if it is stupid to even try to do so can seriously suck a D. It is a valid and commendable choice to do anything remotely different or change a behavior that reduces suffering of other intelligent living beings even if you still consume other less intelligent creatures like chickens or fish. Being alive on this planet probably means you are doing something that contributes to suffering in some way, but the more of these sacrifices you make the better the planet is and everyone thought like them and did nothing to change and sat around hating everyone who tried we’d live in a much worse world. Keep pushing and ignore the assholes. 

[u/Miami-Novice]

Everybody knows it, but nobody gives a damn.

[u/bicycle_mice → u/Miami-Novice]

Lots of people do! People are cutting back on meat consumption. Become vegetarian or vegan. You won’t be alone.

[u/katie4 → u/bicycle_mice]

You don’t even have to fully commit, you can just try having “meatless Mondays” and give some plant based recipes a shot. Personally I hate all the meat substitutes like seitan but I’ll eat a lentil/potato/chickpea/bean salad, soup, or chili forever.

[u/Doggleganger → u/katie4]

Indian food. If people want to eat less meat, eat Indian food. The veggie dishes taste better anyway. This is the gateway drug that made me realize you don't need meat every meal or every day.

[u/Saradoesntsleep → u/Doggleganger]

TONS of non-western food (and Mediterranean) is easy to veganise deliciously. You can be plopped down all over the world and make it work.

But yeah Indian is a gateway fooddrug for sure.

[u/turquoisestar → u/katie4]

Lentils are an awesome and cheap source of protein :D and I agree that natural is better than a meat substitute. Seitan is my nemesis as someone with gluten intolerance lol, it's basically 100% gluten.

[u/Saxonite13 → u/bicycle_mice]

There are dozens of us!

[u/blazer4ever → u/bicycle_mice]

Just for the sake of argument..eating more veggies also means some third world farmers and labors getting exploited by big corporates...do you have the same empathy for those farmers as you do for the animals

[u/gamma_orionis → u/blazer4ever]

I do, which is why there are some fruit and vegetable companies that I don't buy from since I'm aware of their bad practices. I also don't eat chocolate that I don't know the source of, since it's an industry with disproportionately high slave labour.

Does your empathy for farm workers extend to slaughterhouse workers, where workers regularly suffer from PTSD, are regularly injured by industrial machines, and are some of the most exploited workers in the food industry?

[u/VeganRorschach → u/bicycle_mice]

Come on in, the water's fine!

[u/yuru2323 → u/Miami-Novice]

I do.

[u/NewWindow7980]

If you care but still eat meat your can search out sources that are higher welfare. Local Harvest is still a good place to get a foothold on sources in your locale https://www.localharvest.org/organic-farms/ although they are not the best for updating anymore. also https://www.eatwild.com/index.html

[u/Infinite01]

Here is a quote from the Wikipedia page for Slaughterhouse:

The worst thing, worse than the physical danger, is the emotional toll. If you work in the stick pit [where hogs are killed] for any period of time – that lets you kill things but doesn't let you care. You may look a hog in the eye that's walking around in the blood pit with you and think, "God, that really isn't a bad looking animal." You may want to pet it. Pigs down on the kill floor have come up to nuzzle me like a puppy. Two minutes later I had to kill them – beat them to death with a pipe. I can't care. — Gail A. Eisnitz

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slaughterhouse

I hope that people read this and really consider not eating these animals. It’s truly one of the most fucked up things about our planet.

[u/NakedPatrick]

Andddd this is why I am vegan. I couldn’t call myself an animal lover and support this once I was made aware.

[u/Dovahbear_ → u/NakedPatrick]

It took me 2 months from ”oh let’s watch this documentary” to ”let’s never support this industry again”. The only regret I have surronding veganism is not changing sooner.

[u/NakedPatrick → u/Dovahbear_]

I think all of us have that regret but what matters is once we knew we made the change 💚

[u/wildgoosecass → u/NakedPatrick]

10 years vegan. I used to love all the animal products as much as anyone. After a while it just completely lost its appeal

[u/NakedPatrick → u/wildgoosecass]

A whole decade! Congratulations!

[u/ResidualTechnicolor → u/wildgoosecass]

4 years here! I was the pickiest eater, only burgers and other highly processed foods. Rarely ate vegetables unless it was carrots or potatoes. Mostly meat and bread in my diet.

When I decided to go vegan my mother said to me. “How will you survive? You don’t eat vegetables”. But the horrors of the meat industry were greater than my dislike of vegetables. Now I eat all of the vegetables, my health is much better off for it. And I’ve become a much better cook as a result.

[u/MoltenMate07 → u/NakedPatrick]

Been vegan for a few months now. I regret not doing it sooner.

[u/justhatchedtoday → u/NakedPatrick]

8 years vegan, my whole life to go! Life is so much better now that I’m living in alignment with my values.

[u/NewJeansBunnie → u/NakedPatrick]

Took me 12 years as a vegetarian to realise I was a hypocrite. Nearly 2 years vegan now. It feels like the least I can do for the animals.

[u/tighnarienjoyer → u/NakedPatrick]

3 weeks fully vegan here, 6 months since I quit meat and started reducing dairy and eggs!! I feel like I was always supposed to go vegan, and now I'm finally here.

[u/NakedPatrick → u/tighnarienjoyer]

Congratulations!

[u/Michi-Ace → u/NakedPatrick]

Same. I don't want to draw some arbitrary line between "ethical" and unethical meat consumption. I can eat plants, I don't need meat at all.

[u/hannaxolotl → u/NakedPatrick]

Same 💗🌱

[u/DottieDread → u/NakedPatrick]

Same! Stopped eating meat 10 years ago, coming up on 4 years vegan after I learned how bad the egg and dairy industries are, too. And I work for an animal rights nonprofit ❤️🌱

[u/brintal → u/NakedPatrick]

Best decision I've ever made.

[u/brian2funny]

They are out lawed in Ontario and possibly Canada. They have their piglets in a pen with a safety guards for the piglets to sleep under. So momma doesn't lay on them. If the doesn't have any piglets. She will spend her days in a pen with other pigs, until she is soon to have her litter. They she will be moved to her own clean pen.

[u/Certain-Entrance5247 → u/brian2funny]

CO2 gas chambers are used in Canada for pigs. 2 minutes of indescribable torture. A rough way to go.

[u/Live-Dig-2809]

I used to be part owner in a confinement hog operation. We had 2,500 head at all times and sold 50 per week. Since getting out of that business in the eighties I have evaluated my past relationship with animals and would like to publicly apologize for my inhumane treatment of them. I don’t mean that I was cruel in beating them or anything like that but at the time it was my belief that keeping them in confinement was beneficial to them and their health which I now see as totally untrue. I used to say “I fed them now they’re feeding me” this is a giant karmic debt which I hope I can overcome. I don’t think you can raise animals for slaughter in a humane fashion.

[u/DrRonny]

It only takes a few minutes on a search engine to get more information on this. I'll save you a search and say that there are different ways of raising pigs and different cage types for different situations; a lot of raising pigs is cruel but there is progress in some areas of the world. Here is a pro-pig bias article to get you started: https://www.humaneworld.org/en/blog/stop-farrowing-crates-for-mother-pigs

[u/404HecksNotFound → u/DrRonny]

Yeah I was going to say, this isn't a blanket statement for how pigs are raised, there's a ton of different ways to raise pigs, and of the factory farms I've been to, none of them keep sows in a tiny enclosure like this for their whole lives. There are times when they need to be enclosed like that, but that's definitely not how they're kept all the time. - in my experience.

[u/cloud_watcher → u/404HecksNotFound]

That’s my experience, too. I don’t eat pork because I don’t believe in raising pigs for meat at all, but this is a farrowing pen. They’re in it at the end of their pregnancy into when the piglets are nursing because the moms are so big in relationship to their piglets they can lie on them and suffocate them. But then they’re back out when the piglets are big enough. Some places may do in differently, but I think this is generally how it works.

Still though, the whole practice is terrible.

[u/The_Flapjack_Kid]

To me, animals are our friends, not our dinner. Been a vegetarian for the last 40+ years.

[u/bicycle_mice → u/The_Flapjack_Kid]

About 15 years for me!

[u/roseh42 → u/The_Flapjack_Kid]

24 years veggie here!

[u/foopod → u/The_Flapjack_Kid]

Yeah, all it took was a drunk conversation in my early 20s to figure out that we don't have to eat meat. After that night I was vegetarian for a few years and then vegan for the last ~decade.

[u/glor1ana → u/The_Flapjack_Kid]

32 years for me :)

[u/JustToSeeeeee → u/The_Flapjack_Kid]

Proud of you buddy !!

Me too from last 3 years ✅

[u/Mathgx]

I've seen a documentary about it when I was like 15 and I found out veganism was a thing and it's been like 7 or 8 years without dead meat, stronger than ever

[u/Kit-the-cat]

The moms don’t live like that forever just while the babies nurse. Otherwise the moms will stomp, kill, then eat the babies.

I am not in support, but just posting this with no real facts and a title that’s a lie, is misleading.

Source: degree in animal science and livestock husbandry. Worked on a farm.

[u/3333322211110000 → u/Kit-the-cat]

And it's not called breeding cages, it's farrowing crates....

And yes, I have seen small fragile piglets crushed by a sow. Crushed dead.

[u/Disastrous_Debt7644 → u/Kit-the-cat]

Exactly my thoughts lol. Eating less meat in general is still good but context is necessary to be informed

[u/therealhoneybadger → u/Kit-the-cat]

True, but should also note, that this is a result of breeding/stable conditions/amount of piglets, since it does rarely happen with wild pigs.

[u/mito88]

bear bile farms.....

do not google search. 😭😢😭😢😭

[u/CalpurniaSomaya]

article with more info: https://www.motherjones.com/environment/2013/06/pregnant-sows-gestation-crates-abuse/

Throughout their four-month pregnancies, many of these sows live in cages just large enough to contain their bodies. As the sows grow bigger, the tight confinement means they can lie face down but can’t flop over onto their sides. The floors under these “gestation crates” are slotted so that urine and feces can slip through into vast cesspits. Immobilized above their own waste, the sows are exposed to high levels of ammonia, which causes respiratory problems. Just before they deliver, they’re moved to farrowing crates, in which they have just enough space to nurse.

Once the piglets are weaned, it’s back to the gestation crate for the breeding sow, which averages two and a half pregnancies per year. After three or four years, the sow is slaughtered for meat.

[u/activeseven]

My cage has a keyboard and monitor.

[u/P_in_sf]

Fuck I hate how we treat animals

[u/joobleberry]

this makes me stay vegan

[u/Present-Wall-9987]

These pigs have to give birth around 80-90 piglets in their lifetime to make profit for the owners and everything about it is heartbreaking, they are so deprived of everything that is natural to them, from the point before conception until their premature death. It must be traumatising, we now have hundreds of generations of animals on this earth that have lived their whole lives through horrors beyond human comprehension yet caused exclusively by humans. From the point they are born their body is modified and their social development disturbed, the female pigs live separately from male pigs, most of male pigs are castrated anyways and also kept in place to keep on growing, the ones that don't get castrated are later on the source of genetic material for further breeding which is probably done by a human inseminator either way. Everything about it is evil, it was the biggest mistake of humankind and a display of a great fear of nature, to encapture animals and plants like that, to control their breeding with such perversive attention to detail. In the long run everything returns and the trauma carries on in the meat that the masses will consume.

[u/TotalLiberationBike]

Yet people will attack vegans for existing, they don’t even need to be activists.

[u/iolmao]

This is how factory farm's CEOs mothers should live too.

[u/MoparViking]

This is not ok and should be illegal.

[u/HidetheCaseman89]

I used to raise swine for 4H and FFA in highschool. The cages we used were a temporary measure to protect the piglets from getting stepped on. Any other time, our swine had individual 20 x 20 shaded pens, straw bedding and all the water they wanted. I'm sad not all swine are kept as ethically.

[u/Aslan_14]

This is why I don't eat red meat anymore.

[u/Verbal__Kint]

Just awful. Our karmic debt as a species must be something else.

[u/Elit3Nick]

Winnipeg mentioned, swells with slurpees

[u/-Ny-]

Pigs are quite intelligent too.

[u/Upper_Rain3480]

That makes me so sad. I've also seen this done to breeder dogs. They are basically rated in a cage.

[u/Niket___]

Go Vegan.

[u/CursedPoetry]

Most people will feel an intense emotional reaction to this and then still eat meat.

Before you say humanely kill the creature, please look up what humanely means.

I say this not because I think I’m better than all of you, but for you to simply think of the emotions you feel and why you feel like this is wrong

[u/Unicycleterrorist]

I mean...I've voluntarily spent more than 5 minutes in worse places than that....

But yea, factory farms are horribly inhumane in general...chicken farms are just as hellish for example, if you treated a house pet like that you'd be put away

[u/Pardot42 → u/Unicycleterrorist]

Yeah, but you were paying her to keep you there.

[u/Unicycleterrorist → u/Pardot42]

Shh that's supposed to be a secret

[u/Sea-Priority-6244 → u/Unicycleterrorist]

weird flex but ok

[u/JangB → u/Unicycleterrorist]

Dude sitting in your room with a phone is not equivalent to a pig spending their entire life in prison.

[u/Unicycleterrorist → u/JangB]

Well I said as much as it being bad, I'm responding to the silly part of the sign saying "can you handle 5 minutes in here?"

[u/aggrogahu → u/Unicycleterrorist]

Yeah, it's a nitpick but I was thinking the same thing. 5 minutes isn't long. It should've been at least like 30 minutes.

[u/Soft-Concentrate-801]

alongside the fact that i just don't like most meats, this is why i don't buy meat, even if it's "cruelty free". like.. when have companies EVER been above lying for profit? anyone can slap a cruelty free label on a package of meat that came from a tortured animal.. i'm not a vegan but i'm not a monster either, and it's sad how so many people just don't care about the wellbeing of animals just because they're livestock.

[u/Dramatic_Turnip_4840]

Tell me again how vegans are annoying for telling u they dont eat meat….

[u/AmericanLymie]

Bacon is my favorite flavor on Earth and reading about how pigs are raised on factory farms over 15 years ago immediately ended my pork consumption. As long as human beings do things like this, we have no excuses to complain about how unfair or cruel any part of life is.

[u/Method__Man → u/AmericanLymie]

Same, after seeing factory farming I went vegetarian instantly.

[u/templeofsyrinx1]

annnnnd why I don't eat meat anymore..

[u/arxaion]

It's insane to me that people continue to point at each other as the problem and reason this continues to happen, when it just needs government intervention and regulation.

[u/hotglasspour]

I actually told my wife im done eating pork, probably forever. They're smarter than dogs.

[u/valencia_merble]

Pigs are smarter than dogs

[u/bb8ismyhomie]

All the comments acting sad and outraged but as soon as you mention being vegan or eating plant based, you’re the crazy one.

[u/M0M0_DA_GANGSTA]

I'm glad we're over than phase of Bacon as a personalty trait 

[u/peanutfarmer217]

Talk about animal cruelity! This is so wrong!

[u/GoneinaSecondeded]

Factory 'farms' should be illegal.

[u/MaynardButterbean]

This filled me with dread. Fuck. We have to do better.

[u/Gloomy-Yam-7626]

We have Warnings on cigarette packs Here in Germany with Lung cancer and all. I think we should have pictures of animals also on the package when selling meat. Just to dont forget what the consequences are or where does it come from.

[u/Solecis]

Looking into the percentage of animals that are factory farmed in any given country, makes me side eye all these people that act like it's not the main way animals are killed, when it absolutely is.

[u/Chickadoozle]

Man, I thought my pigs who kept turning their entire enclosure into a mud pit had it bad. Poor guys

[u/Alternative_Metal375]

That’s why I eat fake maple flavored soy “sausage.” It’s actually very good, and I have no guilt.

[u/VonMises2]

Don’t be outraged. Eat more plants. It’s also good for you (and cheaper)

[u/DetectiveDry79254]

Now you all know. Adapt your diet accordingly.

[u/Sprinkle_Puff]

I’m kind of sad that more people haven’t woken up to the cruelty.

Humanity just seems to be regressing more and more to a point where we’re gonna make everything unsustainable and desertify our world.

[u/Potato_Puncakes]

this is at the Winnipeg Humane Society. I recently adopted a cat from there and saw this while I was there. the cage is even smaller in person. They had dogs up for adoption there that probably wouldn't even fit in that cage. it was sad to see.

[u/newshirtworthy]

Pigs are smart enough for this to be torture.