In a world where eating habits are often handed down through generations, we rarely question the foods we consume daily. But what if we told you that much of what we consider 'normal' might actually be pretty weird?
Let’s take a moment to explore why certain foods may not be as ordinary as they seem.
Decades of research on pigs has found that pigs are highly intelligent beings. In clinical trials, they have been shown to have abstract thoughts, use tools, recognise their own names, dream and follow commands. Other tests have revealed that pigs can play video games and even differentiate between drawings they made over other pigs’ artwork!
Research shows that pigs are at least as intelligent as dogs, and in many cases even outperform dogs on tests of cognition, memory and other measures of intelligence. For example, not only can pigs be taught how to fetch like dogs, but they can also differentiate between objects (for example a ball vs. a frisbee).
Sadly, most are hidden inside factory farms.
Every day more than 202 million chickens are killed for meat. That’s 140,000 chickens every minute! Most chickens are killed at around 6 weeks old, meaning at any given moment there are about 27.8 billion chickens alive, but only about 8 billion humans.
Yet we see lots of humans every time we leave our house but rarely see chickens. Why?
The sad answer is that most chickens killed for meat spend their short lives locked inside industrial sheds, along with 50,000 or more other birds, on factory farms.
Their only escape is when they are crated onto a truck and driven to the slaughterhouse. Oxford University researchers estimate that between 74-90% of all chickens farmed globally are factory-farmed, with US Department of Agriculture data showing that in the US this figure is 98%.
Publicly available data – in this case, published by the USDA Census of Agriculture (number of animals per farm) and Environment Protection Agency (CAFO definitions) – to estimate the extent of factory farming in the US. It makes its data and calculations transparent for others to see how they arrive at these figures.
It estimates that 99% of farmed animals in the US were factory farmed in 2017. That was 10 billion animals. More than the global human population.
All fish raised in fish farms were considered to be factory farmed. More than 98% of chickens, turkeys and pigs were. Cows were a bit more likely to be raised outside in fields, with greater space and freedom. Nonetheless, 70% were still fed in concentrated feeding operations for at least 45 days a year.
Selective breeding of chickens by the farming industry has produced breeds of birds that grow much bigger and much faster than they naturally would.
This results in enormous suffering for billions of chickens every year. Many are unable to stand after just a couple of weeks of life and they often struggle to breath as their lungs are compressed under the weight of their gigantic bodies.
They are crated for slaughter at only 5-6 weeks old – still just chicks with blue eyes and soft chirps.
When you start questioning these food norms, it becomes clear that what we’ve been conditioned to accept as normal is, in fact, pretty weird. By choosing to eat vegan, you’re not only opting out of these strange practices, but you’re also making a powerful statement for compassion, sustainability, and health.
Veganuary inspires and supports people all over the world to try vegan for January and beyond. Millions of people have already taken part.
Will you join them?
