An Open Letter to Peter Singer A Critical Engagement with Peter Singer’s Support of “Compassionate” and “Humane” Meat

What do you say to people who feel the letter [in favor of humane meat] was an endorsement for Whole Foods to apply the word “compassion” to the killing of animals and the packaging of their bodies?

I think it is that. I don’t deny that. Obviously they’re killing animals and packaging their bodies. There might be some people who say, ‘You can’t be compassionate if you end up killing the animals.’ I just think that’s wrong. I think you can recognize the reality that people are going to eat meat. Or if you’re in a supermarket chain, you can recognize the reality that if you don’t sell meat, people will go elsewhere. And nevertheless, you can hope that the meat products you sell will be as compassionately produced as possible.

–Interview with Peter Singer, Satya, 2006

Peter Singer is arguably the father of animal rights,¹ whose text, Animal Liberation, helped to create the entire field of animal studies and the social movement of animal rights. At the same time, in recent years, Singer has made comments that seem to support the practice of eating so-called “local” “compassionate” or “humane” meat. This support has taken different forms, including conversations with Michael Pollan within the pages of the Omnivore’s Dilemma,² support for companies such as Chipotle and McDonalds who have claimed to implement humanitarian reforms,³  and, perhaps most famously, an “open letter” in favor of the animal welfare standards implemented by Whole Foods.⁴ In addition, Singer has given a large variety of interviews on the topic. For example, in a 2006 interview about his text The Way We Eat, when asked what he hoped his reader might take from his book, Singer replied:

Well, some of them might think a bit more about some of the other aspects of what they’re eating. That is, they might think about buying fair trade products and more organic produce, for example. Beyond that, I would like them to think about what’s the most appropriate way to really reduce the suffering of animals. The book is suggesting that we might be more effective by being somewhat more tolerant of people who consume animal products, if they’re thoughtful about where they came from and try to ensure that the animals have had a decent life. And that we not be too fanatical about insisting on a purely vegan life.⁵

Overall, Singer’s position has tended to be that, as a utilitarian, he supports a movement to “humane” or “compassionate” meat as a way to decrease animal suffering. In other words, while it seems clear that Singer would prefer if people chose to become vegetarian (and, perhaps, vegan)⁶ ; he still advocates – at times quite strongly – for humane meat as a more likely dietary shift that people might adopt. While I have great respect for Singer’s work, in this one area it is still necessary to point out that Singer is factually incorrect about the effects that the support of humane meat would entail.

The view which many – including Singer – seem to hold is that, even if not ideal, so called “humane” “compassionate” or “free-range” meat, eggs, or dairy are, at least, “better” than factory farm produced products. However, this view, while widespread, is not necessarily correct. For example, in terms of Green House Gas Emissions (GHG) and climate change, the scientific consensus seems to suggest that so called “organic,” “humane,” or “free-range” animal products are actually worse for the environment than their factory farm produced counterparts. For example, Peter Singer has argued: “The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization report Livestock’s Long Shadow acknowledged that livestock, as a result of their digestive process, are responsible for more greenhouse gas emissions than the entire transport sector,”⁷ a statement which would seem to suggest that he is both familiar with, and supportive of, the study Livestock’s Long Shadow. However, while it is true that farmed animals produce a large amount of methane, through burps and flatulence, this methane gas release is not the primary reason for livestock’s effect on climate change. According to the U.N. report, the main problem with meat consumption is not because of digestion but, instead, in terms of GHG emission, isx related to deforestation caused, primarily, by attempts to clear forests in order to create pasture and feed crops to raise animals- including those that are “free-range” and “grass fed.” Indeed, the actual conclusion of the United Nations report is that, in terms of greenhouse gases emission, free range and grass fed agriculture is worse for the environment than even “factory farms.”⁸

More specifically, Nathan Pelletier has estimated that pasture-raised cattle actually results in fifty percent more GHG emissions than cattle raised on factory farms.⁹ Likewise, Adrian Williams of Cranfield University in England found that free-range and organic-raised chickens have a twenty percent greater impact on global warming than chickens raised in factory farms conditions. He also found that organic eggs have a fourteen percent higher impact on the climate than factory farm eggs.¹⁰ The main reasons for these counter-intuitive result is because “free-range” animals take longer to gain weight, consume more feed, and take up more room. To be clear, it is not my argument that we should “exonerate” factory farms, since they have been determined, multiple times, to be grossly detrimental to the environment (see Union of Concerned Scientists, Natural Resources Defense Council, Pew Commission on Industrial Farm Animal Production); it is my argument, though, that far from “better”, so called “free-range’ or “humane” meat, egg or dairy products are worse for climate change than even factory farms. These products’ contribution to anthropogenic climate change should be of a particularly concern to Singer since, in addition to their effect being an important issue in its own right, the effect of raising “humane” meat, eggs. and dairy products is directly related to the issue of animal ethics in terms of species extinction and loss of biodiversity, as farmed animals’ effects on climate change has been cited as the leading cause of species’ extinction. As the earlier-cited FAO report phrases it:

Indeed, the livestock sector may well be the leading player in the reduction of biodiversity, since it is the major driver of deforestation, as well as one of the leading drivers of land degradation, pollution, climate change, overfishing, sedimentation of coastal areas and facilitation of invasions by alien species.¹¹

Singer’s failure to deal with the GHG contribution of free range meat is also ironic because of his work on poverty reduction. As a summary to a 2015 World Bank study on the effects on climate change on poverty phrased it:

Climate change hits the poorest people the hardest, those living in vulnerable areas with the fewest resources to help them adapt or recover quickly from shocks. As the effects of climate change worsen, escaping poverty becomes more difficult.¹²

In other words, even from a purely utilitarian analysis of both human and animal suffering such position is wrong, because if “organic” “free range” and “humane” meat contribute more to climate change, then such changes may well produce more suffering (and death), not less. While such calculations are quite difficult to determine, what distresses me is that, as far as I can tell, Singer has not even addressed the argument, even as he has chosen to endorse the consumption of organic, free-range, and humane meats, eggs, and diary. Peter Singer gave a talk at the University of Chicago in 2015 entitled “Climate Change: Our Greatest Ethical Challenge.”¹³ If, as Singer would seem to argue, the climate is our greatest ethical challenge, then it would be necessary for him to try and determine if organic, free range meat is worse for climate change – as the UN FAO report and several scientists would seem to suggest – and if so, then very necessary for him to switch from endorsement to strongly expressed condemnation.

Within the United States, “free-range” or humane meat is virtually nonexistent. Even the proponents of humane farming admit that over 99 percent of animals raised for meat consumption are raised in a factory farm setting.¹⁴ Because of the environmental factors just discussed, it is in all likelihood impossible for large-scale shift to a system of free-range meat without further catastrophic effects on land, water and the atmosphere. Who then, one must ask, should “get” to eat the organic or humane raised meat, since, by its very nature of production, it must always remain small scale and unavailable to the larger public? Not only is humanely raised beef inherently limited in production, it is also inherently more expensive in terms of production.¹⁵ The point is that proponents of humane meat claim that their product will become cheaper as it becomes more popular; however, since the limiting forces of the lack of arable land and the intrinsic practices necessary to treat animals more humanely remain, the reality is that, as demand for humane meat increases, its price will also increase. I understand that Peter Singer, as a utilitarian, is not bound by the Kantian categorical imperative that one’s action should be universally applicable. At the same time, it remains unclear to me how he can endorse a practice which is inherently both non-scalable and economically elitist. Nor is cost the only limiting factor, as the presence of so called “food deserts” in economically depressed areas virtually guarantees lack of access to so-called “humane” meat – even if there were adequate supply and even if consumers could afford it. In practice, it would mean that we should be tolerant of wealthy and predominately white people eating pasture-raised meat (as they are the only ones with access to it), even as we condemn the poor and predominately people of color who consume factory-farmed meat. It is difficult for me to see in this as a morally acceptable action. In The Republic, Socrates asks Cephalus –a wealthy city elder–what is the best aspect of being wealthy? Cephalus responds it’s that it is very easy to be moral. In endorsing humane raised meat as valid ethical “alternative”, Peter Singer would seem to echoing this same sentiment.

Such views are particularly ironic considering Singer’s current work on poverty reduction. In The Life You Can Save Singer argues that from a utilitarian perspective Americans should shift from purchasing products, such as say, bottled water –  as it is overpriced, unnecessary and harmful to the environment – and instead, spend this money on global poverty relief.¹⁶ I completely agree with this view. At the same time it is unclear, at least to me, why this identical argument should not equally apply to purchasing of so called “humane meat.” Like bottled water, humane meat is completely unnecessary for human health, massively overpriced, and harmful to the environment. If it makes sense to apportion money saved on bottled water so that others can have clean drinking water at all, it would seem to hold that one should also switch from an overpriced humane meat diet to a meat -free diet so that others can simply eat at all. A study published in the Journal of Hunger & Environmental Nutrition found that people who adopt a vegetarian diet save an average of $750 each year on groceries compared to people who eat meat, and this comparison was based on the cheapest possible factory farm meat (not the far more expensive humane meat.)¹⁷ As Mary M. Flynn, the lead researcher of the study, explained in an interview:

Meat is more expensive than people realize…When I suggest to patients that they look at how much they spend on meat, they are always surprised that it is so much. Meat represents 51 percent of food costs for low-income people.¹⁸

The connection with bottled water is even more prescient, as animal agriculture accounts for arguably the single largest use and/or waste of water in the world.¹⁹ As with climate change, it does not make logical sense for Peter Singer to speak out against consumer waste in the West and against global poverty, and at the same time, to claim that humane meat could represent an ethical alternative, since it is even more expensive and elitist – but just as unnecessary – than the current system of meat production.

Modern Humane Suffering
Bell & Evans chicken processors in Pennsylvania, USA, market their “humane” credentials on their website at http://www.bellandevans.com/content/farm. Bell & Evans are a featured supplier to Whole Foods Market, taken at random.

One might argue that at least “humane” or “free-range” meat is somehow better in terms of animal suffering and/or death. However, it is unclear if even this claim is true. In the first place, virtually every farm that is marketed as “humane” or “compassionate” still engages in wide panoply of practices which are neither “humane” or “compassionate” including: confinement, over-crowding, denying of food, grinding up male chickens at birth, forced and repeated pregnancies, castration and mutilation without the use of anaesthesia, separating family members for profit, and killing the animals in the same slaughterhouses and under same “inhumane” conditions as their factory farm counterparts.²⁰ However, even if a theoretical farm did treat animals “humanely” it is still not clear that the farm practices would not still cause more suffering, instead of less.

As earlier mentioned, if “free-range” meat, eggs, and dairy escalate anthropogenic climate change, they will cause massive animal suffering, death, and extinction of non-farmed animals. How to weigh the possible minimal decrease in suffering and death a free-range farmed animal experiences versus the mass extinction and death non-farmed animals will experience is not clear. And, even the farmed animals themselves will suffer as viable pastureland and grassing lands vanish, sources of water dry up, and diseases increase.²¹ Likewise, free-range farmers themselves make it clear that they are only able successfully to raise farmed animals outside by trapping, shooting, poisoning and otherwise hurting and killing all of the wild animals whom they do not own. The most famous “locavore” farmer, Joel Salatin, is very clear in his memoir, Everything I Want to Do is Illegal, that he is only able to raise animals outdoors because he actively kills a host of other animals including local predators, endangered red-tailed hawks²² and even neighborhood dogs. As Salatin explains this last act of violence:

Now for the confession: whenever a dog comes on our premises, unless we know it to be a neighbor’s dog, we practice the rural three Ss’– Shoot, Shovel, and Shut up. Every farmer in this area practices that protocol, and it maintains a balance. If that sounds harsh so be it. …Again, the greatest inconsistency of this is the people most vocal about protecting animal rights are the ones who most appreciate pastured poultry, pastured pork, and grass-based beef.²³

If raising a chicken on outside pastures leads to a farmer shooting endangered hawks and neighborhood dogs, as Salatin claims that it must, it is unclear that these practices lead to less animal suffering or death. Nor is Salatin – at all – alone in this position toward killing wild animals in order to “protect” free-range farmed animals. As Christopher Ketcham argues in an aptly entitled article, “The Rogue Agency: A USDA program that tortures dogs and kills endangered species,” the United States federal government itself – routinely – tortures and kills wild animals in order to protect farmed animals. Ketcham documents:

Since 2000, Wildlife Services operatives have killed at least 2 million native mammals and 15 million native birds. Many of these animals are iconic in the American West and beloved by the public. Several are listed as endangered or threatened under the Endangered Species Act. In 2014, Wildlife Services killed 322 wolves, 61,702 coyotes, 2,930 foxes, 580 black bears, 796 bobcats, five golden eagles, and three bald eagles. The agency also killed tens of thousands of beavers, squirrels, and prairie dogs. …Wildlife Services gunned down coyotes from airplanes and helicopters. Its trappers used poison baits, cyanide traps, leg hold traps, and neck snares. They hauled coyote pups from dens with lengths of barbed wire, strangled them, or clubbed them. Sometimes they set the animals on fire in the dens, or suffocated them with explosive cartridges of carbon monoxide. “We joked about using napalm,” Niemeyer [a retired member of the service] told me.²⁴

As “free-range” farming becomes more common, it seems clear that these types of actions could become even more widespread. It is, therefore, unclear, at least to me, how ”free-range” of “pasture-raised” farming leads to less animal suffering, instead of more.

Moreover, the genetic breeding that almost every “free-range” farmer supports means that they may be simply masking animal suffering. For example, here is how Temple Grandin – a well-known advocate for “humane” farming – describes the effects of these genetic changes:

In broiler chickens, something goes wrong with the [chicken’s] cartilage, so the bones don’t have support while they’re hardening and end up misshapen…in some of the worst cases, a chicken’s feet are rotated almost 90 degrees and the legs are twisted. These chickens are genetically lame. Several studies have shown that lame broilers will choose feed laced with painkiller over their regular feed, and a study of lame turkey’s showed that they started moving around a lot more once they were on painkillers. The industry has created chickens that have chronic pain in order to get birds that grow at the far outer limit of what is biologically possible.²⁵

As such, it is unclear if the slightly longer lives that “humane farmers” allow their chickens does not lead to more suffering, instead of less (since the chickens’ own bodies hurt them for a longer period of time.) Likewise, Grandin details rosters on a “humane farm” who, due to selective breeding, have lost the ability to engage in mating dances and have resulted to, in her words, “raping and murdering” hens.²⁶ In fact, Grandin herself concedes concern over chickens who have been bred to be continuously hungry, in order for them to gain market weight as quickly as possible, so that even as they continuously eat, they still feel as though they are starving: “These birds have low welfare no matter what you do.”²⁷ In other words, while “free range” farmers may appear to represent an improvement in animals lives (we can see chickens “happily” plucking away in the pasture), in many cases, such appearances may be misleading in terms of the amount of animal suffering and death that are actually accruing (in terms of both genetic selection and the killing of unseen “predatory” animals.) What has changed is the image, not the amount of animal suffering.

It is important to note that even if “humane” or “free-range” farming actually did help farmed animals at all, it is doubtful that these changes could ever even be achieved via the marketing of humane meat. For example, Singer has argued that, within the United States, market forces created by marketing “humane” meat represent the best way to help farmed animals.²⁸ However, the underlying problem with his argument is his failure to confront the reality that standards of care will be routinely undercut in a system in which animals are raised and sold for profit. There is no acknowledgement that when animals are regarded as an agricultural commodity that must be constantly produced for sale, there exists a permanent and inherent contradiction between the welfare of the animals and the profit of the business. Lower animal standards (if unperceived) always result in increased profits. For example, Salatin is very open about his basic motivation being maximizing profits, even if it conflicts with animal welfare. In an interview with the newspaper The Guardian, after railing (for some time) about the “evils of Wall Street,” Salatin is asked why he does not use “heritage” chickens (i.e. chickens who do not suffer from the effects of selective breeding just discussed). Salatin explains:

“I’m not opposed to heritage breeds. We have some heritage breeds. Here’s the problem though: marketability … We tried heritage chickens for three years and we couldn’t sell ’em. I mean, we could sell a couple. But at the end of the day, altruism doesn’t pay our taxes. And I’m willing to say: ‘You know what? I don’t have all the answers and I pick my battles and compromises.’…²⁹

While they frequently deny it, both local and “humane” farmers are small-scale businessmen and women concerned, ultimately, with profit and marketability. As such, they have managed to “rebrand” their product in order to create a niche market in which animals are raised under marginally “improved” animal welfare standards for significantly higher profit. As a business model, such a strategy has been remarkably successful. However, from the standpoint of concern for animals (or, for that matter, the environment), the benefit is significantly less clear. It is not hard to imagine as small-scale farmers become both larger, more removed from the animals they raise, and, most importantly, more known as a “brand” name, the animals will start to fare worse. This process is exactly what has already happened in the case of the largest, and most well-known, producer of humane meat, “Niman Ranch.³⁰ The original founder, Bill Niman, was forced out by shareholders who wanted to lower standards (while keeping the same name and price for the meat) in order to increase profitability. The new CEO of “Niman Ranch” justifies these actions by the same argument as Salatin, stating, “I think idealism can pay…But it has to be couched with practicality.”³¹ Even if someone had visited Niman ranch in the beginning and been satisfied by their level of animal husbandry, they would now be buying a product no longer raised, or even approved, by Bill Niman. Bill Niman no longer even eats “Niman Ranch” meat because of concerns over the care of animals.³² And “Niman Ranch” was recently sold to Perdue, one of the largest factory farm processors in the world.³³ In other words, even consumers who are purchasing so-called “humane meat” are not, in fact, boycotting factory farms since the “humane” meat producers are increasingly owned by the factory farms themselves. Instead, they are simply helping to make these same factory farms even more profitable.

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I have had the pleasure of hearing Singer speak on several occasions. At two of these, the very first Q & A question had to do with the interaction of capitalism and his proposals for either animal liberation or global poverty reduction. His response– in both cases– was to claim that we had enough on “on our plate” without trying to critique capitalism practices. Perhaps. However, what is also unquestionably true is that in a system of unfettered capitalism, the purchasing power of “humane meat” will have little effect on ending factory farms. Such companies simply purchase or create their own so-called “humane farms” — not out of any commitment to animal welfare, but purely in order to increase profit, market share. And to keep people consuming products from the “animal-industrial complex” who, otherwise, might have “opted-out” via a decision to embrace ethical veganism.

The simple truth is that my opposition to humane meat is not only because it is worse for the environment, that it is inherently limited, elitist, and exclusionary; that it causes mass torture and killing of wild animals, that it masks the mass violence and torture that all animal husbandry entails, or even that so-called “humane” farms are simply a new “brand” for pre-existing factory farms with no genuine commitment to animal welfare. No. My deepest opinion is that all animal husbandry renders animal life as simply a buy-able and sell-able commodity whose treatment and very life exists purely on the whim of their so-called “owners.” Such a view changes what is, in reality, a question of social justice (captured in the idea of animal “rights” or “liberation”) to one of mere charity, which, consequently, can be changed or abandoned at will. What is so wrong about animal husbandry is not that “owners” are not “kind” enough to “their” animals: what is wrong is the very idea that there should be “owners” of animals at all. I do not believe in or support uncritical “comparisons” between human and other animal suffering. However, there is one quotation by Alice Walker which I have always found to be truly eloquent in expressing my opposition of animal farming. As Walker phrased it: “The animals of the world exist for their own reasons. They were not made for humans any more than black people were made for whites or women for men.” So, too, my opposition is based not only on these “utilitarian” grounds charted here, but on my fundamental opposition to speciesism, anthropocentrism, and ownership of animal life – in any form, no matter how it might be marketed or described. In other words, my basic opposition is against the idea that animals were made for humans instead of simply existing “for their own reasons.”

I first went vegetarian when I was nine years old. I had gone to my public library and checked out Peter Singer’s text Animal Liberation and, at the ripe old age of nine, was so convinced by this book that I went vegetarian that summer. I have never eaten meat since (and am now vegan.) Years later, I finally had the chance to meet Peter Singer in person. I was at the first Minding Animals Conference (an international conference for scholars who work on animal studies.) He was the keynote, and I was receiving a small award at the conference for my research. After receiving the award, I asked Dr. Singer if he would autograph my award. I told him of going vegetarian when I was nine and said, “Not everyone grows up to have an award signed by their childhood hero, but that is what is happening here today.” Peter Singer is known as the father of the animal rights movement, and he was, in fact, the “father” of my own conversion to animal rights so many years ago. However, as a father myself, I know that a time comes when we must all be able not only to teach but also to learn from our children. It is very much my hope that the man whom I have admired almost my entire life will, in turn, now learn from those he has directly inspired to reject the idea that meat, eggs or dairy could ever represent an ethical alternative regardless of how they are raised, produced, or labeled.

1. There is some argument over the use of this term. For example, Peter Singer, as a utilitarian, does not believe in the concept of “right” at all (and, therefore, does not believe in animal “rights.) However, it is common term by which he is introduced.
2. “I agree with you that it is better for these animals to have lived and died than not to have lived at all … ,” Singer wrote back. Since the utilitarian is concerned exclusively with the sum of happiness and suffering, and the slaughter of an animal with no comprehension of death need not entail suffering, the Good Farm adds to the total of animal happiness provided you replace the slaughtered animal with a new one….However, this line of thinking does not obviate the wrongness of killing an animal that “has a sense of its own existence over time, and can have preferences about its own future.” In other words, it might be okay to eat the chicken or the cow, but perhaps not the (more intelligent) pig. Yet, he continued, “I would not be sufficiently confident of my argument to condemn someone who purchased meat from one of these farms.”…What this suggests to me is that people who care about animals should be working to insure that the ones they eat don’t suffer, and that their deaths are swift and painless — for animal welfare, in others words, rather than rights. (327)
3. Peter Singer, “McDonald’s rattles the hen cage.” New York Daily News, Saturday, September 12, 2015. See also: Dave Gilson, “Chew the Right Thing: The philosopher talks about ethical eating, fast-food burritos, and why local food is overhyped.” Mother Jones Journal, May 3, 2006.
4. http://www.satyamag.com/sept06/edit.html
5. Singer Says: The Satya Interview with Peter Singer, October 2006.
   http://www.satyamag.com/oct06/singer.html
6. It is not entirely clear to what degree Peter Singer identifies as a vegan. For example, at a recent talk, he requested the student hosts to provide him with a meal that was “either vegetarian or vegan.” Based on what has been termed the “Paris exception,” Singer seems to argue that he consumes milk and eggs while traveling, if it represents a type of food he particularly enjoys, or if it would cause too much social inconvenience if he did not. “When I’m shopping for myself, it will be vegan. But when I’m traveling and it’s hard to get vegan food in some places or whatever, I’ll be vegetarian. I won’t eat eggs if they’re not free-range, but if they’re free-range, I will. I won’t order a dish that is full of cheese, but I won’t worry about, say, whether an Indian vegetable curry was cooked with ghee.” Singer, Satya, October 2006.
7. Peter Singer Open the Cages May 12, 2016
   http://www.nybooks.com/articles/2016/05/12/humane-economy-open-the-cages/
8. “The livestock sector accounts for 9 percent of anthropogenic CO₂ emissions. The largest share of this derives from land-use changes – especially deforestation – caused by expansion of pastures and arable land for feed crops” (xxi). The report further explains this point in the Land Degradation section:

   Expansion of livestock production is a key factor in deforestation, especially in Latin America where the greatest amount of deforestation is occurring—70 percent of previous forested land in the Amazon is occupied by pastures and rangelands, with 73 percent of rangelands in dry areas, have been degraded to some extent, mostly through overgrazing, compaction and erosion created by livestock action (xxi).

   And the report concludes: “Intensification—in terms of increased productivity both in livestock production and in feed crop agriculture—can reduce greenhouse gas emissions from deforestation” (xxi). Steinfeld, Henning, Pierre Gerber, Tom Wassenaar, Vincent Castel, Mauricio Rosales, Cees De Hann. Livestock’s Long Shadow: Environmental Issues and Options. Rome, Italy: Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. 2006.

9. Many environmentalists have argued that finishing up the fattening of beef cattle on corn is worse for the environment than cattle that are raised solely on pasture grass. Pelletier says his team’s analysis finds that at least from a climate perspective, the opposite is true. “We do see significant differences in the GHG intensities [of grass vs. grain finishing]. It’s roughly on the order of 50 percent higher in grass-finished systems.” (Qtd. in, Janet Raloff “AAAS: Climate-friendly dining … meats: The carbon footprints of raising livestock for food” Science News, Sunday, February 15th, 2009)
10. “Ironically, data released in 2007 by Adrian Williams of Cranfield University in England show that when all factors are considered, organic, free-range chickens have a 20 percent greater impact on global warming than conventionally raised broiler birds. That’s because “sustainable” chickens take longer to raise, and eat more feed. Worse, organic eggs have a 14 percent higher impact on the climate than eggs from caged chickens, according to Williams. “ Tidwell, Mike. “The Low-Carbon Diet,” Audubon Magazine. January-February 2009
11. Steinfeld et. al. xxiii
12. “Climate Change Complicates Efforts to End Poverty” February 6, 2015.
    http://www.worldbank.org/en/news/feature/2015/02/06/climate-change-complicates-efforts-end-poverty
13. Peter Singer, “Climate Change: Our Greatest Ethical Challenge.” The University of Chicago, October 23, 2015. https://humanities.uchicago.edu/calendar/details/CAL-ff808081-4f4f0ba5-014f-5060ee33-00001165eventscalendar%2540uchicago.edu
14. As Farm Forward, an organization which works to support “humane” farms, explains:

    [T]he reality of meat is unambiguous. And at Farm Forward we don’t pull any punches when we face inconvenient realities: Most of the animals raised and killed for food (more than 99 percent, to be precise) come from unsustainable and cruel factory farms or, in the case of sea animals, other industrial operations.…Every person who adopts a vegetarian diet reduces suffering and environmental degradation and helps stretch the small supply of non-factory meat, dairy, and eggs currently available for those who choose to eat meat. As long as the demand for non-factory animal products exceeds the supply to this degree, it is best to avoid even these products. But whatever our approach to eating ethically, the important point to remember is that withdrawing our financial support from factory farming reduces the greatest barrier to a humane, sustainable agriculture: the wealth and power that the factory farm industry draws from the money we funnel to it daily.

    Farm Forward, “Food Choices” Accessed on May 17, 2011

    http://www.farmforward.com/farming-forward/food-choices

15. For example, as Consumer Reports documented :“The reason grass-fed beef is pricier has to do with beef producers’ profit margin: It can take a farmer up to a year longer (and an extra year’s worth of food, care, and labor) to get a grass-fed animal to reach slaughter weight than for a conventionally raised one. Grass-fed cattle also tend to be smaller at slaughter, so there’s less meat to sell per head.” Consumer Reports “Why grass-fed beef costs more: You’ll pay a little extra, but Consumer Reports’ tests of ground beef show grass-fed is less likely to harbor dangerous bacteria” August 24, 2015
    http://www.consumerreports.org/cro/magazine/2015/08/why-grass-fed-beef-costs-more/index.htm
16. Singer, Peter. The Life You Can Save: How to Do Your Part to End World Poverty. New York: Random House, 2010.
17. Mary Flynn and Andrew Schiff. “Economical Healthy Diets (2012): Including Lean Animal Protein Costs More Than Using Extra Virgin Olive Oil “ Journal of Hunger & Environmental Nutrition. Vol. 10, Issue 4. 2015. 467-482. “The economical version of MyPlate cost more than the plant-based meal plan that contains extra virgin olive oil yet contained fewer servings of vegetables, fruits, and whole grains. The inclusion of even small servings of meat increased the cost of the meal plan, without providing nutrients that would decrease risk of chronic diseases. Healthy diets may be perceived as expensive if the focus is on the addition of foods like fruits, vegetables, and whole grain. By considering a decreased consumption of foods that do not decrease risk factors for chronic diseases, like most animal products, for even some meals in the week the diet becomes primarily plant-based and less expensive. Studies have shown that low-income households will spend their grocery money first on meat, eggs, cereals, and bakery products. Educating consumers to include some weekly meals that do not contain meat, poultry, or seafood will decrease food costs, improve food security, and improve body weight.”
18. Avery Yale Kamila, “According to research, eating a vegetarian diet can save money.” Portland Press Herald. 02/06/16.
19. Arjen Y Hoekstra “Water for animal products: a blind spot in water policy.” Environ. Res. Lett. 9. 2014. doi:10.1088/1748-9326/9/9/091003
20. Ball, Matt “Is Being Vegan Important?” Vegan Outreach, Accessed on May 17, 2011. http://www.veganoutreach.org/advocacy/vegimportant.html
21. These impacts will include changes in the productivity of rain-fed crops and forage, reduced water availability and more widespread water shortages, and changing severity and distribution of important human, livestock and crop diseases. Major changes can thus be anticipated in livestock systems, related to livestock species mixes, crops grown, and feed resources and feeding strategies, for example.” P.K. Thornton, J. van de Steeg, A. Notenbaert, M. Herrero, The impacts of climate change on livestock and livestock systems in developing countries: A review of what we know and what we need to know, Agricultural Systems, Volume 101, Issue 3, July 2009, Pages 113-127, ISSN 0308-521X, http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.agsy.2009.05.002 (http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0308521X09000584)
22. Salatin suggests, but does not actually state, that he kills endangered hawks (as such actions would be illegal under federal law.) “[T]he same people who would haul me to jail if they saw me shoot a hawk {notice, I didn’t say I have—I’m just postulation this to move the discussion forward) think that all chickens should be pastured like ours are. Think about how much you like pastured chicken. Savor the thought. Now multiple it about tenfold and that’s how much a red-tail hawk likes them.” Salatin, Joel. Everything I Want to Do Is Illegal. 2007. 163.
23. Ibid. 170.
24. Ketcham, Christopher “The Rogue Agency: A USDA program that tortures dogs and kills endangered species” Hapers. March 2016.
25. Grandin, Temple, and Catherine Johnson. Animals in Translation: Using the Mysteries of Autism to Decode Animal Behavior. New York: Scribner, 2005. 219.
26. Again, here is how Grandin describes these changes:

    “We’ve done some strange things to animals’ emotion makeup in our breeding program. When I was just starting my work with chickens a few years ago, I visited a chicken farm. Inside the barn where all the chickens lived, I found a dead hen lying there on the floor. She was all cut up, and her body was fresh. I was horrified…[H]alf of the roosters has stopped doing the [mating ritual] dance, which meant that the hens had stopped crouching down for them. So the roosters had become rapists. They jumped on the hens and tried to mate them by force, and when the hen tried to get away, the roosters would attack her with his spurs or his toes and slash her to death.” 70.

27. Ibid. 219
28. As Singer phrases it: “I think we have to work with the tools we have. In the United States the market is probably the best tool that we have to produce change. If I were writing in Europe, I might think that the political system is more useful as a way of bringing about change. But in this country, the political system has not shown itself to be responsive to consumer demand when it challenges major businesses like agribusiness. While maybe that will change, at the moment if we want to get—to use Chipotle as an example—more pigs outdoors, not confined indoors in factory farms, one way of doing that is by consumers switching their consumer choices from chains that sell factory farmed pork to chains that sell humanely raised pork. If Chipotle’s doing that, well, good; I hope more people go there and switch their patronage to them because of it.” Gilson, “Chew the Right Thing,” Mother Jones Journal, 2006.
29. Wood, Gabby ^“Interview: Joel Salatin “ The Guardian, January 31 (2010 ) , 44 of
    http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2010/jan/31/food-industry-environment
30. Finz, Stacy, “Niman Ranch founder challenges new owners” San Francisco Chronicle. February 22 (2009),
    http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/02/21/MNHM15ME01.DTL#ixzz1MjKULepe
31. Ibid.
32. Ibid.
33. Stephanie Storm, “Perdue Buys Niman Ranch, as It Expands in Specialty Meat Business,” New York Times September 8^th, 2015. “