Ethical Considerations
Modern factory farming techniques require animals to be kept in overcrowded conditions to boost production. They are fed a diet of antibiotics, growth hormones, feed additives and fillers to maintain health as a result of these conditions. Unfortunately, while maximum profit is derived for the industry in this process, pain, suffering and death is the result for millions of animals every year. Eating lower on the food chain not only brings us greater health, but it will spare the pain and suffering of countless animals.
A few fast facts
- 56,000 animals killed in Canada per hour for meat (about 491 million annually).
- 73,314,405 animals killed in British Columbia per year for meat.
- Human population has doubled since WWII, while livestock has quadrupled.
- 3:1 - livestock outnumbers human population.
- Since WWII, the number of farms in Canada has decreased by 60%, but their size has increased by 290%.
- 322,000,000 litres of livestock manure is produced every day in Canada (85% cattle).
- 3000 tons of manure is produced weekly by a typical hog factory.
- 25% of solid waste from British Columbia's Lower Mainland slaughterhouses fed back to animals.
- 33% of all antibiotics used in Canada are fed to livestock.
- Staphylococci infections have become 7x more resistant to penicillin between 1960 and 1988 due to routine feeding of antibiotics to livestock.
- It takes an average of 7.5 pounds of grain and soy to produce one pound of food from livestock.
- 90 - 100% of protein, fibre and carbohydrates are lost by cycling grain and soy through livestock.
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