A sociological look at the relationship between animal suffering and human suffering.
This is a broad and important topic, but in this post I will focus on the intersection of humans and animals in modern factory farming. Part of the reason I decided to research and write this post is because of the common public sentiment that vegans “don’t care about humans, they only care about animals” and that we should really be thinking about all of the people living in poverty, violent areas and under oppression. But veganism touches directly upon those very human issues, and was part of my choice to go and to remain vegan.
We hear a lot of talk about PTSD among war veterans, survivors of assault, and civilians stuck in war-torn countries. What we don’t hear about in the media very much is PTSD among factory farm workers. I’m focused specifically on the factory farm workers because I am aware that many small, family owned animal-agriculture businesses often don’t operate at such a mind-bending magnitude and may not share in the rates of stress or PTSD-like symptoms as those subjected to the worst of modern animal farming (which now accounts for over 90% of the meat we eat, so those family farms are disappearing fast).
Most factory farm workers have a high quota of animals to be killed per hour or per day. In these factories, workers need to distance themselves from the brutality of the situation through cognitive dissonance. A worker in a chicken factory may slit throats endlessly as chickens round off a conveyor belt, but no matter which way the utilitarian method is presented, the worker is essentially subjected to a full-day shift of non-stop throat slitting and/or stunning animals. Workers hear the constant screams of animals, and those in pig or beef farms wrestle with these gentle giants as their screams form a constant cacophony on the kill floor. Without cognitive dissonance, there is no way to separate the act from your conscience. Even with dissonance, many return home and find the work conditions follow them. Many academic studies (a couple listed in the links) have found a direct correlation between factory farm workers and increased rates of violent crime such as spousal abuse and sexual assault. As well, it’s noted that there is an increased rate of alcoholism and drug abuse by people working in these conditions.
To make matters even more complex on the sociological front, one will find that the bulk of factory farm workers are people already oppressed or living in difficult circumstances:
“Historically, a lot of slaughterhouse workers have been African American but recently there has been a rise in the number of Latin American workers to the profession. People of color are subject to systemic racism which often leaves them living in poorer communities and therefore more likely to have to take jobs in slaughterhouses. This work then denies them social mobility due to the mental, emotional and physical impact the job has.” (https://www.livekindly.co/slaugterhouse-worker-violent-behaviour/)
The recent ICE Raids in the southern United States at poultry factory farms found that over half of the workers were illegal immigrants. (https://www.npr.org/2019/08/10/750172206/ice-raids-hit-poultry-processing-plants-that-rely-on-latino-immigrant-labor) Their pay is low, the conditions are almost always unsanitary, and they have little chance of upward mobility whether or not they are legally residing in the country. The marginalized, poor immigrants, and especially illegal immigrants, have few choices for other lines of work and become easy targets for the horrible and underpaid work conditions of the Big Meat industry. I could go on about this for several blog posts, but I encourage readers to explore the studies done (you can find more on Google Scholar) and educate yourself on the data and the personal experiences of these people.
Another factor is the health of the people who work in these farms. Many studies, reports, and health and safety inspections have found the working conditions unfit for humans. As most of these animals are raised in small conditions, pumped with hormones, antibiotics and/or other horrors, and then living in their own waste products, we can be sure that the salmonella, e.coli and other unwanted viruses and parasites make their way over to humans. Jonathan Safran Foer’s informative and eye-opening book Eating Animals notes that up to 90% of factory farmed chickens killed have salmonella on them. Most of these chickens are soaked in chlorine baths before being sent to the processing plant.
Factory farm workers are subject to breathing in animal waste products at extremely high levels, touching body parts and equipment that is contaminated with bacteria and dangerous pathogens, as well as heightened potential for injury due to the speed at which they are supposed to work. Many workers develop long-term illnesses from working in these conditions. For those working in the U.S. or countries where they don’t have adequate access to affordable healthcare, many struggle even more with complications from illnesses.
The physical and mental health of factory farm workers is constantly threatened by the work they do.
Unlike food as a general category, meat as a sub-category is becoming increasingly irrelevant. If you don’t live in a food desert or in an area where there is no access to vegan options, then I encourage you to stop and think about why you still consume animal products. The human communities with the longest life-span are vegetarian or vegan; the Seventh Day Adventists and the Okinawans off the coast of Japan. Many nutritionists, dietitians and doctors advocate for a healthy plant-based diet and can show people how to do it in a way that can be long-term. As eating meat becomes irrelevant, then so does struggle of the people who suffer physically and mentally for your processed chicken wing cravings.
This isn’t all to say that vegan foods are always ethical. There’s growing awareness of abuse in the cashew industry of India, and many are well aware of the ethical issues related to banana production in Central America. Those are also human rights issues that need to be addressed and tackled. But unlike meat… fruits, vegetables, grains and legumes, when paired with ethical standards for production, won’t require any animal deaths and will also contribute to a reduction in food industry workers struggling with PTSD and other mental health issues. Removing animals from our food production removes a layer of human suffering and reduces the unnecessary deaths of countless animals.
With Beyond Meat burgers owning the stock exchange, non-dairy milk and cheese threatening and contributing to the decline of the dairy industry (which has its own issues), and a plethora of blogs, books, and websites dedicated to showing us how to eat a healthy plant-based diet… why still eat meat? James Cameron’s new documentary “The Game Changers” features male athletes breaking records and living in peak health while eating a balanced vegan diet… so if the fittest man in the world is vegan, what can help you start the journey towards veganism?
Links and Some Sources:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28506017
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10611-011-9297-2
https://mercyforanimals.org/slaughterhouse-workers-have-ptsd-from-killing
https://www.businessinsider.com/meat-industry-sanitation-workers-2018-1
Veganology 