What we choose to eat is one of the most impactful decisions we make. By replacing animal foods with plant foods, we can benefit not just our personal health, but the world around us. The articles below shine light on the hidden realities of meat, fish, dairy, and egg production—and their impact on animals, the environment, climate change, and the types of jobs that are required to bring animal foods to the marketplace.
Impact of Food Choices on Animals, the Environment, Climate Change, & Meat Industry Workers
Impact on Animals
- Animal Outlook’s Investigations: A short video introduction to meat production
- What Cody Saw: An Undercover Investigator’s Story
- Meet Your Meat: A video introduction to meat production
- Farm Sanctuary on Factory Farming
- Vegan Outreach on Animal Farming Practices
- Mercy for Animals Undercover Investigations Videos
- PETA’s Undercover Investigations Video Gallery
- Humane Society of the United States
- The Animals Voice: Animals as Food – Images, Videos, Essays, Fact Sheets, includes castration, de-horning, live markets, auctions, transport, slaughter
- Humane Farming Association’s Photo and Video Gallery
- Slaughterhouse Abuse
- Rancher Advocacy Program assists farmer who want to transition away from animal agriculture
Read more on Impact on Animals at Pandemic Era
What About Fish?
- U.K. Guardian: Fish: the forgotten victims on our plate – by Peter Singer
- National Review: Into the Deep with Seaspiracy – by Matthew Sculley
- Investigation Video of Driftnet Fishing
- Investigation Video of Commercial Fish Farms
- Investigation Video of Salmon Aquaculture
- Fish Feel: Comprehensive Website of News, Studies, and Resouces
- Oceans Away from Home: The Suffering of Fish in Captivity
- L.A. Times (Page 1, col. 1): Fish Farms Become Feedlots of the Sea
- Commercial Fishing: Long-lines, Gill Nets, Purse Seines, Bottom Trawlers
- HSUS Scientific Report: Fish and Pain Perception
- Seafood Without the Suffering: Vegan Seafood Products
- What a Fish Knows: The Inner Lives of Our Underwater Cousins (Book)
- Dr. Greger’s NutritionFacts.org Videos on Fish
- T. Colin Campbell Center for Nutrition Studies: Is Fish Part of a Healthy Diet?
- Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine (PCRM): Is Fish Really Healthy to Eat?
- Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine (PCRM): Health and Nutrition News on Fish
- My Octopus Teacher: Netflix documentary, 2021 Best Documentary Oscar winner, 100% rating on Rotten Tomatoes
- Seaspiracy: Netflix documentary on the impact of human activity and commercial fishing on marine life
- What’s Hiding Under the Surface…of Fish Farms? Short (2 minute) video with drone footage
- Sociedade Vegetariana Brazileria: Beautiful short (58 seconds) illustrated video
Impact on the Environment & Climate Change
New York Times: Save the Planet, Put Down That Hamburger – “People who follow a plant-based diet account for 75 percent less in greenhouse gas emissions than those who eat more than 3.5 ounces of meat a day, and a vegan diet also results in significantly less harm to land, water and biodiversity, according to new research from the University of Oxford. The peer-reviewed study…was published in the journal Nature Food.”- New York Times: Rethinking the Meat-Guzzler
- Nature: Eat less meat: UN climate-change report calls for change to human diet – “The special report on climate change and land by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) describes plant-based diets as a major opportunity for mitigating and adapting to climate change.”
- New York Times: Let’s Launch a Moonshot for Meatless Meat
- Forbes: Meat And Agriculture Are Worse For The Climate Than Power Generation
- The Guardian: Animal agriculture is choking the Earth and making us sick.
- United Nations Environment Programme: Tackling the world’s most urgent problem: meat – “There is no pathway to achieve The Paris Climate Agreement’s objectives without a massive decrease in the scale of animal agriculture.”
- The Atlantic: Your Diet Is Cooking the Planet “getting households to recycle, switch to LED lighting and hybrid vehicles, and add rooftop solar systems would save less than half the carbon emissions combined than would reducing food waste and adopting a plant-based diet.”
- NIH National Library of Medicine: Examining the Environmental Impacts of the Dairy Industry, Section 3, “Beyond climate change [high greenhouse gas emissions] and water use and pollution, the dairy sector contributes to air pollution, zoonotic pathogens, antimicrobial resistance, land use change and biodiversity loss, and soil degradation.”
- Scientific American: How Does Meat in the Diet Take an Environmental Toll?
- Boston Globe: It’s past time to change what we eat, as life on earth is now at stake,” Frances Moore Lapp
- Pachamama Alliance: How Animal Agriculture Affects Our Planet
- The Conversation: Five ways the meat on your plate is killing the planet
- Sierra Magazine: The CAFO (Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations) Industry’s Impact on the Environment and Public Health (Watch video.)
- Down to Earth: How livestock farming affects the environment
- HSI Report: The Impact of Animal Agriculture on Global Warming and Climate Change
- Environmental Destruction
- United Nations Food & Ag Report Livestock’s Long Shadow: Raising livestock is one of the most significant contributors to today’s most serious environmental problems–including greenhouse gas emissions and climate change, air pollution, land and water degradation, and reduction of biodiversity.
- Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine: Plant-Based for the Planet
- Eat for the Planet: Saving the World One Bite at a Time (Book)
- We Are the Weather: Saving the Planet Begins at Breakfast (Book)
- Cowspiracy: The Sustainability Secret (90 minute documentary, watch for free on Netflix here)
- Earth Day National: We Fight Climate Change with Diet Change (30 second PSA)
- We Fight Climate Change with Diet Change (booklet PDF)
See also “Humane Education Resources” at Raising Veg Kids
Impact on Meat Industry Workers
U.S. Department of Labor Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA)
“Meat processing workers are exposed to biological agents during slaughter, when handling meat that is freshly slaughtered, and with exposure to ill animals. Health effects may include skin infections, flu, gastrointestinal infections (vomiting and diarrhea),…pneumonia, meningitis and sepsis (blood infection). Of particular concern are exposures to biological agents that are resistant to antibiotics. An increased risk of lung cancer has been reported in meat and poultry processing workers, which may be due to exposure to oncogenic (cancer-related) viruses and/or chemicals involved used in processing and packaging of meat.”- John Oliver on HBO’s Last Week Tonight – Brilliant segment on conditions and dangers for workers in the meatpacking industry
- John Oliver on HBO’s Last Week Tonight – Brilliant segment on the exploitation of contract farmers in the poultry industry.
- Business Insider – The meat industry is hiding a dark secret, as workers at ‘America’s worst job’ wade through seas of blood, guts, and grease
- Bloomberg Businessweek – America’s Worst Graveyard Shift Is Grinding Up Workers: “Cleanup at the slaughterhouse is as dangerous as it is repulsive, and the immigrants who do the work are under pressure to complete it faster than ever.”
- Civil Eats – Poor Conditions at Meatpacking Plants Have Long Put Workers at Risk. The Pandemic Makes it Much Worse.
- Firstpost – Slaughterhouse workers, fishermen face high risks of injury: worldwide surveys indicate that the worst jobs in the world are that of workers at factory farms and slaughter houses
- Yale Global Health Review – A Call to Action: Psychological Harm in Slaughterhouse Workers
- Metro.co.UK – The harrowing psychological toll of slaughterhouse work
- The Guardian -Two amputations a week: the cost of working in a US meat plant
- The Guardian – ‘We’re modern slaves’: How meat plant workers became the new frontline in Covid-19 war
- Human Rights Watch – “When We’re Dead and Buried, Our Bones Will Keep Hurting,” Workers’ Rights Under Threat in US Meat and Poultry Plants
- Human Rights Watch – How the US is Making Meatpacking Jobs Even More Dangerous
- National Public Radio – Working ‘The Chain,’ Slaughterhouse Workers Face Lifelong Injuries
- Talk Poverty – Meat Processing Is A Dangerous Job. It’s About to Get A Lot Worse.
- Food Empowerment Project – Slaughterhouse Workers
- Kansas Public Radio – Injuries Still Part of the Job for Meat Workers
- Food and Water Watch – Factory Farming & Food Safety
- Pacific Standard – The Many Unreported Dangers of America’s Slaughterhouses
- Livekindly – Slaughterhouse Workers: The Forgotten Victims of the Meat Industry
See also How to Go Veg and Pandemic Era