Researcher: Vegetarian Diet Kills Animals Too




Smaller Victims


And that, Davis says, gives rise to a fundamental question: "What is it that makes it OK to kill animals of the field so that we can eat [vegetables or fruits] but not pigs or chickens or cows?"



Ever since he revealed his conclusions, Davis' e-mail box has been jammed with responses, much of it from vegetarians, and not all of it friendly. Most of it, though, has been "quite decent," he says, because vegetarians tend to be well-educated, sensitive and thoughtful folks.

One-Time Kill vs. Continuous Slaughter

"This is something we've been aware of for a long time," admits Jack Norris, president of Vegan Outreach in Davis, Calif., an organization that is dedicated to spreading the gospel of vegetarianism. (Norris is a vegan, by the way, which is even more restrictive then vegetarianism in that it rejects all animal products, including milk and other dairy products.)

It's obvious that some animals die when their land is taken away for farming, Norris says, "but you take it away only once." It doesn't lead to the continuous slaughter of animals for human consumption, he contends, because once the land is turned into a farm, there aren't that many animals around to kill.

Davis admits he doesn't really know how many animals are lost each year to agriculture, but he suspects it runs in the millions. Not many farmers do a before-and-after survey, so the best data are really just estimates.

But it's clear that many are killed to put meat and dairy products on our tables, and Norris and others are just as concerned over the suffering of those animals prior to slaughter as they are over the deaths themselves.

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