More people are moving toward a plant-based diet, owing in part to evidence about human health and environmental sustainability, and in part to the emerging scientific consensus on the breadth and depth of animal consciousness and sentience.

Full disclosure: I am a pesco-vegetarian I eat an occasional fish.

But how might choosing to eat fewer animals than ever before or no animals at all (vegetarian), or no animals or animal products (vegan) make a difference for animals or for the world?

This question is on my mind this week, as I read a book titled Ninety-Five: Meeting America's Farmed Animals in Stories and Photographs. It suggests that 95 "is the average number of animals spared each year by one person's vegan diet." There are a variety of sources estimating average individual intakes of meat. A story in USA Today Wednesday reported that each meat-eating individual eats 7,000 animals (including fish) over their lifetimes. This number is based on the Vegetarian Calculator.

What does "spared" in this context actually mean? Can veganism or vegetarianism or cutting way back on meat consumption really make a global impact for animals, given the number of hungry people in the world who may rely on animal protein?

I decided to pose a few questions, by email, earlier this week to three animal activists and vegans: Paul Shapiro of the Humane Society of the United States, Bruce Friedrich of Farm Sanctuary, and Alka Chandna of PETA. Here's the first:

Do you find it personally motivating or inspiring to reflect upon the number of animals who live each year, who otherwise would not, because you are vegan?

Paul: Eating fewer or no animals doesn't mean that animals who would've been killed will now live; it means that animals who would've been bred into existence to suffer on factory farms will now not be brought into the world and exploited in the terrible ways that are customary in the meat industry. It's a supply and demand issue. Less demand should mean less supply.

Bruce: As Paul notes, by removing our demand, we're sparing animals suffering that is beyond our worst imaginings. I do find it deeply motivating to realize that I can live my values every time I sit down to eat. St. Paul called on the faithful to pray ceaselessly. I like that every time I sit down to eat, I cast my lot for mercy, and against misery for compassion, and against cruelty. Every meal becomes a prayer for a kinder and more just world.

Alka: I don't think so much about the numbers of animals who are spared as much as I think about the misery and suffering that I'm not contributing to as a result of my choices. It was learning about the horrific conditions on factory farms and thinking about the arbitrary cultural lines that determine which animals are eaten and which are spared that compelled me to adopt a vegan diet; and I feel some comfort in knowing that my actions are not contributing to, or paying for those systems to carry out, their business. Conversely, if I am accidentally served something that isn't vegan at a restaurant (and I know the dish is going to be thrown away), I feel like I have contributed to the torment suffered by the animals whose flesh or bodily products were in the dish. For example, if I'm given something that contains an egg, I think that my miscommunication resulted in a hen suffering in a battery cage for 34 hours (and all of the ancillary suffering inherent in the discarding of the male chicks, the eventual slaughter, and so on). It's [weighing] the time that an animal suffered on a factory farm for that item to come into existence, balanced against the few minutes of enjoyment I might derive from eating that item.

Originally posted here:
Does Being Vegan Really Help Animals?