Meat is the dead body of somebody who wanted to live

Tens of millions of pigs and cows (exploited just as much for their milk as for their flesh), hundreds of millions of birds and uncountable billions of fishes and other non-human animals die every year in Britain alone to become food for us. Flesh production always involves the death of an animal, in spite of the fact that all animals - regardless of our species, level of intelligence, linguistic ability and regardless of whether we fly, swim or walk – possess a nervous system which enables us to feel pain or pleasure. We enjoy our lives and want to carry on enjoying them and as such, every one of us has an interest in living and in doing so according to our needs and desires.

In spite of this, from a very young age we are taught to ignore this interest in other animals (lets not forget that we are also animals), and every year millions of them are taken to the slaughterhouse for the simple fact that they don’t belong to our species.

A change in the way we see other animals

Animals are not pieces of food, but individuals capable of feeling and which want to enjoy their lives. From a young age they make us used to seeing animals as inferior beings whose reason for being is to end up on our plates some day or serve us with milk or eggs, but we should realise that behind every piece of meat there is a story… the story of somebody’s birth, their fears, their suffering, their desires denied to them, their death.

Its time for us to change our way of seeing animals, to stop thinking of them as resources available to us, as “pieces of meat” and to start to respect them for what they are: individuals with their own interests which deserve respect.