Have you ever wondered how people justify the pain and suffering animals are subjected to? Pain and suffering that is a direct result of insatiable appetites for unhealthy food choices… food choices that are not only selfish, but absolutely unnecessary.
Whether it be the hotdog on a stick at a county fair, meat on the end of a fork for breakfast, lunch and dinner, or the cheeseburger at a summer barbecue, animals needlessly suffer… and continue to do so with no end in sight.
One woman who knows, to her core, that enough is enough is long time vegan, Jane Velez-Mitchell.
Arguably one of the most visible vegan activists, Jane grew up in a relatively meat-free home. Identifying early on as a vegetarian, she saw animals as other than her next meal.
Yet, it was 40 years ago, when PETA was getting started, that Jane had a life-changing epiphany. She saw a video about animals who were used in testing. This opened her eyes to the horrors most people had no knowledge or understanding of.
It was then that she committed to do whatever possible to raise awareness about the atrocities sentient beings are subjected to.
Although she didn’t consume meat, chicken, and seafood, it wasn’t until she discovered dairy was “liquid meat” that she become 100% vegan. That was 25 years ago.
A Strong Platform to Raise Awareness
With a stellar track record in media, her skill as an anchor, coupled with her passion and advocacy for animal rights, Jane is an unstoppable voice for the voiceless.
Jane is the host and founder of #JaneUnChained, a digital news network with a focus on animal rights and the vegan lifestyle. With over 80 billion animals tortured and killed every year, Jane sees no end in sight to her activism. She encourages others to get involved in advocacy in whatever way possible. Whether it be working directly with the animals, blogging, social media, demonstrations, volunteering, or anything that allows you to be a voice for the voiceless, do whatever you can for the animals.
A great many people believe there is no consequence for the way animals are treated. Many justify their food choices by virtue of the fact they are not the one to slaughter the animals they eat. But Jane sees it differently. She describes the acts that take place in factory farms as pure evil. She is incredibly frustrated that people justify the killings of innocent animals because they are not the one directly killing the animals.
“The essence of all evil is that some suffering doesn’t count. A truism is that the only thing that’s required for evil to triumph is for otherwise good people to do nothing and look the other way,” Jane states firmly.
Simply put, when someone considers themselves compassionate but looks the other way when it comes to the slaughter of animals, they are participating by virtue of the fact animals are sacrificed for their pleasure.
This may seem harsh, yet the harsh reality is animals are being tortured, abused, and slaughtered at an alarming rate. Animals know when they are on the way to slaughter. They are filled with fear, anxiety, stress, and grief. For anyone to pretend otherwise is to continue the abuse.
In the time it takes you to read this full post, thousands of animals have been slaughtered. Ready to see real time numbers? Go to https://animalclock.org/
We have to stop burying our heads in the ground.
Save Movement to the Rescue
One way activists are raising awareness is with the Save Movement.
The Save Movement is a global organization which holds peaceful vigils outside slaughterhouses.
The movement was started in Toronto with the formation of the Toronto Pig Save. This group was founded by an activist named Anita Krajnc, who made headlines last year when criminal charges were brought against her for offering water to thirsty pigs at one of the Save vigils outside an abattoir. She made headlines again when the case against her was dismissed, in what was seen as a great victory for animal activism. (Read full post about The Save Movement at https://www.livekindly.co/save-movement-slaughterhouse-vigil/ )
Jane has been to several Save Movements. “You see these cows, pigs and chickens arriving to the slaughterhouse. They know what’s going on. Sometimes they’re suffering from rotting in an open-air truck from either extreme cold or extreme heat. They’re frothing at the mouth. They’ve got sores on their bodies. Their limbs are broken. Someone would have to be a complete sociopath not to see that this is suffering; intense and terrible suffering.”
These are the animals that end up as someone’s breakfast, lunch, dinner, or snack. Meals that people say are their “right” to consume.
You Won’t Find the Truth in the Media
Sadly, people will not learn about what is going in slaughterhouses on in the news media. The media is pretty much owned by the meat, dairy, and pharmaceutical industry advertisers. It doesn’t matter whether it’s the liberal or conservative media, the stories are not covered. We only see what they want us to see.
Additionally, the media can’t use the word slaughterhouse when they run a story. They call the animal death chambers processing facilities.
It’s not just the animals who suffer. The workers are subjected to horrendous working conditions that impact them physically and emotionally.
During the time slaughterhouse workers were dying from COVID, the stories quickly got buried and the public was distracted with the next sensational headline, soon ignoring the truth of what was happening in slaughterhouses.
Your Health is at Risk
Consuming animals goes beyond the torture to the animals. It also effects your health. According to the World Health Organization, processed meat absolutely causes cancer. Besides cancer, animal and dairy consumption also cause heart disease, diabetes, hypertension and other preventable diseases.
Consider this, heart disease causes nearly 700,000 deaths per year in the United States and can potentially be reduced by eliminating animal products in one’s diet.
https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/leading-causes-of-death.htm
There’s no denying it, consuming animal and dairy contribute to poor health.
Climate Change Also Part of the Devastation
Although many people want to deny what’s going on, we can no longer continue on this path. Another reason to change food choices is climate change.
In large part climate change is caused by animal agriculture due to deforesting of the planet.
The disaster is at our front door with the wildfires, floods, pandemic, droughts and repeatedly experiencing shortages in your local grocery store.
The first step is to recognize there is a problem and admit what our contribution to the problem is. Many feel that giving up animal and dairy is too much of a sacrifice.
Yet, as Jane points out, when people recognize that letting go of their desire for animal and dairy is not a sacrifice, but rather an adventure, it becomes something they want to do.
What is actually being sacrificed when you give up animal and dairy is ill health, negative impacts on the environment, the end of pain and suffering for animals, lethargy that countless individuals have come to accept as normal and the chaos that has been normalized.
Now those are sacrifices worth making!
About Jane Velez-Mitchell
Jane Velez-Mitchell is a television and social media journalist and author, who specializes in vegan lifestyles, animal rights, addiction and social justice. A highly recognized and awarded journalist/activist, in July 2009, Farm Animal Rights Movement awarded Velez-Mitchell the Celebrity Animal Activist Award at the Animal Rights 2009 National Conference held in Los Angeles, California. While working at Celebrity Justice, Velez-Mitchell’s reporting on animal cruelty earned that show two Genesis Awards from the Humane Society of the United States.
She earned an additional Genesis Award for her show “Issues” in 2010 and the same year the VegNews magazine named her Media Maven of the Year. In 2013, Mercy for Animals awarded her their Compassionate Leadership Award. In 2014, she was honored for fighting animal abuse by the Animal Legal Defense Fund. In 2015, she received the Nanci Alexander Award at PETA’s 35th anniversary celebration.
In January 2010, she was awarded the Ruby Award by Soroptimist International for her “War on Women” coverage on her television show. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jane_Velez-Mitchell
Jane is the author of Addict Nation: An Intervention for America. https://amzn.to/2Vap8ed and iWant: My Journey from Addiction and Overconsumption to a Simpler, Honest Life https://amzn.to/3ypQATm
Visit https://janeunchained.com/ to learn more about Jane Velez-Mitchell.
