At Free from Harm, we work hard to dismantle popular arguments in favor of eating animals: we share scientific reports from leading government health organizations confirming that humans have no biological need to consume animal products. We profile vegan athletes and bodybuilders. Our contributing vegan doctor thoroughly debunks the protein myth, and we expose the gross inaccuracy of the “canine teeth” argument (herbivores have some of the largest and most ferocious canine teeth on the planet!). Father Frank Mann shares why he believes a vegan diet is the only consistent expression of core religious values, and author Robert Wayner provides a compelling analysis of the Christian basis for veganism.

We also get up close and personal with the truth about so-called humane farming, exploring the hidden practices and routine cruelties that are inherent to all animal farming. We show you why there’s no such thing as humane dairy, explore the hidden harms of “happy eggs,” and why even “local, organic, small-scale” animal agriculture is a leading driver of global warming and environmental destruction.

We’re grateful to be able to provide useful information from all of these perspectives. But at the end of the day, it’s hard sometimes not to wonder why, when it comes to the question of eating animals, people need anything more than the Golden Rule: Do unto others as you would have them do unto you —

In the U.S. alone, we kill more than 9 billion land animals every year for flesh and secretions we have no need to consume. Globally, nearly 70 billion land animals are slaughtered every year. It is impossible to fathom such numbers. But one by one by one by one, in a never-ending, sorrowful stream, every second of every day animals are peering through the slats of transport trucks, feeling the last sunlight of their lives (which is very possibly also the first); one by one, every second of every day, entering the kill chute of the slaughterhouse and walking those final steps, defenseless and innocent; one by one looking up at the last human face they will ever see— and no kindness, no mercy comes.

When we have access to nutritious plant-based foods, and understand that eating animals is not necessary to good health, then the choice to eat animals anyway is a choice to intentionally hurt others we have no need to harm. No matter how much we may talk about kindness, no matter how much we may practice it elsewhere, as long as we demand that living, feeling individuals be harmed and killed for our pleasure — as long as we choose violence over compassion — then we do not live a good or just life. Far greater than the sum of our good acts is the trail of blood, suffering and death we willfully and needlessly leave behind us.

Need more reasons to go vegan? Learn more about the impacts of animal farming— including so-called humane farming— on animals, wildlife, the environment, global hunger, and human health at our Why Vegan? page.