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by Matt Bear, NonViolenceUnited.org

I loved spending summers on my grandparents’ farm. I remember waking up to roosters crowing and the wonderful aroma of Grandma’s breakfast wafting upstairs. I’d rush out to help Grandpa feed our 40 sheep, two steers and the 50 or so pigs. The farm had changed over the years. The gigantic red barn that had once housed dozens of dairy cows was now nearly empty and echoed with the calls of the sheep and steers. Grandma collected the eggs from the 50 or 60 chickens and washed them—ready for her homemade delicacies and for neighbors to buy a few dozen at a time.

In the spring, Grandpa would come home from the feed store with dozens of little yellow chicks, peeping and blinking at a new world only a few days old. Grandma would set up the brooder house where the chicks would spend their lives over the next few months. They would peck and scratch the ground outside during the day, and at night they would huddle under heat lamps locked up from the night.

When I was seven years old, a particular chick caught my fancy. He wasn’t any smaller or bigger than the others, but we had a connection. When I would walk in to sit and watch the baby chickens, he would come running to me. He’d jump in my lap to be held and petted. He had a way of looking me in the eye. He seemed like a long-lost friend somehow trapped in the world of being a chicken. I named him Foghorn. And I loved him.

Chickens grow fast. Soon August arrived. My aunts, uncles and cousins rolled down the dusty gravel road toward the farm to take part in the traditional family event. Grandma boiled water in huge pots out in the pump house, and Grandpa sharpened the long, steel blade of a homemade machete.

Midmorning came. My cousins picked up the nearly full-grown chickens by their legs and carried them to my Grandpa. I followed behind cradling Foghorn. I handed Grandpa Foghorn, who looked at me and blinked. Grandpa folded Foghorn’s wings to his sides and held his legs all with one giant hand and lay him down on the tree stump. Seconds later, he handed Foghorn’s bleeding body back to me. I held him upside down by his legs as I was told to do and let the blood drain from his severed neck. As I stood in line with my cousins to take Foghorn to the scalding pots to make it easier to pluck out his feathers, I looked back at his head lying in a heap with the others… one last blink, beak open.

I was lost in a fog of confusion. I was proud of the tradition and for helping the grownups. But a friendship was lost that day along with my kindred spirit. And a trust was broken—trust between my grandparents and me and between me and my friend. While my remembrance speech at the dinner table that night kept everyone from eating the chicken, it didn’t stop them or me for long. I was told it was just a part of life.

But I still see the look in Foghorn’s eyes. I still see it in the eyes of the many animals I’ve come to know. Calves would suck my fingers after I’d fed them from a bucket. When they grew to an enormous size over the year, I’d watch as they looked curiously at my uncle holding the rifle pointed at their foreheads. And I’d paint another layer of indifference onto my heart as they fell to the floor and were dragged out of the barn. I’d witness the same question and worry in the eyes of the pigs as they walked down the narrow passageway toward my uncle’s aim.

Still, even after all of this, if animals today were raised this way for food, I might not be the animal activist I am today. I’d like to think I would be, but I honestly don’t know. I can’t see myself picketing my grandparents’ farm. But farms where animals can live their lives with some respect, some play, some love and then die a quick death—farms like my grandparents’—no longer exist.

Today the farm is empty except for Grandma, now in her late 80’s. She keeps the big barn painted and in repair, fulfilling a promise to my Grandpa who passed away 15 years ago. Grandpa saw even then that the family farm had become a thing of the past. The surrounding farmsteads now stand empty, barns crumbling to the ground. Those few that survived have become intensive factory farms where animals spend their lives in confinement, die from mistreatment and are killed mercilessly for profit. Many of these animals won’t see the light of day until they are loaded in a truck on their way to slaughter.

These are not unfounded claims from an animal rights book or video. These are memories from my teen years when I lived on my stepfather’s factory farm and took part in every horrible detail. I can still hear the screams in my ears and see the horrors in my mind’s eye.

My connection to animals led me to research and recognize the shocking escalation of factory farms over the past 25 years. I explored vegetarianism in an effort to match my actions with what I felt in my heart. What I uncovered led to my becoming and remaining a vegan not only because I understood and could no longer shut out the horrors suffered by the animals, but also because I realized that avoiding meat and animal byproducts offered a world of compassion and nonviolence. I found that this is not only an animal advocacy issue; it is also a family farm issue; it is the largest single environmental crisis facing the planet; it’s a human rights concern; and it’s a matter of physical and moral survival. (See sidebar.)

My food choices are driven by an understanding that there are blinking eyes full of pain behind each cellophane-wrapped pink package of meat. I hear the cries of lonely, frightened animals shaking in the dark corners of factory farms. I feel the back of the family farmer snapping under the weight of big industry. I ache for every one of the 40,000 people starving to death every single day while we waste grain by raising animals for food. I see our planet straining to produce the resources demanded for the production of meat. And I take some comfort knowing I’m doing my part and asking others to do the same.

Supporting organic and “humane” farming methods is a start. Your dollars then support an industry that is, by and large, made up of independent farmers. These farmers allow animals a minimum of sunlight, a bit of room to move, and spare our earth and our bodies unnecessary chemicals. But consuming even the most humanely raised animals still causes the clear-cutting of forests, water pollution, the destruction of public lands, wasting of resources and enormous health consequences. It still causes unnecessary suffering and death. These animals are still mutilated to increase profits and overcome inherent problems of overcrowding. These procedures include searing off beaks, clipping wings, castrating, tail docking, ear notching and teeth pulling or clipping, all without any anesthesia. Male chicks born into the egg industry are still discarded in the garbage or grinders while alive -- worthless. Support "humane” farming methods not as an end, but as a way to become aware of what or whom you are eating.

Many no longer eat land animals but continue to eat fish, believing that the health benefits outweigh their commitment to ahimsa (causing no harm). But even the Food and Drug Administration and the Environmental Protection Agency have issued advisories to restrict consumption of fish because of the high level of toxins.

In addition to causing human health hazards, modern fishing methods ravage our oceans. Most fish are “harvested” in drift nets miles long weighed to the bottom of the sea. The nets scoop up every marine animal in their path. Unwanted casualties are shoveled back as waste. Thousands of whales, dolphins, sharks, seals and others die in the wake of boats pulling 17 billion fish from the sea each year for U.S. consumption.

Escaping the circle of pain may seem difficult. Vegetarianism goes against what we Americans have been taught about what’s good for us. We’re taught that we must eat meat for protein, that we must drink cows’ milk for strong bones, and that animals are ours to do with as we please. But think hard about who is teaching you and why.

As an activist, I find it’s almost impossible to be heard above the lies of a multibillion-dollar industry. When we finally see through the clouds of oppression and deception and come with excitement to offer the truth, too often we are dismissed as crackpots or extremists.

I hope you’ll read my words in the spirit in which they were written. They’re offered with sincerity and hope for a better world for all of us, a sustainable planet for generations to come, and an end to the suffering. The most important thing you can take away from this message is a desire to know more. Start your search for the truth today. Go vegetarian.