Americans eat an average of 37 percent of their calorie intake as fat. Egg laying is an extremely private matter for a hen. A hen will normally seek a secluded place to lay. But the egg industry, which thwarts this and every other instinct embodied in the hen, keeps her crammed for her entire life inside a small wire cage with four to eight other cellmates. Imprisoned here, her body will be robbed of potential offspring she will never see.
Meat production takes abundance, then reduces it to scarcity.
In 1997 a bird virus jumped to a human for the first time in history. By early 1998, the avian influenza strain H5N1 had killed 6 people as well as entire flocks of chickens in Hong Kong. As gigantic hog-confinement operations more and more dot the nation, issues of odor impose themselves on entire communities. Fumes carry 150 volatile compounds that can become airborne on dust particles. In the summer, when they start pumping effluent, it wakes you up.