The animals we eat are individuals capable of experiencing pleasure, fear, and pain. Think about dogs or cats you’ve come to know. They can feel sorrow, joy, terror, and other emotions. So can animals we don’t know so well, like chickens, cows, or pigs. All of these animals, whether chicken or cat, pig or puppy, experience a wide range of emotions and value their lives.

Yet, the animals who we eat are treated so abusively in this country that similar treatment of dogs or cats would be grounds for animal cruelty charges in all 50 states.

In the United States alone, more than 10 billion land animals (and billions more aquatic animals) are slaughtered for food every year—more than 1 million animals every hour. The overwhelming majority of them are kept on factory farms, where the goal is to raise as many animals as possible in the least amount of time and space.