Links and resources mentioned in today’s episode:

- Our online vegan cooking school

- Our online course The Roadmap our 21 day course to help you make more vegan choices or go vegan (included within our online school)

- For another look at these industries, and lists of sustainable, ethical, cruelty and slavery free foods check out The Food Empowerment Project

- The book "Slaughterhouse" by Gail Eisnitz

- The book “This is Vegan Propaganda: and Other Lies the Meat Industry Tells You” by Ed Winters

- The book Eating Animals by Jonathan Safran Foer

- The book Dominion: The Power of Man, the Suffering of Animals, and the Call to Mercy by Matthew Scully

- The book Animal Liberation Now by Peter Singer

- "The Psychological Damage of Slaughterhouse Workers" by The PTSD Journal

- "Why Go Vegan" by The Vegan Society

- Andy West, philosopher and writer for The Guardian (contains sensitive content and mentions of violence): "Animal Suffering is Human Suffering: Why Human Rights Support Veganism"

- The Oxfam "Lives on the Line" report (includes sensitive information pertaining to workers/human rights violations)

- An Oceana.org report on the effects of bottom trawling in the fishing industry, including its effect on local communities

- A report by The Global Reef Project on the effects of coral reef destruction

- Article in The Guardian on children illegally hired in a slaughterhouse cleaning firm  

- Article in The New York Times on underage workers in slaughterhouses 

In today’s instalment of our “Why Vegan” series, we’ll be talking about another one of those big reasons why so many people are opting for more and more vegan meals and choices, and why so many have decided to go vegan. As I’ve been saying throughout the series, it doesn’t matter if you’ve decided to make this change because of animals, or the environment, or your health, no matter what your personal reason why is, eating a vegan diet helps create wonderful changes in all of these areas, and the lives and rights of our fellow humans are no exception.

As you know, my personal reason why was the way animals are treated in our current animal agriculture system. What I hadn’t realized when I first went vegan, was that in all these industries that include so much mistreatment and cruelty to animals, there is also inherent violence present for our fellow humans who work in these facilities, in the communities surrounding places like slaughterhouses and factory farms, as well as many problematic issues for people who live in impoverished communities that have been affected by our high and growing consumption of animal products.