It is with amused detachment that I read all the news stories and even editorials about the problems that this pandemic is causing for beef, chicken and pork slaughterhouses. I do feel a lot of empathy for the workers for first of all having to work in such a soul-sucking job and who now are being forced to keep working despite COVID-19 outbreaks.
The pandemic is forcing us to examine how we do things, and one of them should be the amount of meat in our diets. There are three good reasons to cut down on eating meat: the health benefits, the damage that meat production does to the environment, and the ethical treatment of animals. Now add a fourth: factory farms and giant processing plants are inherently unsafe for workers and potentially the wider public as well.
We would be a safer, healthier and more compassionate society if we all cut back. There is plenty of protein available in plant-based foods, and that’s no hoax.
