Natural Humanists are ‘ethical vegans’, and so believe that no human being should ever deliberately or knowingly kill, control, exploit, abuse, degrade, imprison, enslave, or cause harm or suffering to any other human being, or to any other living creature, or should ever cause or require anybody else to do so on their behalf, unless doing so is essential for their own health or survival and, even then, that they should treat that living thing with as much kindness and respect as possible, and cause as little pain, stress and suffering as possible, throughout its life.
This ‘ethical veganism’ is one of the philosophical beliefs that are considered to be a ‘protected characteristic’ under the UK’s Equality Act 2010,[i] so discriminating against any Natural Humanist because of their veganism is against UK law.
Plant Life
Natural Humanists’ concern for the welfare of other living things, also extends to plant-life, to the extent that Natural Humanists are against the deliberate and unjustifiable destruction of, or damage to, any living thing, including trees and plants, fungi, algae and insects, however, they also believe that a human being accidentally or unavoidably killing or harming such a living thing, while attempting to meet their own natural needs, or exercise their own natural human rights and freedoms, is justifiable, and is therefore acceptable.
For example, they believe it’s acceptable to eat plants for food, if this doesn’t, in the long-term, reduce the total number of plants, or of that particular species of plant, in the world, for example, by efficiently replacing any plants used for food with similar numbers and types of plants.
Some Natural Humanists object to cutting grass and weeding gardens, not only because they consider all gardens to be an unacceptable use of the world’s potentially wild, biodiverse land, but also because these gardening tasks involve deliberately and unnecessarily killing or harming living plants, while also possibly killing or harming other lifeforms at the same time, such as insects.
Cutting grass also reduces its ability to be used as a habitat for wildlife, so any Natural Humanists who do have gardens, may choose to plant wildflowers and to allow them to grow naturally, or to carefully nurture wildlife gardens, in any way that is recommended by wildlife charities.
When it comes to their own food, Natural Humanists believe that, as plants do not have any feelings, or suffer pain or distress, it’s the total number of each natural species on the planet that’s important, so eating some plants, before efficiently replacing them with an identical number of new similar plants, is perfectly acceptable, if this is necessary to meet a human need, for example, the need for healthy nutrition.
They believe that what is significantly more important, is that as much as possible of the Earth’s land is wild and biodiverse, and allows as many natural species of wild animals, birds, insects, trees, plants, fungi, and all other living things to thrive, and to live in ‘natural balance’ with each other, as nature intended, rather than land being used solely for human beings’ own benefit, for example, for roads, houses, shops and factories, or for farms, which grow food-crops solely for human-consumption, or for consumption by the pets or farm animals that human beings intend to control, abuse or consume.
Avoiding Animal Cruelty
Natural Humanists avoid consuming any product or service which involves any use or abuse of, or harm to, any living creature and believe that all creatures should have the right not to be treated as property, and not to have their natural rights and freedoms restricted. They acknowledge that cruelty and suffering is an inevitable part of animal farming and that it’s not possible to breed, raise and slaughter animals without causing harm[ii].
They also believe it’s immoral for non-vegans to ‘outsource’ the abuse and murder of all the animals they consume to other people, like farmers. They recognise that, when human beings choose to eat meat, they’re selfishly choosing to require human beings to work in slaughterhouses,[iii] and to have to murder these animals, completely unnecessarily, on their behalf, with each person often having to murder hundreds of animals every day, something that, inevitably, can significantly affect their mental health[iv].
They believe that choosing to be vegan, both reduces the demand for animal products, and shows compassion for other living creatures, all of which share some of our own common ancestors, and all of which we, as a species, have a strong moral responsibility to both respect and protect.
Around 60,000 million land animals and over 1,000,000 million marine animals are used and killed by human beings each year[v], despite the fact that none of us need to use any animal products at all to survive, or to live a happy and healthy life.
They acknowledge that in over 95% of cases, farm animals are killed prematurely. For example, chickens which could live to 10 years old, are often killed for their meat at just 6 weeks old, pigs which could live to 15 years old are killed as young as 4-6 months old, and sheep which could live to 15 years old are killed at just 3-10 months old[vi].
In the UK, around 98% of animal products sold in shops and fast-food restaurants come from intensive farming systems [vii], and over 15% of the meat sold comes from animals which have not even been stunned before they’re murdered, as they’re killed for halal meat[viii].
Whenever humans own, use, farm or eat any animal, that animal, during its lifetime, has invariably been denied one or more of the freedoms, that all human and non-human animals have a moral right to, including freedom from hunger, thirst and malnutrition, freedom from pain, injury and disease, freedom from discomfort, freedom from fear and distress, and freedom to express natural behaviours[ix].
Natural Humanists believe that nobody should ever do anything to any animal, or ever expect anybody else to do that thing to any animal on their behalf, unless they would be happy for their worst enemy to do that same thing, right in front of them, to their own daughter, son, mother or father, against their will, and without obtaining their permission.
As vegans, they’re strongly opposed to all uses and abuses of non-human animals, which, they believe, all have a natural moral right to life, and to freedom. They acknowledge that no animal can consent to being raised for meat, or milk, or eggs, or any other ‘animal product’ and so, whatever conditions we choose to keep them in, farming them is always an immoral and unjustifiable abuse of power,and every single human being who chooses to consume any such food or animal product, is fully personally responsible for this totally immoral and unnecessary abuse and murder.
Meeting the Growing Demand for Meat and Animal Products
Human beings consume 4 times more meat now than they did in the 1960s[x] and, the United Nations’ own Food and Agriculture Organisation, estimated that the amount of meat we produce was expected to almost double again by 2050.
This will double the already huge number of animals that are enslaved, degraded and denied a free and natural life, and will also require the use of more potentially wild, biodiverse land, to house and feed these enslaved animals, while significantly increasing deforestation, global warming, land degradation, pollution and species extinction, as well as reducing the availability of water[xi].
Natural Humanists recognise that the Earth has only a limited amount of viable agricultural land, and that climate change is reducing both the quantity and quality of this land, so animal farming is always a hugely irresponsible and inefficient use of whatever limited amount of land is available[xii].
They recognise that farmed animals consume much more protein, water and calories than we ever obtain from them, when we consume their meat and animal products[xiii], so it’s irresponsible to waste valuable agricultural land, by farming animals, given that, already, 800 million people on Earth don’t have enough food to eat[xiv].
Farming uses about 70% of the world’s accessible fresh water[xv] and it takes at least three times the amount of water to produce food for a meat-eater than to produce food for a vegan. For example, 15,500 litres of water are needed to produce just 1kg of beef, compared to just 180 litres of water to produce 1kg of tomatoes, and 250 litres of water to produce 1kg of potatoes[xvi].
Natural Humanists consider the irresponsible use of water to produce meat to be hugely immoral, not least because many of the crops grown to feed European farm animals are grown in developing countries, where people often don’t even have enough water to drink[xvii]. According to the United Nations, the world will only have 60% of the water it needs by 2030,[xviii]a problem that’s expected to get even worse when the world’s population increases, particularly as, on average, each human being is also expected to increase their own personal consumption of meat[xix].
Natural Humanists acknowledge that human beings kill around 1.6 trillion, that’s 1.6 million million wild animals every year[xx]. This is the equivalent of around 200 wild animals being killed every year for each adult or child on Earth, and, in the last 50 years alone, human beings have wiped out about 70% of all of the animal populations on the planet[xxi].
Every single day, around 2,100 million wild fish are killed for food[xxii] and, worldwide, according to the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation, around 83,300 million farm animals are killed each year, including over 75,000 million chickens, around 749 million geese, over 500 million goats, around 308 million cows, 52 million Guinea Fowl and 3.5 million pigs[xxiii], most of which will have experienced pain, abuse or immoral treatment during their unnaturally short lives.
In just one country alone (the USA), human beings kill about 25 million farm animals every single day (that’s approximately 9,125 million farm animals every year) and in that same country, each year, more than 850 million animals reared for food never even make it to the slaughterhouse, because they’ve already died from stress-induced disease or injury[xxiv] and, in addition to this, hunters in the USA also kill more than 100 million animals every year.
Intelligence
Natural Humanists acknowledge that many non-human animals are capable of empathy and intelligence, with some of the most intelligent thought to be[xxv]: African Gray Parrots, ants, bees, bonobos, cats, chimpanzees, crows, dogs, deer, dolphins, elephants, giraffes, gorillas, Honey Badgers, horses, hyaenas, koalas, llamas, pigs, raccoons, ravens, octopuses, orangutans, orcas, pigeons, Portia Spiders, rats, squirrels and wolves.
Knowing that many animals are intelligent and capable, forces us to question whether they should be imprisoned, enslaved, controlled, degraded and abused, and whether they should ever be killed for our food, but it also raises the question, is it any more morally right to do any of these things to an animal just because it’s less intelligent than these creatures? By way of comparison, would it be more morally acceptable to abuse a child if they had a learning disability, than if they didn’t?
Natural Humanists believe it’s never acceptable to do any of these things, to any human being, or to any other animal, unless this is essential to our health or survival, which in most cases it most certainly is not.
Unnatural Species
Natural Humanists acknowledge that human beings have deliberately ‘de-naturalised’ all of the animal species that they’ve ever domesticated, by unnaturally and immorally ‘selectively breeding’ them, without their consent, to gradually create totally unnatural versions of these animals, just so that they can better suit human beings’ own needs, regardless of any negative impacts that this might have on the animals concerned.
Distressing examples of this are unnatural breeds of dogs like Pugs, which bear little resemblance to the wild wolves from which they were domesticated and selectively bred, who have significant breathing and other problems because of their size and appearance.
Sheep were also originally able to easily shed their wool, naturally, without the help of humans, including by rubbing against things like rocks and trees, but today, they’ve been deliberately bred not to be able to do so, to allow all of their wool to be removed in one go by human farmers, allowing it to be used to make things like woolly jumpers, carpets and other products.
Slavery
Natural Humanists recognise that, worldwide, human beings enslave over 1,000 million animals as their ‘pets’ [xxvi], with dogs and cats being the most common victims of this immoral speciesism.
Human beings first domesticated wild dogs, in Siberia, 19,700 to 26,000 years ago[xxvii] and wild cats around 3,500 years ago[xxviii]. Today, there are around 600 million domestic cats[xxix], and over 900 million dogs in the world[xxx], as well as millions of other domesticated pets, such as hamsters or caged birds, and other animals involuntarily enslaved by humans as their pets, or as things like guide dogs, sniffer dogs, guard dogs, or homing pigeons, as well as those used as involuntary subjects in scientific research, for example, to test cosmetics for humans.
Domestic cats usually receive all the food they need from their human ‘owners’, but, due to their natural instincts, they also kill wild birds, leading to the death of between 1,300 million and 4,000 million birds every single year[xxxi], most of which are totally unnecessary.
For 96% of the time that our own unique species has existed, human beings were hunter-gatherers, who hunted wild animals, and gathered wild plants in nature, all of which had lived totally free and natural lives.
However, just 12,000 years ago[xxxii], at the end of the last ice age, there weren’t enough wild animals to provide us with the food that we needed, and so, in some parts of the world, in order to give us a reliable supply of both food and animal skins (for clothing and shelter)[xxxiii], we started to ‘domesticate’ ‘farm’ animals, which enslaved them, throughout their entire lives, and we also started to use wild land, that had always been shared fairly by countless species of living things, just to grow plants to feed ourselves, and to feed these enslaved ‘farm’ animals[xxxiv].
All of the cattle we farm today originated fromwild aurochs (that are now extinct) [xxxv], all pigs originated from wild boars[xxxvi], all sheep originated from wild Mouflon and Urial[xxxvii],[xxxviii],[xxxix], all goats originated fromwild Bezoar[xl],[xli],[xlii] andall horses originated fromwild horses (either equus ferus, which are now extinct[xliii], or equus przewalskii[xliv], which now only exist in captivity).
Human beings ‘farmed’ domesticated sheep and goats from around 9000 years ago, cows and pigs from about 8000 years ago, alpacas, asses, donkeys, horses, llamas, reindeer and water buffalo from 6000 years ago, and camels and yaks from 4500 years ago[xlv].
As these ‘farmers’ gradually migrated, livestock and arable farming gradually spread worldwide, and the reliable source of food and nutrients that this provided, allowed the world’s human population to increase from about 1 million, before the domestication of animals, to more than 8,200 million today[xlvi], so, our own species has thrived, and massively increased, solely due to the deliberate imprisonment, enslavement and abuse of other living things, and the destruction of wild, biodiverse environments.
Today, over 90% of the world’s food and agricultural products come from less than 10 species of animals,and just 15 species of plants[xlvii]. In fact, modern agriculture is considered to be the main threat to our planet’s biodiversity,[xlviii] has been responsible for the de-wilding of nearly 40% of the Earth’s land[xlix], and has caused a significant proportion of human being’s carbon footprint, while also creating significant pollution, including from fertilisers and pesticides.
Pollution, Carbon Footprint and Mass Extinction
Agriculture is one of the world’s biggest causes of water pollution, with animal farming believed to cause more pollution than arable farming, for example due to the manure and slurry of cattle and other livestock, which contains high levels of nitrogen and phosphorus[l]. This pollutes groundwater, streams, rivers and lakes[li], kills fish, damages the health of other animals, and contributes to harmful acid rain, because of the ammonia in animal waste[lii].
In addition to this, Natural Humanists recognise that avoiding all animal products is one of the most effective ways that we can lower our carbon footprint, and that we can prevent the heavy burden on the environment caused by the production of meat and other animal-derived products[liii], for example, due to the huge amounts of methane and CO2 released by cattle and other farm animals.
Animal farming is damaging the world’s wildlife, due to overgrazing, overfishing, land degradation, desertification, and also deforestation[liv], with huge areas of the world’s forests having been cleared to grow animal feed and graze farm animals, including 80% of all of the deforested land in the Amazon, which is used for cattle grazing[lv].
Animal farming is contributing to global temperature rises of up to 5°C, and agriculture is the biggest cause of air pollution in Europe[lvi]. It’s contributing to the extinction of wild species of plants and animals, and some scientists now believe that truly wild nature has ceased to exist on Earth[lvii]. To quote Greta Thunberg, “we’re in the midst of the sixth mass extinction, with about 200 species going extinct every single day…between 1,000 and 10,000 times higher than…normal”.[lviii]
Not Part of the Plan
A common misunderstanding amongst many meat-eaters is that human beings are somehow ‘meant’ to eat meat, and that veganism is therefore ‘unnatural’ or ‘harmful’ to our bodies. This misunderstanding is often linked to the inaccurate belief that human beings were somehow ‘created’ by a ‘higher-being’, who has a ‘plan’ for us, which includes animals and plants existing solely, or significantly, to serve and feed human beings.
Natural Humanists believe that, in fact, quite the opposite is true. They believe that no ‘higher being’ exists, or has ever existed, and that nature itself is not a ‘being’, like ‘Mother Nature’, and has never had any type of ‘plan’.
Instead, they acknowledge that all human beings, and all other living things, all gradually evolved from the same primitive life forms, over thousands of millions of years, which only occurred by chance, because of huge amounts of slight random variations in the genes of each new offspring, over hundreds of millions of years. For example, each human child’s inherited DNA is believed to contain between 25 and 75 new variations. Historically, some of these variations were beneficial, and so were passed on to all future members of that species, and some were not, so they didn’t get passed on.
Throughout this gradual evolution, human beings, and all of the earlier species from which they evolved, consumed whatever foods happened to be available at the time, and one of human beings’ own direct ancestors, called Australopithecus, ate a plant-based diet,includingfruit, leaves and flowering plants, with very little or no meat at all[lix], and indeed, meat may have only become a significant part of our ancestors’ diet when the Australopithecus eventually evolved into homo habilis (the earliest form of humans, before homo sapiens existed)[lx] and this would have occurred only through necessity, because, at that time, it was either a case of eating meat or starving.
Whatever nutrients happened to be in the foods that our ancestors consumed, were the nutrients that their bodies had no choice but to use to develop into who we are today. If different foods, containing different nutrients had been available instead, then our bodies would have used those nutrients instead and, consequently, would have evolved differently, and would have become dependent on different nutrients today.
Our bodies have therefore evolved to use, and therefore to need, the nutrients that were within foods that were available at important parts of our evolution. Our bodies have no preference as to whether these nutrients come from animals, plants or even vitamin and mineral supplements, as long as our bodies can absorb and make use of them.
What modern human beings’ bodies need is not meat, it’s the nutrients which our ancestors historically obtained from meat, and which our bodies therefore evolved to use and eventually to need.
If we obtain these same nutrients from non-meat sources, then our bodies will be equally healthy, and also, because plants contain thousands of different naturally-occurring ‘phytochemicals’, which are believed to have particular benefits for human beings’ health and longevity, if we choose to obtain all of our bodies nutrients from a fully balanced vegan diet, then we won’t only achieve full nutrition, but we’ll also benefit significantly from these natural chemicals, which do not exist at all in meat, poultry, game, fish, seafood, eggs, milk or dairy products.
Another misunderstanding is that human beings are somehow ‘meant’ to consume cow’s milk, cheese and other dairy products, or that these are essential as a source of calcium.
Not only do human beings not need to consume any milk or dairy products at all, but cows’ own calves don’t even need this milk after they reach maturity, as they get more than enough calcium from the grass and plants that they consume, to ensure the health of their bones, teeth and other bodily systems and functions, so it’s completely unnecessary.
Indeed, human beings have only drunk milk from other animals for around 10,000 years[lxi], which means that animal’s milk didn’t form any part of our diet for 96.7% of the time that our own human ‘homo sapiens’ species has existed on Earth, before which, the only milk we ever drank was our own mother’s breastmilk, as an infant, just as nature ‘intended’.
Natural Humanists recognise that, very importantly, consuming cow’s milk and dairy products goes directly against what our bodies naturally evolved to do, and so, consequently, more than 75% of all of the world’s population, including virtually everyone in Africa and Asia[lxii], can’t properly digest the lactose in milk[lxiii], and so they’re intolerant to milk, making the consumption of milk, cheese and all other dairy products not only unnecessary, but totally inappropriate.
In addition to this, both dairy products and meat, leave an acidic residue in our bodies, after they’ve been digested and metabolised, and our bodies then have to release calcium from our bones, hair, nails, and other parts of our bodies, into our bloodstream, in order to neutralise this potentially harmful acidity, and some of this calcium is then lost in our urine[lxiv],[lxv]. Over a lifetime, this can result in a gradual weakening of the bones, due to calcium loss, so obtaining calcium from animal products is counter-intuitive.
This is even more of a problem for bodybuilders who consume an extremely high protein diet, with large quantities of animal protein. If they consumed this same amount of high-quality protein from vegan foods instead, then this would reduce the risk that their bones would gradually weaken.
Eating any animal protein increases acidity in the body, so consuming animal foods, frequently or in bulk, can negatively affect both our body’s acidity, and our health, including consuming dairy products (like milk, cheese and ice-cream)[lxvi], or eggs, fish, or seafood, or fresh or processed meat (for example chicken, beef, pork or turkey), as well as animal protein supplements[lxvii] and processed foods which are high in sodium[lxviii].
In contrast to this, consuming alkaline foods, helps to preserve our bodies’ bone density[lxix], reduces muscle loss, helps our memory and alertness, preserves our kidneys[lxx] and may potentially extend our lifespan[lxxi].
Naturally, our blood has an acidity level (or pH) of 7.35 to 7.45[lxxii], which is slightly alkaline, so our diet should contain plenty of alkaline foods, including vegan foods like fruit (such as apples, avocados, blueberries, grapefruit, lemons, limes and tomatoes), vegetables (such as cabbage, cucumbers and lettuce), as well as potatoes and legumes (such as chickpeas, lentils and beans (including soya and edamame beans, and soya products like miso, tempeh and tofu), as well as nuts (such as almonds), seeds, olive oil and some wholegrains (such as amaranth, millet and quinoa), as well as herbs and spices and herbal teas (but not mustard, nutmeg or salt)[lxxiii].
In short, Natural Humanists recognise that, quite simply, human beings do not need to eat animals or their products at all, either to survive or to remain healthy, and that the healthiest diet of all, is a well-balanced, wholefood vegan diet, but, despite this, shockingly, every year, the total number of animals raised by humans for food (i.e. imprisoned, abused and usually murdered) is approximately 1,400 million cattle, 1,200 million sheep, 1,000 million domestic pigs,[lxxiv],[lxxv] and over 700 million rabbits[lxxvi].
It’s all about the Balance
Nutritionally-balanced, wholefood vegan diets contain all of the nutrients our bodies need and, according to both the British Dietetic Association[lxxvii], and the National Health and Medical Research Council[lxxviii], they’re suitable for human beings at every age, and at every stage of life, even during pregnancy and breastfeeding[lxxix]. The Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics considers well-planned vegan diets to be suitable throughout our lives, including during pregnancy, breastfeeding, infancy, childhood, adolescence and older adulthood, as well as for athletes[lxxx],[lxxxi]
Vegan diets allow the consumption of more health-promoting plant foods, including wholegrains, fruit, nuts, vegetables, beans and pulses, like lentils, which are high in beneficial fibre, vitamins and minerals[lxxxii].
Natural Humanists believe that all human beings should be free to eat whatever foods they wish to eat, but that they should at least have a knowledge of how they could eat a fully-nutritionally-balanced vegan diet, which meets 100% of their nutritional needs, and which allows them to benefit from the hundreds of naturally-occurring ‘phytochemicals’ in plant foods, like lycopene in tomatoes, which can potentially help to maximise both their short and longer-term health, and their longevity, so that they can choose to live a long and healthy life, without ever having to immorally kill or abuse other living creatures in order to do so.
Natural Humanists acknowledge that both vegans and non-vegans, who consume foods that are surplus to their nutritional needs, increase the risk of their own poor health, and of a shorter lifespan, and increase the risk of them being overweight, or obese, and, perhaps more importantly, they selfishly cause the totally unnecessary death of animals, or plants, which aren’t needed, at all, for their balanced nutrition.
Very importantly, they also recognise that this leads to any land used to produce this unnecessary food, being unavailable for use as natural, biodiverse wilderness, which could have supported hundreds of species of wild creatures, plants, fungi and algae.
They accept that denying such living things a life, due to the misuse of their natural habitat to produce unnecessary excess plant or animal food, is itself the unnecessary causing of harm to living things and so goes directly against their Natural Humanist beliefs. Consequently, Natural Humanists may prefer to only consume vegan foods which their bodies actually need, and to therefore choose not to eat an inefficient and wasteful diet, but instead to eat extremely tasty, filling and nutritionally-balanced foods.
Natural Humanists acknowledge that they’re not ‘cavemen’, who have no knowledge of how to meet all their natural needs fully, and who therefore have to eat everything they can get hold of to survive. Instead, they’re a highly intelligent, knowledgeable, compassionate and advanced species and should therefore allow this to influence all of the decisions that they make in life, including the decision to avoid the enslavement and murder of other species. In other words, they share the Dalai Lama’s belief that, “It’s not enough to be compassionate, we must act.”
Immoral Abuse and Enslavement
Natural Humanists acknowledge that, as well as murdering animals for food, there are a wide range of other ways in which human beings exploit, degrade, enslave, abuse and risk the health and lives of other animals, including[lxxxiii],[lxxxiv]:
- Animals ridden by humans, always without their meaningful consent, either for leisure or while working, like horses and donkeys, as well as camels, elephants, llamas, mules and water buffalo [lxxxv].
- Animals used for control, for example police dogs[lxxxvi].
- Animals used for military purposes, for example horses, camels, dolphins and rats[lxxxvii].
- Animals used to detect cancer, tuberculosis and other diseases, including dogs, rats and bees, or to detect drugs and explosives[lxxxviii].
- Animals used to find and gather items, like pigs and dogs used to find truffles, and monkeys used to collect coconuts[lxxxix].
- Animals used to guard humans and their property, their businesses and their crops, including dogs, geese and llamas[xc].
- Animals used to herd farm animals, like sheepdogs[xci].
- Animals used to pass messages, for example carrier pigeons[xcii].
- Dogs or small horses used to guide humans or assist them emotionally, like guide dogs for people with visual or hearing impairments, or assistance dogs or monkeys for people with physical impairments[xciii].
- Horses, elephants, huskies, goats, reindeer and other animals used to help humans with ploughing, logging and powering machinery, or to help them to move and transport humans and their vehicles, goods and property[xciv].
Natural Humanists avoid all such uses and abuses of animals, which they consider to be cruel, immoral and unnecessary, unless their use is essential to prevent a human beings’ death, or to significantly improve their health.
The Value of Life
Natural Humanists believe that, without exception, all living things are of equal value, but this is in stark contrast to the view of the general population, who tend to value other forms of life according to how ‘valuable’ they are to them personally, or how ‘cute’ they are, or to what extent they share human qualities, such as intelligence or compassion, or the ability to feel fear or pain.
Scientific study, some of which has been abusive, has allowed human beings to appreciate that many animals share many of the same abilities, qualities and needs that were, historically, considered to be unique to humans, for example[xcv]:
African Grey Parrots have a similar or greater ability to use logic and reasoning than most five-year-old humans[xcvi].
Bees have the ability to feel emotions and imagine abstract ideas[xcvii].
Bottlenose Dolphins are often considered the most intelligent non-human animals on Earth, and the part of their brains responsible for processing complex emotions seems to be even more intricate than in humans[xcviii].
Chimpanzees share about 99% of our DNA, are highly sociable, are cooperative, use tools, communicate their emotions, and can develop cultures that are different from other chimps elsewhere[xcix].
Crocodiles can work in groups, seem to assign different roles to each other, based on their size and ability, and can coordinate their actions in sophisticated ways[c].
Crows are intelligent, can remember a human face for years, can teach their offspring about humans they should avoid, can use tools, and can communicate with regional dialects[ci]. Two crows can also experience a situation differently, something that we previously thought only human beings were capable of.[cii]
Elephants have very long memories, being able to recognise other elephants and humans, decades after they last saw them, and they’re also good at problem-solving[ciii].
Orcas (Killer Whales) have large brains, are cultural creatures, and each family of Orcas has their own unique set of behaviours, passed down through the generations[civ].
Octopuses, as well as their ‘main’ brain, have a small brain in each of their tentacles, giving them a total of nine brains, allowing each arm to move, touch and taste independently, they’re also good at problem solving and can use tools[cv].
Orangutans can also use tools, develop their own cultures and use dialects, and can also ‘discuss’ events and objects from the past, which, previously, only humans were believed to be capable of doing[cvi].
Pigs are intelligent, emotional and social animals, experience empathy, can learn to complete complex tasks, and can remember important pieces of information, which can affect their future decisions[cvii].
Rats’ brains are in many ways similar to human beings’, and they can sometimes work things out, and apply learned information, faster than humans,[cviii] and finally:
Ravens, at just 4 months old, can perform just as well at some psychological tests as human toddlers.[cix]
So, rather than being ‘dumb animals’, we now know that many animals have numerous mental abilities that we thought were unique to humans[cx], such as:
Compassion and empathy: The ability to understand and share the feelings of those around us, and to care about others, which is important to many social species[cxi]. This can sometimes include empathy towards human beings, and towards other animals, including comforting, grieving and even rescuing each other from harm at their own expense, including elephants mourning the death of a human, and dogs comforting humans after a traumatic experience, or responding quickly to human crying[cxii].
Consciousness: The ability to be aware of ourselves and our thoughts, memories and feelings[cxiii].
Insight: The ability to work out a solution through means which aren’t obvious[cxiv].
Language: The abilitytocommunicate thoughts and feelings[cxv].
Memory: Including the ability to remember faces, avoid potential threats, and make better decisions about the future[cxvi].
Numeracy, problem solving and reasoning[cxvii].
Sapience or ‘wisdom’: The ability to behave with judgement, for example many older animals share wisdom with younger ones[cxviii].
Spatial cognition: The ability to understand where we are in relation to the world around us, which is an essential part of survival for every creature in the animal kingdom[cxix].
Theory of mind: The ability to attribute mental states to ourselves and others, allowing us to understand that others have beliefs, desires, and mental states that are different from our own[cxx].
Time perception: Not an ability unique to humans, although each species seems to perceive time at different speeds, with smaller animals experiencing the world in ‘slow motion’[cxxi]; and finally:
Use of tools and weapons: An ability of numerous animals, including birds, dolphins, octopuses and pigs[cxxii].
Natural Humanists also recognise and celebrate the fact that many animals have been found, just like human beings, to experience complex emotions, like happiness, joy and respect, as well as shame, grief and fear[cxxiii].
They consider it to be crucially important that, according to research, animals raised in unhappy environments, such as many farms and zoos, are more likely to see the world in pessimistic ways, whereas those raised in happy environments, are more likely to be optimistic[cxxiv].
However, regardless of how interesting these facts may be, this does not, in any way, alter Natural Humanists’ belief that one creature is no less valuable, and no less deserving of respect, or of the freedom to live a natural life, than any other, and that their relative personal abilities and qualities should not affect this at all.
On a personal level, we may each value a member of our own family, more than say a pig, or a tree or a mosquito, but in the grand scheme of things, to Natural Humanists, we’re all of equal value, and all life matters, equally.
Natural Humanists believe that all sentient creatures have the right to live for the whole of their natural lifespan, and to be completely free throughout their lives, just as nature ‘intended’. They believe that choosing to be a vegan is a very effective way of standing up for animals, and of taking a stand against animal cruelty and animal exploitation throughout the world.
Wasting Natural Land
Like all decent, morally-responsible people, Natural Humanists care deeply about their ‘carbon footprint’, which a vegan diet can significantly help them to reduce, but they believe strongly that we should also care about our own personal ‘land footprint’, which is the amount of the world’s land that we personally prevent from being wild, biodiverse wilderness, because of our lifestyle and life choices. This includes our choice to live in a land-inefficient bungalow, rather than a space and land-efficient multi-storey apartment, or our choice to own a car, which increases the need for car parking spaces, driveways and garages.
They acknowledge that our ‘land footprint’ is also affected by our choice to eat land-inefficient meat, rather than vegan foods like tofu, and that, according to 2021 statistics, on average (worldwide), each human being is personally responsible, throughout their life, for the use of 4.05 acres (0.61 hectares or 6,100 square metres) of agricultural land[cxxv], none of which can therefore be shared with the planet’s other species.
Producing vegan foods uses considerably less of the world’s limited land and water than producing animal-derived foods, and so becoming a vegan is one of the easiest, most enjoyable and most effective ways to reduce the impact that we have on the environment[cxxvi].
If every human being on Earth became vegan, emissions of greenhouse gases would reduce by 28% and 76% of all the world’s agricultural land would no longer be needed[cxxvii], [cxxviii], so an area of land the size of Africa, could potentially be permanently rewilded.
Efficient use of the world’s land will also become even more important in the future, due to the increasing problem of food and water insecurity, because of environmental and socio-economic problems, so choosing a vegan diet is an important way of adopting a more sustainable way of living, and of taking a stand against the world’s inefficient and wasteful food production systems, which affect the world’s poorest people far more than the rich [cxxix].
There are 13,000 million hectares of land on Earth, but a massive 37% of this land is selfishly used solely by humans for agriculture[cxxx], of which only 33% is used for crops, but a huge 67% of which is used for farm animals and their feed[cxxxi]. Bearing in mind that some of the Earth’s land is not habitable, this means that as much as half of the world’s habitable land is used for agriculture[cxxxii], preventing any significant biodiversity existing on this massive area of the planet’s land, and, in the UK, it’s even worse, with 71% of all of the nation’s 17.2 million hectares of land being used solely for agriculture[cxxxiii].
The vast amount of grain consumed by animals farmed for their meat, significantly contributes to deforestation of our planet, and leads to the loss of wildlife habitats and the extinction of many species[cxxxiv], as well as contributing to human malnutrition around the world, as it drives people in poor regions to grow animal feed for money, rather than growing food to feed themselves[cxxxv],[cxxxvi],[cxxxvii],[cxxxviii],[cxxxix]. In just one country (Brazil), the equivalent of 5.6 million acres of land is used just to grow soya beans to feed animals in Europe[cxl].
Switching to a vegan diet not only creates a far smaller ‘carbon footprint’, but it also uses far less land to produce food, potentially allowing any unused land to be permanently rewilded, which again reduces carbon in the atmosphere, because of the CO2 removed from the atmosphere when plants and trees grow, something that’s known as the ‘double climate dividend’.[cxli],[cxlii]
The 100% nutritionally balanced vegan diet on the naturalhumanism.co.uk website, contains 100 grams of protein per day (for a 70kg male) and, according to research[cxliii], the amount of agricultural land that’s needed to provide 100g of protein, for one person, for just one day, is:
Lamb and mutton (184.8 m²), beef (from a beef herd) (163.6 m²), dark chocolate (137.9 m²), cheese (39.8 m²), milk (27.1 m²), coffee (27.0 m²), berries and grapes (24.1 m²), beef (from a dairy herd) (21.9 m²), bananas (21.4 m²), apples (21.0 m²), cassava (20.1 m²), citrus fruit (14.3 m²), pig meat (10.7 m²), nuts (7.9 m²), pulses (7.3 m²), tomatoes (7.3 m²), poultry meat (7.1 m²), oatmeal (5.8 m²), eggs (5.7 m²), potatoes (5.2 m²), brassicas (5.0 m²), grains (4.6 m²), rice (3.9 m²), peanuts (3.5 m²), peas (3.4 m²), root vegetables (3.3 m²), wheat and rye (3.2 m²), maize (3.1 m²), onions and leeks (3.0 m²) and tofu (soya bean curd) (2.2 m²).[cxliv]
So, obtaining our protein from lamb or mutton uses 84 times more potentially wild, biodiverse land than obtaining our protein from vegan tofu, and is an incredibly selfish and irresponsible choice, not only because of the amount of land used, but also because of the exploitation, suffering and unnecessary murder that’s involved in producing meat, not to mention the negative effects on human health and the environment, including pollution and global warming.
Worldwide, the total amount of agricultural land used for livestock farming is 2.5 billion hectares (which is about 50% of all of the world’s agricultural land, and is about 20% of all of the land on Earth)[cxlv], all of which is solely used for the benefit of humans, without any consideration for any other natural species of living thing, and 40% of the world’s arable land (used to grow crops) has to be used to produce animal feed,[cxlvi] for example 41% of all of the world’s cereals are used for animal feed[cxlvii].
Some countries use nearly 80% of all their land for agriculture[cxlviii], preventing this land from being used for its original purpose, which was to provide a habitat for thousands of different species of living things, before human beings selfishly ‘stole’ it, to meet their own species’ needs and wants. In 2022, according to the World Bank, 24.79% of the UK’s total land was used for arable farming of crops and, shamefully, over 46% of the UK’s total land is used solely for animal agriculture[cxlix].
Food Insecurity and Malnutrition
‘Food insecurity’ is caused by a country not having enough fertile land to produce the food it requires, or enough wealth to import it[cl] and, because the world’s demand for food may double between 2009 and 2039, particularly in developing countries[cli], global food insecurity is expected to get worse[clii], unless the efficiency of agriculture increases.
Natural Humanists recognise that this could easily be achieved by both switching to a vegan diet, and by using vertical aeroponic agriculture, which is a hugely land-efficient way of growing vegan foods indoors, on shelves, possibly 10 or 100s of shelves high.
Furthermore, they recognise that this could be achieved in a particularly beneficial way, if the world’s richest people and countries helped to level-up global wealth, by funding the large-scale creation and maintenance of these land-efficient vegan aeroponic agricultural facilities in all developing countries.
To extend a well-known saying, ‘Give a man a fish and he’ll feed himself for a day, teach a man to fish, and he’ll feed himself and his family for the rest of his life’, but provide and maintain aeroponic vegan food facilities in developing countries, and you could end global malnutrition and premature childhood and adult deaths forever.
Natural Humanists find it truly shameful that, as a species, human beings already produce enough food to feed everybody on Earth[cliii], but, despite this, nearly 30% of humanity suffers from one or more types of malnutrition[cliv] and, in developing countries, 199 million children under 5 years old suffer from acute or chronic deficiencies of protein and calories[clv] and each year, 11 million children die before they even reach 5 years old, with 6.6 million of these infant deaths being linked to malnutrition[clvi].
This is a huge global problem, and, at the same time as 881 million of the world’s adults are obese[clvii], there are, according to the United Nations[clviii], a massive 2,800 million people who can’t afford to eat a healthy diet, potentially 900 million people who are chronically undernourished, 148 million children under 5 who are affected by stunted growth, and 45 million children under 5 who are suffering from wasting of their bodies.
Natural Humanists believe it’s completely immoral that, despite these shocking facts,we choose to feed about 1/3 of the world’s crops to our enslaved animals[clix]. If, instead, we fed these crops to humans, we could feed an extra 4,000 million people, without using any more land, enough to feed everyone on Earth, even when the human population increases in the future[clx].
This problem is likely to increase, because, according to one estimate, the world’s population is expected to increase from 8,200 million[clxi] to 11,000 million by 2050[clxii], so it’s essential that we, as a species, ensure that we use the Earth’s limited land as efficiently and responsibly as possible, to provide all of the food that we need.
Natural Humanists acknowledge that, as well as the population constantly increasing, each human being’s individual selfish demand for meat, dairy products and fish is also increasing as well,[clxiii] something that will itself significantly increase the destruction of the world’s wild, biodiverse environments, just to meet human beings’ desire for animal-based foods, which no human being needs.
The world’s population has doubled since the 1960s, but meat production has quadrupled,[clxiv] including 4 and a half times the amount of pigs (by weight) in 2013 compared to 1961, and nearly 13 times more chicken.[clxv] This is something that’s expected to get even worse, as the United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organisation has predicted that, by 2050, world meat production will have almost doubled, which will double the amount of animals enslaved, degraded and denied a free and natural life and will significantly increase global warming, pollution, deforestation, land degradation, water scarcity and wild species extinction[clxvi].
The more animals we farm, the more crops we need to grow to feed them, and the more potentially wild, biodiverse land we need to use, to both house and graze these animals, and to grow their feed. Already, 3/4 of the world’s agricultural land is being used for livestock farming, 1/3 of the world’s cereal crops are fed to the animals that human beings eat, and 70% of the world’s fresh water is used for agriculture and most of this is used for farming animals[clxvii],[clxviii].
Antibiotic Tolerance
As well as irresponsibly wasting the Earth’s land, animal farming also involves the widespread use of antibiotics, often to increase growth and prevent disease in perfectly healthy animals[clxix]. This is significantly responsible for the increase in the number of bacteria that have developed the ability to be resistant to these antibiotics, antibiotics which we can’t therefore use on humans, to fight serious, potentially life-threatening infections[clxx], something that England’s Chief Medical Officer for Health, Professor Dame Sally Davis, believed could put us at risk of a ‘post-antibiotic apocalypse’ [clxxi] and this is all in addition to the viruses and bacteria that factory farming allows to grow, potentially making them more deadly to humans[clxxii].
A Long and Healthy Life
As well as helping the planet, wildlife and the poorest human beings on Earth, research suggests that healthy vegan diets can also be significantly beneficial to our own human health.
People on vegan diets seem to be able to maintain excellent health and seem to be healthier than the rest of the population, well into their older age[clxxiii] and research also suggests that a wholesome vegan diet may decrease the risk of Alzheimer’s disease and other dementias[clxxiv].
Importantly, wholefood vegan diets contain more of the natural substances in plants, called ‘phytochemicals’, which have been demonstrated to be beneficial to human health, but don’t exist in animal foods, as well as plenty of nutrients and natural antioxidants, all of which could help to maintain good health in the long-term, and increase each vegan’s lifespan.
Vegans seem to be less likely to die prematurely[clxxv], of diseases like cancer and heart disease, and, overall, vegans may have a 15% lower risk of dying prematurely from all causes, than omnivores[clxxvi], and may potentially live about 5 years longer than the general population, with meat-eaters having the highest death rates of all[clxxvii].
Any increase in the lifespan of vegans is likely to be due significantly to the fact that they tend to eat more fruit, vegetables, wholegrains, legumes, nuts, and seeds[clxxviii], which are packed full of beneficial fibre, vitamins and minerals, and to consume more antioxidants, fibre and plant protein,[clxxix],[clxxx],[clxxxi],[clxxxii] which have been linked to increased life expectancy[clxxxiii],[clxxxiv],[clxxxv] and are believed to protect against some cancers[clxxxvi], which appear to be less common in vegans[clxxxvii], possibly because they’re usually lower in saturated fat, are cholesterol-free and are also free from processed meat[clxxxviii], which the World Health Organization has classified as a cause of cancer[clxxxix].
Vegans don’t eat red or processed meats at all,[cxc],[cxci],[cxcii],[cxciii],[cxciv],[cxcv] and may also consume less of other unhealthy types of processed[cxcvi] or ultra-processed foods, all of which have been linked to chronic health conditions. Consequently, research suggests that it’s only balanced vegan diets, which avoid these processed foods, which are likely to reduce the risk of disease, and potentially increase our lifespan.[cxcvii],[cxcviii],[cxcix]
Vegans also tend to have a lower Body Mass Index (BMI), lower rates of obesity[cc],[cci],[ccii], and lower blood pressure, and wholefood vegan diets are also high in healthy fats, but contain none of the potentially harmful hormones found in many animal-based diets[cciii].
A wholefood vegan diet is full of healthy foods, which give us plenty of energy to fuel our bodies, including healthier ‘complex carbohydrates’, which release their energy gradually, and, indeed, many athletes[cciv] specifically choose a vegan diet to improve their performance.
Vegans generally have the most protective, ‘friendly’ gut bacteria, whereas meat-eaters have the most toxic gut bacteria[ccv], which encourages inflammation and produces harmful substances. A vegan diet can also help to alleviate various bowel conditions[ccvi] and protect us from bowel cancer[ccvii].
Balanced, nutritious vegan diets could reduce the risk of heart disease by as much as 25%[ccviii] and vegans also seem to have a significantly reduced risk of diabetes, dementia and numerous types of cancer[ccix], and are also at lower risk of some other diseases[ccx], as well as having lower cholesterol levels[ccxi], increased energy levels, and generally eating more healthily than any other diet group[ccxii], while still obtaining all of their essential nutrients from plant foods.
Natural Humanists recognise that all of the top seven diet recommendations of the ‘Global Burden of Disease Study’, which are believed to be able to reduce the risk of 90% of all diet-related ill health, can all be easily met by following a healthy vegan diet[ccxiii], with these recommendations being: Avoiding excess salt, eating 150g of whole grains per day, eating 300g of fruit per day, eating 25g of nuts and seeds per day, eating 500g of vegetables per day, consuming 300mg of long-chain omega-3 fats (EPA and DHA) per day and avoiding processed meat[ccxiv].
Food Supplements
Natural Humanists recognise that some vegans choose to use individual vitamin or mineral supplements, which are often a very efficient way of obtaining important nutrients, but that they have to be chosen carefully, to ensure they’re healthy and are sourced, manufactured and packaged ethically, and to ensure that they’re not classed as unhealthy ‘ultra-processed foods’.
They recognise that combined multivitamin and mineral supplements encourage people to consume far too much of certain nutrients, which they’re already obtaining from their diet, which wastes the potentially wild, biodiverse, carbon-absorbing land that’s needed to produce the foods containing the unnecessary nutrients required for these supplements, and these unnecessary supplements can also cause pollution, due to any chemical fertilisers, herbicides and pesticides used.
When supplements rely on farming, there is often little motivation for farmers to use more environmentally responsible farming methods, and, similarly, factories have little motivation to use energy-efficient sustainable methods to manufacture supplements[ccxv]. Also, many supplements come in plastic containers which are not recycled by the consumer, and don’t use recycled plastic in their manufacture, even when this is possible[ccxvi].
However irresponsible some poorly chosen nutrient supplements may be, Natural Humanists recognise that there is nothing more immoral than needlessly murdering or abusing another living creature to obtain our essential nutrition.
Unnaturally Short Lives of Enslavement and Abuse
Natural Humanists recognise that, for animals like the 1,470 million cattle and 1,100 million sheep on the planet[ccxvii], their eventual fate, on our plate, was decided before they were even born.
Cows
Beef cows are murdered for their meat when they’re as young as 11 to 12 months old and, during the first week of their lives, they’re usually castrated and have their horn buds chemically burnt out without anaesthetic[ccxviii]. Before being slaughtered, they’re often crammed into fattening sheds, with little room to move, so they can put on weight and increase their financial value to the farmer.[ccxix]
Chickens
Natural Humanists recognise that, as well as human beings selfishly and totally unnecessarily being responsible for the abuse, enslavement and murder of cows, there are also a massive 26,500 million chickens on Earth[ccxx], most of which exist solely to feed human beings,[ccxxi],[ccxxii]and we kill 200 million of these chickens every day, which is 73,000 million chickens every year,[ccxxiii] a number that’s growing all the time, because both the human population and our demand for protein are continuing to grow [ccxxiv].
Most of the chickens that are eaten worldwide, are murdered at just six weeks old, and spend the whole of their disgracefully short life, inside a windowless shed, possibly with 30-40,000 other chickens, with each having only a space the size of a sheet of A4 paper[ccxxv]. They’ve been deliberately bred to reach ‘slaughter size’ in just 41 days, so grow at an unhealthy rate, which sometimes cripples their bodies and leaves many unable to reach food or water[ccxxvi].
Pigs
Natural Humanists acknowledge that pigs are just as intelligent, if not more intelligent, than dogs[ccxxvii], yet most pigs bred for meat are kept in intensive factory farms, where they’re unable to express their natural behaviours[ccxxviii], often crammed into overcrowded sheds, on hard floors, with nothing to do[ccxxix].
Most mother pigs are restrained in farrowing crates to give birth, barely able to move for up to five weeks at a time[ccxxx]. Piglets are then denied their mother’s milk from 3-4 weeks old, which can lead to severe diarrhoea and digestive problems[ccxxxi] and is usually treated with drugs and antibiotics, which have contributed to the development of superbugs[ccxxxii]. Many piglets also have to suffer deliberate mutilations of their bodies, including ‘teeth clipping’ and ‘tail docking’, both without anaesthetic [ccxxxiii], before they’re finally murdered, often at just 5-6 months old[ccxxxiv].
Immoral Vegetarian Diets
Natural Humanists believe that all farming of animals and fish for their meat is immoral and cruel, but also believe strongly that it’s just as immoral to choose a vegetarian diet, rather than a vegan diet, as vegetarian diets rely heavily on milk, cheese, dairy products and eggs, which involve enslaving animals, throughout their deliberately short lives, and requiring them to have an unnatural lifestyle and to suffer numerous abuses, before they’re eventually murdered when they become ‘commercially unviable’.
They believe that each vegetarian is personally responsible for all of the abuse and murder of the cows and hens which supply them with milk, dairy products and eggs, and all of the products like cakes and chocolate that are made from them, and that this is particularly immoral, as vegan alternatives to most foods and edible luxuries are now freely available.
Milk and Dairy Production
Cows can only provide a continuous supply of milk and dairy products for humans, including vegetarians, who often consume more of them than meat-eaters, if they continuously become pregnant and give birth to calves[ccxxxv]. This is often done forcibly, by artificial insemination, or by fencing lots of young female cows into a small area, while one bull inseminates all of them,[ccxxxvi] similar to one ‘alpha male’ being locked into a local secondary school, until he impregnates every single young female.
Despite the strong bond between mother and baby, calves are usually quickly taken away from their mothers[ccxxxvii], usually within 24 hours of being born, which is believed to cause significant distress to both the mother and the calf[ccxxxviii],[ccxxxix], with each mother having to endure this 4 or 5 times[ccxl],[ccxli] during her life, before she’s murdered, when her efficiency as a ‘producer of dairy products’ deteriorates.
Male calves are usually shot at birth, because they’re totally useless to the dairy industry[ccxlii], whereas female calves replace their mothers as ‘milk machines’, just to meet the unnatural human demand for another species’ milk, spending their unnaturally short lives either pregnant, giving birth or producing milk, which can lead to a variety of health and welfare issues[ccxliii].
A minority of male calves are sent away to be reared for veal, spending their lives in unnatural veal crates, whereas cows who are ‘lucky’ enough to be born female are murdered when their milk production decreases, often at just 3 or 4 years old[ccxliv], which is long before the end of their natural 25 year lifespan[ccxlv]and, in ‘human years’, is the equivalent to murdering children at just 11 years old[ccxlvi] because they’re no longer ‘useful’.
Spending most of this short life being continually milked, can put cows at risk of mastitis[ccxlvii], a painful udder infection, which is believed to be the main reason why dairy cows are murdered before they reach the end of their already short ‘economically-viable’ life[ccxlviii],[ccxlix]. Keeping female cows indoors, often for at least half of their lives, can also lead to them becoming lame[ccl], because of their unnatural surroundings.
Egg Production
When it comes to human beings choosing to eat eggs, which again, vegetarians often eat more of than meat-eaters, Natural Humanists acknowledge that most of the world’s eggs come from hens that are usually kept in huge sheds, sometimes with thousands of other birds, some of which never see daylight.[ccli] Even in the European Union, up to 9 birds can be kept in just one square metre of floor space, stacked, shelf upon shelf, as long as they’re given some kind of access to the outdoors, but, in such confined spaces, few birds actually make it outside. The European Union also allows ‘enriched’ cages with less than 25cm x 25cm (600cm²) of usable space, which is less than the size of a piece of A4 paper[cclii].
In the UK, even farmers of free-range and organic hens are allowed to cut off a large portion of each hen’s beak[ccliii], which can lead to both acute and chronic (long-term) pain[ccliv]. Beak trimming often occurs without anaesthetic, and is only necessary to reduce feather pecking, which is a behaviour caused by their poor environmental conditions[cclv]. Hens’ beaks are sensitive and this debeaking means that they can’t preen or explore properly[cclvi].
In the wild, hens would only lay 20 eggs a year, but modern farming can involve hens being subjected to almost constant lighting, and being fed high-protein feed, which increases their egg production to over 300 eggs a year[cclvii].
Chickens would naturally live to 7 years old, but the female chickens that produce eggs for humans, are usually murdered after just 1 year of producing eggs[cclviii], because they become less ‘efficient’ as ‘egg laying machines’.
The production of eggs, even ‘ethical’ or ‘free range’ eggs, also usually involves newborn male chicks being murdered almost immediately after they hatch, as they’re no good for either egg or meat production, so they’re often thrown, alive, into an industrial grinder or, in the UK, are gassed to death. In the UK alone, over 40 million new chicks are killed, each year, when they’re just one day old[cclix].
Hens are intelligent, inquisitive animals, but, on farms, they’re often unable to perform any of their natural behaviours, like building a nest, dust-bathing and foraging[cclx], and their confined and crowded conditions can seriously affect their physical and mental health, sometimes leading to abnormal stress-induced behaviour, broken bones, osteoporosis and malignant tumours[cclxi].
Natural Humanists consider that humans who choose to eat eggs, are personally responsible for all of this murder, abuse and degrading treatment, even though they’ve chosen to ‘outsource’ their abuse to a farmer.
Animal Experiments
Natural Humanists acknowledge that it’s not just eating and wearing parts of animals, or consuming their milk or eggs, that’s hugely immoral, but also deliberately imprisoning and abusing them, in order to carry out animal experiments.
According to Humane Society International[cclxii], an estimated 115 million animals are used and/or killed in laboratory experiments worldwide each year, including birds, cats, dogs, farm animals, fish, guinea pigs, mice, rabbits, rats and non-human primates. This is despite the fact that the effectiveness of this research and testing has often been found to be questionable and ignores the fact that it can cause severe disease, pain and discomfort, with pain relief often not being provided to these animals[cclxiii].
Many Natural Humanists choose not to consume any product tested on animals, or tested on animals since they became vegans, and acknowledge that new versions of many cosmetics and medications often need to be tested on animals, when perfectly adequate alternatives to these products already exist. However, many Natural Humanists acknowledge that, like all other species of living creature, humans themselves have a right to survive, and a right to cause harm or death to another animal, if this can prevent their own death, or a deterioration in their own health, and so, in such cases, they may choose to accept medication, or other products, that have either been tested on animals, or contain animal products.
The Solution
Natural Humanists believe, strongly, that no animal should ever be owned by, or abused, degraded or murdered by, any human being, and that everybody who does not live an ethical vegan lifestyle, is responsible for all of this immoral treatment of these living creatures. They believe that veganism, is a hugely effective way, of stepping outside this circle of deliberate exploitation, abuse and murder, and of standing up for animals[cclxiv].
Natural Humanists follow an ethical vegan lifestyle, avoiding ever eating meat, game, poultry, fish, seafood, milk, dairy products and honey, or eating, wearing or using anything made using animal products, such as leather, wool, silk, bone, or ivory.
They also avoid any harmful, degrading or abusive contact with animals, for example, they don’t ever use animals for labour, for transport, for entertainment, or ever ‘own’ and enslave them without their consent, as pets or other domesticated animals, such as horses and farm animals, unless they owned them before becoming a vegan.
They don’t ride horses, donkeys or other animals, or gamble on horse-races, or support zoos for entertainment and they don’t consume products which have been tested on animals since they became vegan, unless doing so is essential for their health or survival, such as certain medication.
They believe that sharing this planet with other wild animals, and having the opportunity to witness their natural beauty and behaviour, is a source of true joy, but that capturing, imprisoning, degrading, abusing, murdering and denying natural rights and freedoms to any animal, with whom all human beings share common ancestors, is most certainly not, and, that this should, instead, be a source of deep shame to all human beings.
They recognise and celebrate the fact that, every time they shop, or order food in a restaurant, and every time they eat, they can choose to help and protect enslaved animals, can demonstrate their own human compassion and respect for other living creatures, and can demonstrate their ‘oneness’ with all other living things.
Natural Humanists believe that, if what we choose to do in our lives causes harm, then we should know that it causes harm, and we should take full responsibility for trying to reduce or eliminate this harm.
They believe that human beings should always be free and should never be judged for the free choices they make, but they also share Nelson Mandela’s belief that, “with freedom, comes responsibility”, and, “all of our choices have consequences”, so, because Natural Humanists know and care about these consequences, they choose to let this influence how they live every part of their lives.
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References
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