You know I agree with you fundamentally/idealistically on these issues. However, vet school makes things a little muddier. I never realized before how many jobs are tied up in the meat, dairy, and fish industry. Our meat export industry is huge. The BSE scare a few years ago lead to a ban on importing US beef in many countries, and we lost millions of dollars domestically. So, we need to weigh some of those issues as well. Yes, everyone eats too much meat. Yes, conditions are generally less than ideal. But we have to ask ourselves if we’re able to really return to 100% traditional farming. Although a smaller farm run in the traditional family farm manner does require more workers per animal than a large factory farm, even with reduced meat intake I’m not sure we could support the need with the number of traditional farms we’d be able to support. So, overall there’s a loss of jobs to unskilled workers, arguably those who can least afford to have shrinkage of their job market.

Check it out.

I only eat locally caught fish, with an occasional salmon fillet thrown in. I hadn’t considered the pain in death problem for fish because they die so quickly. See, the whole animal farm thing creeps me out and has really changed how I shop for food. Have you read “An Omnivores Dilemma”. Eye opening!