Hello!

Today I would like to share with you an interaction I recently had on my favorite vegan blog, girliegirlarmy.com

This blog is one you should really all be reading if you are at all interested in vegetarianism or veganism. They really do a good job and are truly passionate about the cause.

Well the other day they posted this trailer for a new documentary about the meat, egg, and dairy industries. I hesitated awhile, wondering, should I watch this trailer? I knew it would be hard to watch, but I felt it would be good for me to remind myself and further educate myself about the truth of what goes on. Sometimes as a vegan or vegetarian your resolve can slacken. You wonder, would it really hurt to just eat fish or buy a pair of leather shoes. But every time I have seen or read descriptions of what goes on at these factory farms, there is no longer any doubt in my mind about these things. So I pressed play.

I made it about 5 to ten seconds in before I pressed stop.

It was too truly disturbing.

And yet the camera doesn’t lie. This is what goes on.

I wrote the following comment on the blog post:

hey guys, love your blog. but i’m wondering, did you guys really watch this? I couldn’t do it. I tried for like 5 seconds and in that five seconds there were already about ten haunting and horrifying images. the problem with educating people about what goes on in the meat dairy egg and leather industries is that the footage is too horrible to watch. i want to send it to my family etc (who aren’t vegetarian or vegan) but i don’t really want them to watch it either. i guess i’m just wondering your opinion on this. I want to know more and educate others too, but asking people to watch animals suffering unimaginable pain is just really hard and asking so much. i’d just love to hear your thoughts.

I checked back today and I got two excellent responses, reprinted here.

Sammy (cleaninggirl) wrote:

tor, I watched this cried like a baby then posted it on my lj site, twitter AND facebook so that others can watch sometimes we need to put our heart in a box and watch something like this even if it’s only a minute so we can be reminded WHY we now longer eat meat, dairy, eggs ect I know in my heart I could never go back to what I was before I became a vegan it was ugly and if it wasn’t for videos like this I would probably be in that horrible place I was in 2 1/2 years ago. I have shown my Mom one of the videos that came out last year involving the shows that were being pitch forked ect and she swore off beef for good, so it does help some people make the right choices for animals.

Challah Girl added:

Just today my mother responded to one of my blog postings talking about how she wishes I would “keep my ideas to myself” when it comes to the mistreatment of animals we use for food.

Things like this keep my focused on my goals even under all the negative feedback I get from the people I love.

It may be hard for me to endure the commentary that comes from telling people the truth – but it is far worse what the animals are going through.

I’m resolved to endure the challenges.

Great post!

These commenters make excellent points and are to be commended for their bravery.

“It is hard to endure the commentary that comes from people telling the truth”

“sometimes we need to put our heart in a box and watch something like this even if it’s only a minute so we can be reminded WHY we now longer eat meat, dairy, eggs ect”

I feel what this comes down to is bravery. You’ve got to be brave to face the truth.

What do you guys think? Deep down I know I do need a reminder and so many people would benefit from seeing this (not to mention animals), but it’s hard to be strong/brave enough to endure it and to be the bearer of bad news.

here is a link to the trailer, should you choose to watch it.

We need people like mercyforanimals.org (the creators of the documentary) who are brave enough to make movies like this.

Heros.

thoughts?