Letter: Meat industry is scary

I was never scared of all the witches, zombies and assorted goblins that will be wandering around on Halloween. What really used to scare me was the meat industry.

This is the industry that mutilates, cages and butchers billions of cows, pigs and other feeling animals, that exposes thousands of undocumented workers to crippling workplace injuries at slave wages, that exploits farmers and ranchers by dictating wholesale prices and that then jails those who document its abuses through unconstitutional “ag-gag” laws.

It’s the industry that generates more water pollution than any other human activity and more greenhouse gases than transportation and then promotes world hunger by feeding nutritious corn and soybeans to animals.

It’s the industry that threatens our public health with increased risk of killer diseases, that creates antibiotic-resistant pathogens by feeding antibiotics to animals and that then bullies health authorities to remove anti-meat warnings from their public messages.

Now that’s really scary stuff.

But instead of being scared, I decided to fight back by dropping animal products from my menu. I am no longer scared of the meat industry, and I invite everyone to join me.

Andrew Torelli

Aspen