How we’re sleepwalking towards a potentially far worse global pandemic than that seen in recent years - Jane Tredgett

Either way, we’re sleepwalking towards a potentially far worse global pandemic than that seen in recent years. It’s time to wake up and realise that our obsession with animal flesh will be the death of us.

Zoonotic diseases (those borne of animals) are always labelled ‘low risk’ – until they aren’t. One minute, we’re allowing ourselves to be comforted by the notion that infected birds will be ‘humanely killed’, and the next, we’re saying our final goodbyes to loved ones over FaceTime because we’re not allowed on the hospital ward where their lungs are failing. The Covid-19 pandemic that took more than 230,000 lives in the UK is believed to have resulted from animals’ bodily fluids mingling together at a blood-soaked wet market, and factory farms are similarly breeding grounds for disease.

Chickens are clever, curious birds with memories that rival those of elephants. Each is an individual who experiences pain and emotions, just like the animals with whom many of us share our homes. An estimated 11 million hens in the UK are crammed into filthy windowless sheds for their eggs, and 100 million more chickens are languishing on factory farms, exploited for their flesh.

These buildings – which are so densely populated workers sever the sensitive beaks and delicate toes of the birds within to stop them from pecking and clawing one another while jostling desperately for space – are lit only by artificial light to manipulate growth and egg production. The stench of urine, faeces, and death hang heavy in the air, and these sheds are ripe with pathogens. As Dr Michael Greger writes in his book, Bird Flu: A Virus of Our Own Hatching, “If you actually want to create global pandemics, then build factory farms.”

While cloistered away from human sight, chickens (and turkeys, ducks, and geese) are bred to grow unnaturally rapidly, causing their legs to buckle and their feet to blister. At mere months old, they’re stuffed onto lorries bound for a slaughterhouse, where they’re scalded in de-feathering tanks – sometimes to death – then shackled upside down so workers can cut their throats, often while they’re still conscious.

If you’re reading this thinking that misleadingly named humane meat is a kinder, safer option, think again. ‘High welfare’ claims are designed to comfort humans, not animals, and investigation after investigation proves that animals’ well-being always takes a backseat to profit, no matter what the consumer is promised.

Welfare schemes aren’t the answer – our buying power is. By refusing to purchase the products of animal farming, we shape a future that not only is kinder to all living, feeling beings but also helps lower disease risk and subvert climate change.

That’s not to say you must live on Brussels sprouts and beans if you don’t want to. There’s a plethora of delicious upgrades to chicken flesh (and any other flesh you can imagine) made from plants readily available in every supermarket, including the succulent fillets and tenders offered by Yorkshire’s own VFC. By choosing vegan foods, we don’t just help the animals confined to production prisons, we also help free ourselves from the risk of a pandemic that could make Covid-19 look like a dress rehearsal.

Jane Tredgett is farming and corporate projects liaison at People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA).