For the animals, the environment and you!Thousands of Canadians and millions of North Americans identify themselves as vegetarian or vegan. A vegetarian is someone who enjoys a plant-based diet, but who consumes animal by-products such as eggs and dairy products. Vegans on the other hand eschew all animal products and by-products in food and in clothing (fur, leather, wool, silk, etc.). Further, vegans chose to buy "cruelty-free" cleaners and toiletries. Thus, while "vegetarian" may describe a diet, “vegan” more often embodies a lifestyle -- an ethical commitment to live, as much as possible, in a way that does not harm, exploit or kill animals. The numbers of vegetarians and vegans in North American have been climbing rapidly in recent years. This shift to vegetarianism reflects the discoveries by people that the standard Western diet based around animal products is not only linked with various forms of disease, but also contributes to various forms of environmental destruction or degradation and involves horrible cruelty to animals.
ARK II opposes the use of animals for human consumption. We also believe that campaigns to make the public believe that the grisly business of turning fish, birds, and mammals into food can be done in a "humane" fashion send the wrong message. Whether animals are reared intensively on factory farms or in "free-range" conditions, their lives are completely controlled, and profit is what matters most to those who own them. Supposed improvements in the living and dying condition of animals do not alleviate their suffering. A vegan diet goes much farther to address the suffering and cruelty inherinet in a meat-based diet.
In addition, from an environmental perspective, "improved animal welfare" simply cannot work in a world of six billion people. More space allotted to raise animals for the wealthy to eat does not improve the overall welfare of nonhuman animals throughout the world. Instead, it continues to flaunt the image of people eating other animals as a sign of affluence and well-being.
ARK II believes in broadening our moral scope beyond humans and acting upon our knowledge that other animals have an interest in not being treated as commodities, and thus in adopting a purely plant-based diet.
