Does a vegetarian diet help animals?
Animal rights activists promote veganism as the foundation of an ethical lifestyle. As long as we are using animals in any way, we are usually promoting animal suffering and always promoting the idea that animals are our property—here for our use. But while vegan lifestyle is the ideal, it remains well outside of mainstream culture. It’s tough for many people to even contemplate. Some refuse to consider veganism at all; others feel the need to approach it in a stepwise fashion. And often, the first step is a lacto-ovo vegetarian diet. Surprising as it might seem, some animal rights activists argue that a lacto-ovo vegetarian diet actually harms animals more than it helps them. They point out that vegetarian diets draw a distinction between animal flesh and animal products—dairy and eggs. That’s truly a problem, because that distinction is entirely false. The animals used for dairy and egg production suffer every bit as much as animals raised for their meat. In fact, they probably suffe
