You have to give credit where credit is due, doing street-based outreach isn’t an easy gig; no two conversations will ever be alike despite the topic being the same. There is a certain element of uncertainty that fills the air when a conversation turns south; the verbal attacks become heated, tensions rise and someone storms off from an outreacher, often spitting angry looks and words towards other AV outreachers as they go, indignant about being told what their money is truly paying for: the en mass slaughter and routine abuse of some of Earth’s most gentle animals in ways that are straight out of a horror movie.

The human race wandered to a very dark place with the advent of factory farming and the reason these industries don’t want you to know what they really do to animals behind the un-monitored walls of slaughterhouses and animal agriculture farms, is because the truth is bloody, violent and evil.

Each time I go to a Cube of Truth I find myself going over and over the outreach conversations I had, brainstorming better responses that would have either helped me make my point, or better yet, provide information that can help people see that there is no room to adopt a reductionist attitude towards animal abuse and consuming animal products.

For many people, speciesism is the first prejudice learned in life – we are taught to love cats, dogs and horses, but that the rape, torture and murder of other animals is okay because we like the way they taste.

As a civilisation we have condemned certain species’ of animals to the most inhumane of existences – taking these thinking, feeling, loving animals and inflicting violence and abuse from the very moment they are born, until the last, horrific final moments before having their throat slit; all so that these industries can turn the remnants of their abused bodies into “products” like sandwiches and shoes.

Is it not the height of arrogance to claim that our desire for a particular taste should justify the atrocities that we commit against these innocent animals?

A lot of people I talk to are genuinely shocked when they witness the reality of these industries for the first time; certainly no one wants to be thought of as someone who condones animal abuse – the sad reality, however, is that most people are still walking around completely set in their brainwashed cognitive dissonance, failing to make an empathetic association between the dismembered body parts and secretions they consume and the animals themselves, innocent beings who did nothing to deserve such a life.

It is possible to shut down these industries, to end the animal holocaust and abolish animal slavery once and for all, but we can only make it happen if we keep on having these tough conversations with people; that’s why I keep going – so that I can help more people make the connection to the “why” of veganism: the victims.

It should be illegal for the meat and dairy indstries to be able to broadcast campaign ads that blatantly lie to consumers, mis-information that creates the belief we need meat and dairy in order to be healthy and strong when, in reality, it is these very products that are making us sick. Sadly, most people would prefer to take a pill for a medial condition rather than opting for food that could actually reduce the effects of, or even alleviate altogether, said condition.

Isn’t it sad that we still live in a world where it is legal for babies to be ripped from their mothers mere moments after birth only to have their throats slit just so we can steal their breast milk and pour it on our cereal?

Unfortunately there is little in this world that we have control over as individuals, but you can make a difference by simply discontinuing your support of these animal abuse industries – choose to live with kindness and go vegan, it will be the best decision you ever make.

I often hear the objection that it’s “too hard” to go vegan, but which of these is truly harder – doing a Google search in the supermarket for a plant-based alternative, or physically enduring the process of being an animal in the industries that profit from abusing them? No contest, right? Nothing could ever possibly be harder than being in the victim’s position and this is why we fight for justice.

We are living tomorrow’s history lesson, so which side of history do you want to be on?

The only thing we need from animals is their forgiveness.