Blog

We’re hurtling through the sixth mass extinction. Climate targets are evaporating. Governments are playing dress-up with sustainability pledges. But the conversation rarely lands where it needs to: the food bowl of your companion animal.A new <a data-mce-href="https://www.publish.csiro.au/PC/PC24071" href="https://www.publish.csiro.au/PC/PC24071" target="_blank" rel="noopener">study</a> published in Pacific Conservation Biology has laid it out in plain terms. The environmental impact of dogs - yes, your beloved companion - is “far greater, more insidious, and more concerning than is generally recognised.”It’s not just about the flesh in their food (we’ll get to that). The study’s authors, Philip W. Bateman and Lauren N. Gilson of Curtin University, point to something even more sobering: dogs kill and disturb wildlife directly, even just by existing. Their scent lingers. Their excreta pollutes waterways and transmits zoonoses. Even leashed, even silent, even still, dogs displace animals and degrade habitats.And then there’s the rest.Globally, there are <a data-mce-href="https://globalpetindustry.com/news/global-pet-population-at-1-billion-cats-lead-the-way/" href="https://globalpetindustry.com/news/global-pet-population-at-1-billion-cats-lead-the-way/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">around 1 billion cats and dogs</a>. That’s 900 million hungry mouths, most of them being filled with the flesh of other animals - animals bred, confined, and slaughtered solely to be processed into companion animal feed. The industry responsible for feeding cats and dogs now consumes at least <a data-mce-href="https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0291791" href="https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0291791" target="_blank" rel="noopener">20% of all farmed land animals.</a> In the U.S., pet food accounts for up to 30% of the environmental impact of livestock farming.<a data-mce-href="https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0181301" href="https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0181301" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Thirty percent!</a>You can’t claim to care about the climate while pretending this is a side issue. Pet food isn’t a bystander in the environmental crisis. It’s a main character. The Byproduct Lie“But it’s just byproducts!” people say, as if that makes it acceptable.Let’s be clear. “Byproducts” aren’t waste - they’re profit. They’re factored into slaughterhouse business models. In the cow industry, they make up over <a data-mce-href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s13197-011-0290-7" href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s13197-011-0290-7" target="_blank" rel="noopener">11% of total profits</a>. In pig slaughter, it’s 7.5%. This isn’t about cleaning up scraps. It’s about turning every part of a body into cash. And your dog’s food is part of that chain.Feeding pets “byproducts” doesn’t reduce animal exploitation. It increases demand. The more companion animals we feed this way, the more animals have to be killed. It’s not ethical. It’s not efficient. It’s just more exploitation disguised as convenience. A Full-Blown Climate LiabilityAnimal agriculture is one of the biggest contributors to greenhouse gas emissions - responsible for at least 14.5% of global emissions, <a data-mce-href="https://ko-fi.com/post/Fossil-Fuels-Are-Bad-Animal-Agriculture-Is-Worse-A0A31BCSD5" href="https://ko-fi.com/post/Fossil-Fuels-Are-Bad-Animal-Agriculture-Is-Worse-A0A31BCSD5" target="_blank" rel="noopener">probably much more</a>. The pet food industry is a massive contributor, but somehow escapes scrutiny.It shouldn’t.Feeding a single large dog a flesh-based diet has a <a data-mce-href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1470160X18304552?via%3Dihub" href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1470160X18304552?via%3Dihub" target="_blank" rel="noopener" data-mce-selected="inline-boundary">bigger carbon footprint than the average person in Japan</a>. Multiply that by hundreds of millions of dogs and cats, and you’ve got a climate disaster that no one’s talking about.And it’s not slowing down. Companion animal populations are exploding - fueled by falling birth rates, rising incomes, and a booming pet industry. Every new mouth increases emissions, land use, and water consumption. This isn’t fringe. This is structural.This isn’t about blame. It’s about truth. If you’re rejecting animal use in your own life, but still pouring it into your companion’s bowl, there’s a contradiction staring you in the face.It’s time to face it. We Know Better. We Can Do Better.The good news? We don’t have to keep doing this.Plant-based pet food exists. It’s complete. It’s safe. It’s proven. Dogs can thrive on it - cats can too, with properly formulated diets including essentials like taurine and other nutrients. Even the British Veterinary Association has dropped its outdated opposition.And the benefits? Enormous.If the world’s dogs were fed a plantbased diet, we could save more emissions than the entire UK produces annually. We could feed 450 million people with the freed-up food energy. We could spare 6 billion land animals every single year.Add cats to the equation, and you’re talking about over 7 billion animals saved annually.This is what a tipping point looks like. The Industry Is Already ShiftingThe vegan pet food market was worth $10.3 billion in 2024 and is on track to nearly double by 2034. Cultivated flesh for companion animals was approved in the EU. Plant-based and precision-fermented proteins are already on the shelves. This isn’t theory - it’s happening.Because once you realise what flesh-based pet food really is - an industrialised animal-killing, climate-wrecking operation in disguise - you can’t unsee it.And more importantly, you can’t keep supporting it. Still Think It’s a Personal Choice?Feeding your companion animals flesh isn’t neutral. It’s not private. It’s not harmless. It props up factory farming. It fuels climate collapse. It competes with food systems already strained by inequality and overconsumption.And no, “just feed them less” isn’t the solution. The problem isn’t portion size - it’s the system. So, What Now?1. Switch to plant-based: Transition your companion animals to nutritionally complete vegan food. Start with 50% if you're unsure. Build from there.2. Adopt, don’t shop: Every animal bought sustains demand. Rescued animals need homes. Choose adoption.3. Speak up: Talk about it. Share the data. Confront the silence. This is a climate issue, an animal issue, and a justice issue.4. Support alternatives: Cultivated, fermented, and plant-based brands are changing the game. Back them.5. Stop pretending: If you believe in ending animal exploitation, you can’t ignore the role of pet food. No More ExcusesWe have the research. We have the food. We have the infrastructure. What we’re lacking is courage - and honesty.The climate is collapsing. The slaughter industry is bleeding every revenue stream dry - including your companion’s diet. You want to help? Start by rethinking what you’re pouring into that bowl.Because that’s not a personal choice. That’s a planetary one.

Pet Food Is a Climate Bomb

The broiler chicken industry doesn’t farm animals. It manufactures corpses.These birds aren’t “chickens” in any meaningful sense anymore. They’re unnatural products - engineered to balloon in size faster than their bones can hold and their hearts can manage. From 1957 to 2005, the growth rate of these beings increased by over 400%. They now gain more than 60 grams a day. Many collapse under their own weight. Some die before they even reach the slaughter line.This isn’t progress. It’s slavery with extra steps. Individuals or Units of Production?Efficiency means turning individuals into commodities more quickly. The question isn’t “how can we meet their needs?” It’s “how can we extract the most flesh in the shortest time?”The result? Birds bred to break. They can’t walk. They sit in their own waste. Skin burns, footpad lesions, skeletal collapse - it’s all routine. They’re so deformed they can barely reach food or water. They don’t live. They exist, briefly, to be used.These birds are denied not only freedom but also function. Chickens in nature scratch, perch, roost, forage, dust-bathe, explore. Broilers bred for profit don’t do any of that - not because they don’t want to, but because they physically can’t.Their free living ancestor, the red junglefowl, can live for over a decade in nature. The birds we’ve modified to serve us are killed in just 5 to 7 weeks. Killing Them from the Inside OutTheir internal organs fail. Their bodies grow too fast for their hearts to cope. Cardiac arrest, fluid build-up, heat exhaustion - they die by design. The system doesn’t care. There are always more to breed.This isn’t about welfare. This is about power. This is about control over another species so absolute that we’ve remade their very biology to suit our demand for cheap breast meat.Slower-growing chickens - still exploited, still killed - show fewer of these extreme failures. But they are still owned, still used, still denied the most basic freedom: the right not to be live as property for someone else’s gain. Parents in PrisonAnd the birds forced to reproduce this misery?Broiler breeders are genetically wired to grow rapidly, just like their offspring. But to keep them alive long enough to lay eggs, the industry deliberately starves them. Not metaphorically - literally. Feed-restriction is the norm.This chronic hunger leads to aggression, pecking, cannibalism. Psychological collapse is built in. Once again, the industry creates the problem, then profits from the aftermath.Even the so-called “better” breeds still live under lock and key, still forcibly bred, still slaughtered or discarded when no longer useful. There is no version of this system that respects autonomy. Welfare Won’t Fix ThisSome campaigners argue for slower-growing breeds. Longer lives. Bigger cages. Better enrichment. But here’s the truth: you can’t make commodification ethical by padding the cell.Slower growth means more land taken from wild animals. More crops grown to feed more bodies over longer lives. More pollution. More displaced free living animals. More lives, not fewer.It’s not just that welfare “reforms” fail to protect animals. They actively increase the environmental cost of using them. Factory farming is awful - but it’s also more “efficient” in terms of land use than these “high welfare” alternatives. It kills fewer free living animals and uses fewer resources.That’s the choice the industry - and its defenders - offer us:&nbsp;&nbsp;Torture them faster.&nbsp;Or torture more animals for longer.Option three?&nbsp;Reject the entire system. Golden CagesBreeding, imprisoning, and killing sentient beings for unnecessary products is the problem. Giving them slightly more space to die in doesn’t solve that. It just makes consumers feel better while continuing to exploit.Welfare measures don’t confront the injustice. They reinforce it. They make people think that the issue is how we use animals - not that we use them. It’s a bait and switch.The RSPCA and other “welfare” brands sell labels that mean nothing. “Humane” gas chambers. “Enriched” sheds where birds can’t walk. “Freedom” foods where freedom is never an option.Let’s be honest: none of this is about the chickens. It’s about consumer comfort. And the animals pay the price. Why Are We Doing This at All?This isn’t a broken system that needs fixing. It’s a functioning system that needs abolishing.Chickens aren’t resources. They aren’t breast meat with beaks. They aren’t data points on a feed conversion ratio. They are someone - not something.So no, switching to slower-growing breeds isn’t progress. It’s just slower exploitation. There is no kind way to own someone. No gentle way to force them to live a life they didn’t choose. No ethical reason to keep breeding bodies into existence just to kill them.The question isn’t “how can we improve their lives?”&nbsp;&nbsp;The question is: why do we keep creating these lives just to destroy them? Reject Use, Reject SupremacyThis is not about “welfare improvements.” This is about ending animal use. Ending domination. Ending the idea that some lives exist for others to own, modify, and kill.We don’t need meat. We don’t need eggs. We don’t need excuses. What we need is to stop breeding sentient individuals into a system designed to exploit and destroy them.This is not a call for reform.&nbsp;&nbsp;This is a call for emancipation.

From Egg to Dead in 6 Weeks

Blind taste tests are exposing a truth the industry already knows but rarely admits: the issue was never about flavour.Imagine picking up two boxes of nuggets. One came from a slaughterhouse. The other didn’t. Most people would assume they can taste the difference. But what happens when they can’t?That’s what an Oakland-based initiative called Nectar set out to <a data-mce-href="https://www.nectar.org/research/2025-taste-of-the-industry" href="https://www.nectar.org/research/2025-taste-of-the-industry" target="_blank" rel="noopener">test</a>. They fed thousands of animal product consumers over 120 plant-based meat products across 14 categories — from meatballs to pulled pork to burgers — without telling them what was what. The results? In more and more cases, nobody could tell the difference.Four vegan products — including nuggets and unbreaded chicken by Impossible Foods, and Morningstar Farms’ nuggets — reached what Nectar calls “taste parity.” That means the participants couldn’t statistically distinguish the plant-based option from the animal one.In 20 different product matchups, at least half the participants actually preferred the plant-based version or liked it just as much. So what's the hold-up?We’re constantly told people just need better-tasting alternatives. But this study shows many of those already exist. And still, the shelves are stocked with corpses. Why?Because this isn’t about flavour. This is about culture, identity, habit — and convenience. And, for some, it’s about defending supremacy over other animals under the guise of “personal choice.”Taste was never the real barrier. That’s why sales don’t magically spike every time a better burger drops. That’s why people who claim to care about animals still buy sausages made from body parts instead of beans. The truth is hard to swallow: many people prefer not to care.Even so, the findings matter. Not because better-tasting plant-based meat will end the use of animals — but because it removes yet another excuse. When the products taste the same, the only thing left is the mindset. The industry knows thisNectar’s research is rare, because most companies test their products with internal teams — employees and investors who have every reason to give positive feedback, and no reason to share it. Nectar did things differently. They used blind testing with over 2,000 consumers who eat animal flesh at least monthly. The testing happened in restaurants, with food presented how it would actually be eaten — not stripped down and isolated on sterile plates.People added sauces, held sandwiches, chewed the way they always do. No labels. No agenda. Just taste. And that’s where some products genuinely shone.Chicken-style items did especially well. That’s no accident. As Nectar’s director Caroline Cotto points out, chicken is bland — a blank canvas. That makes it easier to replicate. But it also says something damning: if consumers are using animal flesh as a base for other flavours, what exactly are we still killing chickens for? The ‘tougher’ meats reveal the truth about excusesSome products didn’t perform as well. Bacon, for example, proved harder to replicate due to its fatty texture and striated composition. That’s not surprising — and it’ll take more R&amp;D to close the gap. But here’s the thing: the argument isn’t “I only eat bacon.” It’s “I could never go vegan.” That crumbles when 90% of your meat intake could be replaced today without your taste buds even noticing.Plant-based innovators are pushing boundaries, but let’s not pretend that taste is a technical problem alone. It’s a social one. And in places like the US, flesh consumption is tangled up in ideas of masculinity and national identity — as if using animals is patriotic.But young people are changing that. As Samantha Derrick, who leads a UC Berkeley programme on plant-based innovation, puts it: they don’t want to compromise on flavour — and they don’t have to. Tests like these give brands a roadmap. Not just for what’s “good enough,” but for what can outshine animal flesh entirely. This isn’t just about individual mealsThe stakes go far beyond your next sandwich. The animal agriculture system swallows 80% of global farmland — including land used to grow crops like soy and corn for feed. Animal agriculture also accounts for at least 14.5%* of all greenhouse gas emissions. That’s more than all the world’s transport combined.*Some studies say well over 50%Even if we ended fossil fuel use today, we’d still need to stop using animals to avoid climate collapse. It’s that serious.So when someone says, “I’d go vegan if the food tasted better,” what they’re really saying is, “I want an excuse.” Because now, increasingly, that excuse is gone. Taste isn’t enough — but it helps dismantle denial &nbsp;Let’s be honest: if every plant-based product tasted better than the animal one, people would still buy the latter. Why? Because once you've spent a lifetime justifying something, your ego’s on the line. Admitting there's no need to keep using animals means admitting there never was. Which can be hard to reconcile.But these findings strip away the comfort blanket. If it tastes the same, looks the same, cooks the same, and doesn’t require the mutilation and killing of someone — why choose the version that does?It’s no longer a mystery. The issue isn’t the quality of plant-based meat. It’s the mindset of the person holding the fork. This study came to our attention thanks to an article published in <a data-mce-href="https://grist.org/" href="https://grist.org/" target="_blank" rel="noopener" data-mce-selected="inline-boundary">Grist</a>.

You Can’t Taste the Difference — So Why Are Animals Still Being Used?

Aquaculture is often presented as the sustainable future of food production, but beneath its surface lies a grim reality of exploitation and ecological destruction. Far from the benign image it promotes, fish farming perpetuates severe injustice against wild and farmed fishes alike, systematically treating these animals as mere commodities.Contrary to common belief, farmed fish are deeply connected to wild marine eecosystems - through exploitation. Recent research exposes that aquaculture’s reliance on wild-caught fishes for feed has been grossly underestimated. Wild fishes are violently caught, ground into fishmeal and fish oil, and fed to captive fishes, perpetuating a cycle of exploitation and ecological harm. The ratio of wild fish inputs to farmed fish outputs (FI:FO) is actually between 0.36 and 1.15 - up to 307% higher than previously reported figures. When mortality from capture processes, such as "slipping" (fish dying after escaping nets), is included and unfed systems excluded, this ratio skyrockets to between 0.57 and 1.78.A glaring issue deliberately ignored is the use of so-called "fish trimmings," often misleadingly labeled as byproducts. Around 66% of these come directly from wild-caught fishes, and even whole fishes are falsely categorised as "byproducts" if not the primary catch, obscuring the true scale of wild-fish exploitation.The industry's touted shift from marine-based to terrestrial-based feeds doesn't solve the problem - it merely relocates it, imposing massive environmental burdens on terrestrial ecosystems instead. Between 1997 and 2017, terrestrial feed crops used by aquaculture surged by 468%, vastly outpacing the industry's growth. This has drastically increased pressures on land use, water resources, and biodiversity, proving aquaculture is far from the sustainable practice it claims to be.Species farmed for consumption suffer profoundly, regardless of feed source. Herbivorous fish farming requires vast land and water resources, while carnivorous species, such as salmon and trout, intensify wild fish exploitation, requiring between 1.86 and 6.24 pounds of wild fish per pound of farmed salmon produced. This reveals aquaculture’s inherent inefficiency, contradicting claims it enhances global food security and highlighting the exploitation and commodification at its core.Current sustainability certifications and assessments vastly underestimate aquaculture's environmental and ethical harms, reflecting a dangerously narrow view. Transparent disclosure of practices and genuine accountability must replace current voluntary standards, ensuring accurate, ethical assessments.Advocates and policymakers must urgently reconsider supporting aquaculture expansion. Comprehensive evaluations considering marine, terrestrial, and ethical impacts are essential. Sustainability narratives have ignored severe animal welfare issues, including profound suffering caused by captivity, overcrowding, and unnatural living conditions.It's time to confront the uncomfortable truth: aquaculture is inherently exploitative, treating sentient fishes as mere property, ignoring their intrinsic right to freedom and life. Real sustainability cannot coexist with systemic injustice. Only by dismantling practices rooted in exploitation and embracing plant-based solutions can we truly move towards a just, ethical, and sustainable food future. Source:Roberts, S., Jacquet, J., Majluf, P., &amp; Hayek, M. N. (2024). Feeding global aquaculture. Science Advances, 10(42), eadn9698. <a data-mce-href="https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.adn9698" href="https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.adn9698" target="_blank" rel="noopener">https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.adn9698</a>

Aquaculture’s Hidden Victims

Rabbits are vanishing from the British countryside, and most people haven’t noticed. The few who have? Many are more concerned about what’s for dinner than the individuals disappearing from our fields, forests, and hedgerows.A deadly new strain of rabbit haemorrhagic disease (RHDV2) is sweeping across Europe and is now likely claiming lives in the UK. This virus doesn’t wound - it eliminates. Up to 100% of those infected die. One moment they’re grooming, foraging, raising families - the next, they’re gone.In Suffolk, the collapse has been so stark that hunters can’t find any rabbits to kill. The Wild Meat Company ran out of rabbits in February. That’s when this became a story - when the supply chain broke, not when thousands of lives ended.This isn’t just about those confined to hutches or bred for profit. This virus targets wild rabbits, hares, and even endangered lagomorphs like the New England cottontail. Entire ecosystems are affected, from foxes and pine martens to birds of prey, who depend on rabbits for food. But the loss of sentient lives alone should be reason enough to care. Instead, people are mourning an empty dinner plate.Rabbit haemorrhagic disease was first identified in China in the 1980s. Since then, human activity has helped it spread globally. The new variant - RHDV2 - is even more contagious. No cure, no treatment, and no hope for those living in the wild. The virus attacks the liver, causes internal bleeding, neurological failure, collapse, and death - sometimes in hours. Others suffer seizures, laboured breathing, and bleeding from the mouth, nose, or eyes before they finally stop moving.There is no mercy in this. No peaceful fade. And the virus doesn’t go away. It clings to surfaces, survives on fur, claws, boots, and breeze. Even the insects who feed on the dead can carry the virus to someone else. There is no safe place.Companion rabbits can be vaccinated, and that’s the advice from the British Rabbit Council. But the free living ones - those whose families are being wiped out with no witnesses, no protection, and no headlines - are being told to just “wait it out.” Their survival depends on enough of them having a genetic resistance to rebuild their population. That’s the entire plan. Not protection. Not habitat restoration. Just wait, and maybe enough will be left alive to recover.While families are being decimated, the rabbit farming industry continues. Rabbits are still being bred, confined, mutilated, sold, worn, hunted, and eaten. Still used as props for Easter. Still confined to cages for cosmetics and chemical testing. Still seen as products.So let’s not pretend this disease is a tragedy we had no part in. When rabbits are treated as commodities, their safety doesn’t matter. Their freedom doesn’t matter. Their deaths only matter when they impact the supply chain. RHDV2 may be viral, but the root cause is our mindset.This is the same mindset that causes and accelerates pandemics. Commodifying living beings, crowding them together in unnatural conditions, trafficking them across borders, exploiting them for profit - it creates the perfect storm for disease. And when the consequences arrive, we still see the victims as the problem.In 2016, RHDV2 killed hundreds of companion rabbits in Britain in just six months. The same virus now quietly tears through free living populations, and the response is indifference. No nationwide alert. No government funding. No emergency conservation effort. Just silence - until the flesh supply runs out.Let’s say what needs to be said: rabbits are not ours. Not to breed, not to sell, not to kill, not to decorate our plates or our wardrobes. They are not pests. They are not property. They are someone. They form bonds. They communicate. They raise young. They dig homes. They mourn.And right now, they’re dying in plain sight.We are witnessing another road to extinction and calling it unfortunate instead of unacceptable. We called it “natural” when myxomatosis, a virus introduced by humans, killed 99% of the rabbit population in the 1950s. We called it “management” when people trapped, poisoned, and shot survivors. We called it “pest control” when entire families were gassed in their burrows. Now we call it a “wave of fatalities.” At no point do we call it what it is: the predictable outcome of supremacy and indifference.There is nothing natural about what’s happening. It’s the result of decisions - systemic, historical, and ongoing. Rabbits are not disposable. They are not a failed product line. They are individuals being wiped out while we keep digging for excuses to continue using them.Some say there’s nothing we can do. That we just have to let nature take its course. But nature didn’t start this. We did.And as always, the victims are left to pay.

Britain’s Rabbit Pandemic

What do you call a global emergency that’s actively ignored by the very people tasked with preventing disease and saving lives? Normal. At least in the world of modern medicine, where it’s still somehow controversial to say that what we eat might have something to do with how sick we are.Doctors Dr Shireen Kassam and Dr Laura Jane Smith are done whispering about it. In a recent <a data-mce-href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2514664525000104" href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2514664525000104" target="_blank" rel="noopener">journal entry</a> in Future Healthcare, they call out the healthcare profession’s ongoing silence around diet - specifically the benefits of a plant-based one. According to them, the evidence is already overwhelming: the food system is fuelling four interconnected disasters - chronic illness, biodiversity loss, social injustice, and ecological collapse. And the solution is on the end of our forks. The Cure Nobody PrescribesThe science is not ambiguous. Diets centred around whole plant foods are known antidote to skyrocketing rates of obesity, type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and certain cancers. It's not just health - it's a systems solution. It slashes greenhouse gas emissions, restores ecosystems, and uses fewer resources. It is, in every sense, a win-win. So why aren’t hospitals, doctors, and policymakers leading the charge?Because the problem isn’t a lack of evidence. It’s a lack of courage. A lack of will. And let’s be honest - a surplus of meat and dairy industry influence. Meat Industry PR PlaybookRemember the 2019 EAT-Lancet report? It was a landmark piece of science recommending the world transition to a “Planetary Health Diet” - mostly plant-based, designed to improve health and prevent ecological disaster. It should’ve been front-page news. It was. But not for the reasons it deserved.The backlash was fast, furious, and - according to a <a data-mce-href="https://www.desmog.com/2025/04/10/meat-industry-red-flag-animal-agriculture-alliance-behind-attacks-flagship-climate-friendly-diet-report-eat-lancet/" href="https://www.desmog.com/2025/04/10/meat-industry-red-flag-animal-agriculture-alliance-behind-attacks-flagship-climate-friendly-diet-report-eat-lancet/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">leaked document</a> - manufactured. A PR firm called Red Flag, working with the Animal Agriculture Alliance (a meat industry lobbying front), ran a disinformation campaign to make the report sound “radical,” “elitist,” and “unrealistic.” They didn’t refute the science. They reframed it as a culture war. And just like that, saving the planet became a political opinion.Red Flag has worked with tobacco giants and chemical companies before. So it’s no surprise they applied the same tired strategy: when the science is inconvenient, don’t debate it - just discredit the people behind it. Meanwhile, People Are Dying of Preventable DiseasesThe hypocrisy is hard to stomach. In hospitals across the UK and US, the standard meal for recovering cardiac patients still includes the very foods that contributed to their heart disease. It’s the equivalent of giving lung cancer patients complimentary cigarettes - except even cigarettes don’t get government subsidies and public school contracts.But cracks are forming. Some NHS Trusts have started analysing their catering against sustainability targets. The results? Grim. Less than half even plan to increase plant-based options. And in the US, where change is often market-driven, momentum is growing. Over 400 hospitals will soon be serving plant-based meals by default, thanks to the work of nonprofit <a data-mce-href="https://www.greenerbydefault.com/blog/gbd-sodexo-hospital-expansion-2025" href="https://www.greenerbydefault.com/blog/gbd-sodexo-hospital-expansion-2025" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Greener by Default</a> and food service giant Sodexo. Early data shows emissions dropped by over a third at participating hospitals. More than half of patients willingly chose the plant-based meal - no lectures, no finger-pointing, just good food. Satisfaction rates? <a data-mce-href="https://plantbasednews.org/lifestyle/health-and-fitness/nyc-hospitals-plant-based-patient-satisfaction/" href="https://plantbasednews.org/lifestyle/health-and-fitness/nyc-hospitals-plant-based-patient-satisfaction/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Over 90%.</a> The Public Wants Change. It’s the Leaders Holding It Back.<a data-mce-href="https://pcrm.widen.net/s/kgwshsgq2g/physicians-committee-for-responsible-medicine-morning-consult-earth-day-food-climate-change-survey" href="https://pcrm.widen.net/s/kgwshsgq2g/physicians-committee-for-responsible-medicine-morning-consult-earth-day-food-climate-change-survey" target="_blank" rel="noopener" data-mce-selected="inline-boundary">A 2025 poll</a> by the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine found 46% of Americans would consider going plant-based to help fight climate change. And 60% think federal nutrition guidelines should mention the environmental impact of food. Yet our leaders continue to pander to powerful lobbies, protecting the very industries driving us into an early grave.40% of people even support taxing meat and dairy for their environmental destruction - mirroring Denmark’s proposed legislation. Over half back policies that help farmers shift from animal agriculture to growing plants. The appetite for change is real. But it’s being starved. The Ethical ImperativeKassam and Smith don’t just make a medical case for plant-based diets. They make a moral one. When our food choices perpetuate chronic illness, ecological destruction, global hunger, and the commodification of sentient beings, continuing with business as usual isn’t just irresponsible - it’s indefensible.They call on healthcare leaders to walk the talk: normalise plant-based meals, make them the default, teach doctors the truth about nutrition, sign the Plant-Based Treaty, and divest from companies profiting off animal exploitation.Because pretending there’s nothing wrong with the status quo is no longer an option. Embracing plant-based diets isn’t a fringe trend or a lifestyle quirk. It’s an ethical imperative - grounded in evidence, rooted in justice, and desperately overdue. Final ThoughtThe meat and dairy industries aren’t just fuelling climate breakdown and disease. They’re fuelling disinformation campaigns, silencing science, and warping public discourse. The healthcare profession’s refusal to confront this head-on is not neutrality - it’s complicity.So the question isn’t “Why plant-based?” It’s “Why are we still supporting a system that’s killing us, our planet, and billions of others - when we don’t have to?”Change is coming. But the longer we delay, the more lives are lost - human and non-human alike.

Herbivore Club

ARTICLES

Pet Food Is a Climate Bomb

From Egg to Dead in 6 Weeks

You Can’t Taste the Difference — So Why Are Animals Still...

Aquaculture’s Hidden Victims

Britain’s Rabbit Pandemic

Prescription for a Better World