Animal Liberation: A New Ethics for Our Treatment of Animals

Singer begins Chapter 4 with the importance of raising awareness about speciesism and animal cruelty. In this chapter, he tells the readers what direct actions can be taken against the many horrors that he has detailed previously. Singer emphasizes the importance of political actions such as voting and writing to representatives, spreading the message with friends and family alike, and protesting animal abuse. He believes that vegetarianism is a practice reflective of the ethical abhorrence of animal exploitation and torture and encourages vegetarians to be vocal about the reasons behind their diets in order to convince others to boycott the meat industry. 

Singer emphasizes that the amount of food and money spent on animals before slaughter could be used to feed those who do not get enough to eat. Plants will yield more than ten times as much protein per acre as meat does, and vegetables such as broccoli and grain such as oats yield greater protein, calcium, and iron in comparison to milk or beef. Singer addresses the question of fossil fuels as well: “Growing crops would be at least five times more energy-efficient than grazing cattle, twenty times more energy-efficient than producing chickens, and more than fifty times as energy-efficient as feedlot cattle production” (164). Singer also discusses the environmental impacts of factory meat farming: the erosion of topsoil, the extraordinary use of water, and the need for more gasoline, to a name a few. Growing crops instead of raising animals for slaughter will reduce these environmental impacts across the board. 

Singer walks his readers through the process of becoming a vegetarian. Firstly, individuals are to cut out factory farm meat and eggs; secondly, they are to stop buying and consuming slaughtered mammals and birds. Singer also urges readers to stop eating fish and shellfish, as the central core of the vegetarian movement is to stop inflicting suffering on other animals. Singer goes into further detail about the pain of decompression as deep-sea fish are dragged to the surface, the overcrowding and welfare issues with farmed fish, and the waiting environmental calamity of overfishing the oceans. 

Singer concedes that a vegan diet is more difficult than vegetarianism, though not impossible. He concludes the chapter by citing examples of cultures with diets that exclude meat and offers examples of substitutes like tofu and lentils. He also provides statistics about the health effects of vegetarianism, stating that protein and iron needs can be easily filled on a plant-based diet and that vitamin B12 can be achieved through taking supplements or eating fermented foods.