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What the meat industry figured out is that you don't need healthy animals to make a profit. Sick animals are more profitable... Factory farms calculate how close to death they can keep animals without killing them. That's the business model. How quickly they can be made to grow, how tightly they can be packed, how much or how little can they eat, how sick they can get without dying...We live in a world in which it's conventional to treat an animal like a block of wood.
Jonathan Safran Foer
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Interpretation

What this quote means

The quote critiques the meat industry's profit-driven approach, emphasizing the dehumanization of animals in factory farming.

Jonathan Safran Foer’s quote highlights the disturbing ethics of the meat industry, illustrating how profit maximization often comes at the expense of animal welfare. It reveals a harsh reality in which the health and well-being of animals are sacrificed for economic gain, showing how factory farms prioritize efficiency and output over humane treatment. This perspective encourages reflection on the moral implications of industrialized meat production and the way society views animals.

Themes

Animal WelfareFactory FarmingProfitEthicsMeat Industry

In practice

Example use cases

In a speech about ethical sourcing, one could reference this quote to highlight animal rights issues.

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