“A veteran USDA meat inspector from Texas describes what he has seen: “Cattle dragged and choked…knocking ’em four, five, ten times. Every now and then when they’re stunned they come back to life, and they’re up there agonizing. They’re supposed to be re-stunned but sometimes they aren’t and they’ll go through the skinning process alive. If people were to see this, they’d probably feel really bad about it. But in a packing house everybody gets so used to it that it doesn’t mean anything.”  – Gail Eisnitz, Slaughterhouse

There’s a classic episode from The Twilight Zone called To Serve Man—where humans lose their place at the top of the food chain. Alien visitors come to Earth with the seemingly peaceful intention of ending war, improving our agriculture and creating the ideal environment for our species.

We’re wary of them at first, but their actions and the title of a book that they brought—“To Serve Man”— gain our trust. Eventually thousands of humans are being transported to the aliens planet for “vacations” and to learn more about their culture.

However, as one of the head scientists is entering their spacecraft—a colleague, having translated the rest of the alien’s book, rushes up and yells: “Don’t get on that ship…To Serve Man…it’s a cookbook!”

This plot twist is shocking to us because our species is the one who raises animals for food—and the idea that we humans are on their menu—is a nightmare.

The only difference between the aliens and humans in this story is that they showed more compassion towards us than we do to our fellow animals.

“Poor animals, how jealously they guard their bodies, for to us is merely an evening’s meal, but to them is life itself.”  – T. Casey Brennan

Evolve—moove on.