Lewis Bollard

Finally, I got hold of a major slaughterhouse and connected with a farm boy.

Let's call him Liam.

Now, this slaughterhouse didn't do visitors either, but Liam and I bonded over sheep, and he agreed to get me in.

Honestly, the slaughterhouse wasn't as bad as I'd expected.

It was the state of the animals arriving there that shook me.

I remember seeing pigs coming down off a transport truck.

some shaking, some squealing, some limping in pain.

Liam, I said, why are those pigs limping?

Not my problem, he replied.

So I looked into it.

Before I tell you what I learned, let me say I'm not here to tell you what to eat.

In fact, I don't think this should be on you as an individual consumer at all.

You never chose factory farming.

When the factory farms came in and replaced the old family farms, they didn't tell you they were doing it.

They didn't relabel the meat as now for miserable animals.

They labeled it as all natural and farm fresh.

In fact, the industry has created an entire system to stop you from seeing how your meat is produced.

They've even passed ag-gag laws in U.S.

states to make it a crime to record conditions in factory farms, which makes it all the more important that we see what they're trying to hide from us.

I want to share with you three common factory farming practices.