Eating Animals, Factory Farming and the Pandemic

   How many of us think about where the meat on our tables comes from? Well, we all should! That’s the message of Eating Animals (2017), produced and narrated by Natalie Portman and based on the best-selling book by Jonathan Safran Froer. The film shines a light on corporate farming. Besides being inherently cruel to animals, it has destroyed entire ways of life and is devastating our environment. Now factory farming is threatening to kill us all by fostering a pandemic. However, those who blow the whistle face the wrath of this trillion-dollar industry.  In this episode we are joined by Phil Brooke, Research and Education Manager at Compassion in World Farming, who discusses how his organisation is fighting to change the way we think about raising livestock. Along the way, Phil and host Matthew Sherwood talk about what is being done to stop factory farming. And as the current pandemic shows us, at the very least we need to change the way we view our food and how we source it. “The more animals we keep, the worse we keep them, the more at risk we are of more of these diseases.” – Phil Brooke Time Stamps: 00:59 – Introducing today’s topic – factory farming. 01:18 – Introducing our guest, Phil Brooke. 01:34 – Who Compassion in World Farming (CIWF) are. 02:13 – What The Global Health Film Festival is about. 03:54 – What Eating Animals is about. 05:12 – What factory farming is. 06:29 – Introducing the first clip from the film. 09:08 – The global reach of factory farming. 10:38 – Why factory farming is uniquely inhumane. 11:43 – The steps that are being taken to stop it. 17:28 – Our second clip – whistleblowers and their impact. 23:33 – The role that CIWF played in raising the alarm about poultry farming. 33:01 – The USDA, inhumane testing and the immorality behind it. 35:30 – The third clip – a global pandemic. 41:56 – The massive levels of antibiotics needed to make factory farming viable. 47:38 – What are the solutions to feeding a growing population in a humane way. 50:14 – How to change people’s perspective on what they should eat. 54:10 – The importance of your daily eating habits.  Resources: Compassion in World Farming Eating Animals Official WebsiteEating Animals on Facebook, Twitter and InstagramThe Global Health Film Festival Dartmouth FilmsDartmouth Films on Facebook, Twitter and InstagramAlamo Pictures Connect with Phil Brooke: LinkedIn Connect with Factual America: Facebook Instagram Twitter Connect with Matthew Sherwood: Facebook LinkedIn Twitter