n I read Emily Calvin’s perspective (Adopting the lifestyle that is veganism,” Feb. 1, p. 8) with great interest. Students go to school to be informed and apply their knowledge to the real world.

Who really wants to wake up every morning knowing that they are going to pay for animals to be crammed into cages, beaten and then bleed to death? When young people learn that there are more than one million animals slaughtered for food every hour, they understandably want to avoid being part of that

violence. Animals on modern factory farms are deprived of everything that is natural to them, and they are treated in ways that would warrant felony cruelty-to-animals charges if the victims were dogs or cats.

Chickens’ beaks are sliced off with a hot blade, pigs’ tails are chopped off and their teeth clipped with pliers and male cows and pigs are castrated, all without any pain relief.

The animals are confined to crowded, filthy warehouses and dosed with powerful drugs to make them grow so quickly that their hearts and limbs often cannot keep up — they frequently become crippled or suffer from heart attacks when they’re only a few weeks old.

Finally, at the slaughterhouse, they are hung upside-down and their throats are slit, often while they are still conscious. Is it too much to ask conscientious individuals to eat a healthy, humane diet and put a stop to all this violence?

Pulin Modi

College Campaign Coordinator