I do not support "humane" animal products, and speak out as best I can against them ...

I do not support “humane” animal products, and speak out as best I can against them, both in writing, and in the lectures I give – there are invariably people who have a friend who has chickens as pets and want to know if it’s OK to eat their eggs,  for example. Even in these situations, I tell them I feel that there is institutionalized violence – it is a form of himsa (violence) to believe that one “owns” another living being.  If the friend “owns” the hen, she (the hen) is being confined against her will, and is not able to live her life as she did for millennia in the jungles of southeast Asia, and is in an artificial, manipulated, inherently abusive environment. Even the most apparently benign situation, if there’s ownership and money involved, are exploitive, in my opinion, and that’s the perspective I express. ~ Dr. Will Tuttle