A bullock with a broken leg is in a holding pen of an Egyptian slaughterhouse. Blood is pouring from an increasing number of cuts - including one in the eye - as an abattoir worker slashes at its legs and face with a short knife. Meanwhile the buyer is shouting...

In many parts of the world incomes are increasing and ever more people are moving into cities. Lifestyles are changing. And so are diets.

In China the change to a western diet is growing apace. Western restaurant chains - McDonald's, KFC, Pizza Hut - are making inroads. Already the...

Two new leaders of the first and third largest Christian churches: Jorge Mario Bergoglio, Pope Francis, and Justin Welby, Archbishop of Canterbury. As spiritual leaders they are the upholders of Christian values: humanity, compassion and kindness, or in other words, Christian ethics. But does - or should - Christian teaching...

News of the thousands of sheep that were lost in last week's snow drifts has given us an insight into sheep farming. Warnings were issued several days ahead but the severity of the storms must have taken farmers by surprise. That livestock were left outside shows how farmers expect sheep...

In the fetid atmosphere of factory farms, animals are crammed together in such close confinement they have barely room to move. Poultry spend their entire growth cycles on beds of excrement. Pigs, cattle and calves are reared on slatted floors. Their faeces fall beneath them into manure pits. Ammonia fumes...

In 'My Life as a Vegetarian' ( Huffington Post blog, January 25) you described how you and Linda used to dream that one day vegetarian selections would be on the menu at motorway stops

Here's another big hope: that one day McCartney's will compete with McDonald's - and win....

"Fish do not even suffer when they are hooked and fighting for the lives". So says the Daily Mail reporting on the most recently published research ('Can fish really feel pain?' Rose J D et al) on what fish might feel. This suggests that the responses of fish are basic...

Thanks to the horse meat scandal tons of processed meat products are being removed from supermarket cabinets. The waste is huge.

But the meat industry usually strives to avoid waste. Any part of an animal that can possibly be used for human consumption is made fit to eat, right...

In the bullring picadors and banderilleros jab the bull's neck and shoulder with lances to goad and weaken it. According to Ernest Hemingway (in Death in the Afternoon) the bull is killed within 15 minutes of entering the ring and since the wounds are received in "hot blood" they cannot...

Farmers who rear animals on an industrial scale often justify their welfare standards by claiming that animals are not like us.

In so saying they seem to imply that animals do not mind being kept in conditions totally alien to their needs and closely confined in vast sheds. Sows...

There are several types of vegetarian. Lacto-vegetarians eat dairy products but not eggs. Ovo-vegetarians eat eggs but not dairy products. Ovo-lacto-vegetarians eat eggs and dairy. But vegetarians who have chosen to forego meat in order to avoid the killing of animals may find that they are - albeit unwittingly -...

Quail for Christmas? Recipes are plentiful. These birds are the smallest European game bird. But those for the table have never been wild and they have not been shot for sport. Rather they are - as Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall has described them - factory farming's most recent and smallest victims.

Every day, all over the world, animals arrive at slaughterhouses by the truck, train and ship load - around 65 billion every year. That number is predicted to double by 2050.

Larger animals - cattle, sheep and pigs - are first driven into a 'stun box' to be rendered...

When factory farming first began at the beginning of the 1900s keeping large numbers of livestock in close confinement hugely increased the risk of disease. But in the 1940s the advent of antibiotics and pesticides made it possible to keep farm animals in vast numbers, densely packed together.

From...

School farm visits are growing apace. They are hailed for putting children in touch with the countryside and helping them understand the origin of their food. Obviously suitable types of farms vary with age. Cuddly, baby animals seem appropriate for very young children. And farms run in a traditional manner...

Supermarkets. The smell of baking bread; bright, welcoming lights; aisles piled high with jars, tins and attractive packages. Labels suggesting quality entice and reassure.

But there is duplicity at hand. Take pork. 'Outdoor-bred' means that piglets will have been born outside - in arks (individual housing) with straw bedding....

Milk is only in constant supply if dairy cows give birth to a calf every year. This means they are pregnant for most of their lives. Brought into season with hormones and artificially inseminated they become worn out from producing a hugely unnatural quantity of milk and are usually culled...

When farming is on an industrial scale every aspect of the animals' lives is controlled. They do not choose their surroundings. Or the animals they mix with. Or what they eat. Or when they eat. Or when they mate. Or, in the case of artificial insemination, whether they mate. Through...

Almond milk, coconut milk, milk from hazelnuts, cashew nuts, walnuts. Milk made from grain - from oats, spelt, barley, rice. Legumes-based milk from lupin, pea, peanut, soya. Seed-based milk from hemp, quinoa, sesame, sunflower. Suggest to those who drink cows milk that they replace it with a plant-based milk and...

Just mention the word vegan or vegetarian and the insults fly. Vegetabilists, plant nazis, salad munchers, eco-warriors, hippy dippy morons, bunny huggers. hese from the meatarians - is that an insult or a proudly worn moniker? Carnivores versus Vegans. Light the blue touchpaper. You could start a riot! Why such...