Goodall was shocked when she read Peter Singer’s Animal Liberation in the mid 1970s, which explained the full horrors of intensive farming. Although intensive farming was cheaper in production, it incorporated unethical methods of food production. Livestock such as cattle and poultry were kept at higher stocking densities in order to maximise economic gains by producing the highest output at the lowest cost. The stunning gun used to stun animals with electricity at the slaughterhouse often missed and live animals were sliced instead. Goodall found it hard to believe people could actually treat animals this way, as though they were just machines. From then on, whenever she looked at a piece of meat on my plate, she thought,

“What does this symbolize? Fear? Pain? Death?” –  Jane Goodall’s interview with Amy Goodman on Democracy Now! (November 24, 2005)

Today, Goodall is a vegetarian. Through calling for the recognition of farm animals as intelligent animals whom needs our protection, she advocates for the public to eat less meat while keeping in mind the consequences of their destructive eating habits. 

Goodall writes that farm animals are “far more aware and intelligent than we ever imagined and, despite having been bred as domestic slaves, they are individual beings in their own right. As such, they deserve our respect. And our help. Who will plead for them if we are silent?” – Jane Goodall | The Inner World of Farm Animals (2009)