Farm Animal Welfare

Unlike wildfire smoke or oil spills, pollution from hog farms is not something you can easily capture in a photograph. This issue is the subject of Wastelands, a nonfiction environmental legal thriller by Corban Addison, an attorney and novelist. The 400-page book reports on a series of court cases filed against Smithfield Foods by neighbors of its industrial hog operations.

“The hundreds of millions (of pigs every year) who are used for food, are seen as just that— numbers. Andy is no number— he is someone. And in those numbers of pigs there are millions of individual personalities— some happy-go-lucky, like Andy; some grumpy; some pensive— all are just living in a place where these personalities cannot be seen.”

Sapiens author Yuval Noah Hariri kindles an understanding of the increasingly catastrophic impact we have had on the species around us over the millennia, concluding that our treatment of farm animals “might well be the greatest crime in history.”

Leslie Crawford, author of Sprig the Rescue Pig and Gwen the Rescue Hen, interviews Sy Montgomery. Montgomery’s enthusiasm and devotion to Earth’s creatures — and the similarities we share with them — has inspired her readers to get to know the eight-tentacled and big-brained wonders in The Soul of the Octopus, and taken us to the ends of the Earth and back to our own backyards in such award-winning books as Spell of the Tiger and Birdology.

Kathy Freston is a New York Times bestselling author four times over. Her books on healthy eating and conscious living include The Lean, Veganist and Quantum Wellness. She considers herself a wellness activist and has appeared frequently on national television, including Ellen, Dr. Oz, Good Morning America, The Talk, Martha Stewart, Extra, and Oprah. And yet.

She’s not strident or bossy. She wouldn’t dream of making me feel bad if I sprinkled parmesan on my pasta. She somehow understands that I can’t seem to give up my cow’s milk lattes.