In the past few weeks, one of the world’s most successful and prominent animal rights organizations, Animal Equality, has organized a great awards night, titled Inspiring Global Action at Beverly Hilton in Los Angeles.
Animal Equality group, founded by Sharon Nunez, Jose Valle and Javier Moreno in 2006, with the aim of preventing animal exploitation in 8 countries including Italy, Spain, Mexico, Brazil and India, hosted animal rights advocates from many countries of the world in the night.
Actress Michelle Forbes, musician and animal rights advocate Moby, and founder of the Kat Von D Beauty brand, one of the most successful vegan brands on the market that do not test its products on animals, Kat Von D were among the names who supported the night.
At the award ceremony, radio and television host Marco Antonio Regil was presented with the Animal Hero, with her famous brand of Miyoko’s Kitchen and the incredibly delicious plant based cheeses she produces, Miyoko Schinner who eliminated the argument “I would become a vegan, but I could never give up cheese ” was presented with the Compassionate Company, the founder of The Pollination Project, Ariel Nessel was presented with the Philanthropic Impact, and lastly, successful business person Khaled Bin Alwaleed, an animal rights advocate and environmentalist who has his name frequently mentioned as Vegan Prince was presented with Visionary Leader awards.
At the night, extremely tasty meals, cheeses and desserts, none of which contained any animal products, were offered.
The food part is actually more important than we thought.
Of course, no palate is more valuable or indispensable than the life of an innocent animal, but giving people plant-based products, that are not different then the flavors they are accustomed to, is one of the great steps taken in terms of making them understand that they do not have to give up their taste in order to live in a world where animals are not killed and not exploited.
As the celebrities I mentioned above were making their speeches, the guests were eating and chatting cheerfully, until the images of exploitation and violence against farm animals behind closed doors, which the meat and dairy industry keeps secret from us, were started to be shown on the screen, and believe me, these images were not even extremely violent.
At that moment, I left my fork and knife onto the table and I tried to think of other things, looking at the ground.
Even though I watch these kind of images frequently I will never be able to get used to them.
When I was finally able to look around , I noticed that many of the guests were tearful like me..
I do not know why, but I had a meaningless sense of relief only for 1 second!
The meat and dairy industry never wants us to see the facts.
In their advertisements, they show us cheerful cows and happily flying chickens, so that people can eat them.
The truth is, human or animal, every life form wants to live and has an equal right to live.
So, do you think if people saw the tortures animals endure, from the factory farms to the slaughterhouse and heard their cries, begging to live, would they still be using animal products?
That’s where the Animal Equality’s three-dimensional glasses, iAnimal the 360 VR experience, comes in to shed light on to this dark side that the meat and dairy industry never wants you to see.
It is impossible to bring all the people to the factory farms or slaughterhouses to show them the facts, but it is possible to bring these facts to people with iAnimal.
With this 3D video tool, which was the subject of the biggest news sources in the world such as the New York Times, you will see the cruel but standard and also legal practices the meat industry uses on animals which were only produced to be killed.
In another video, you will watch the 42 days of the short but bitter life of a chicken before being killed and delivered to our table.
And on the last video, you will briefly witness the life (Their lives are already quite short!) of a milk cow which is abused as if it was a property in the dairy industry.
Do you have the courage to watch the iAnimal 360 VR?
I would like to thank Sarah Pickering from Animal Equality for her assistance.
Photographs were taken by Animal Equality Sylvia Elzafron
Tara Ziemba – Getty Images
