Greetings inspired viewers, welcome to Animal World: Our Co-Inhabitants. Christmas is a time to remember the teachings of Jesus Christ and give thanks to God for all the beautiful beings that share the Earth with us. A man who is representative of the ideals of this holy day is Mr. John Robbins of the USA.

John Robbins is a true vegan hero who turned down inheriting his family’s world famous ice cream company Baskin-Robbins because he did not wish to promote factory farming or the consumption of animal products.

After graduating from the renowned University of California, Berkeley, Mr. Robbins attended Antioch College where he earned a Master’s Degree. Thereafter, he became one of the pioneering authors to discuss the link between our diet and animal welfare, environment and human health.

His popular books include: Diet for a New America; The Awakened Heart: Meditations on Finding Harmony in a Changing World; The Food Revolution: How Your Diet Can Help Save Your Life and Our World; and Healthy at 100: The Scientifically Proven Secrets of the World’s Healthiest and Longest-Lived Peoples.

Mr. Robbins also founded EarthSave International, a US-based non-profit organization that is dedicated to informing the public about the benefits of healthy and life-sustaining vegan food choices.

For his significant work for the animals and planet, Mr. Robbins has been recognized with numerous awards. He was also the esteemed recipient of Supreme Master Ching Hai’s Shining World Leadership Award. In his best-selling book, “The Food Revolution,” he recounts a touching story of his time spent with a pig farmer and his family in a chapter entitled “The Pig Farmer.”

Mr. Robbins met the farmer while doing undercover investigative research about the cruelties of meat production in Iowa, USA. Unexpectedly, he was invited to stay for dinner with the family. Over a three part series, we will bring you a reading in its entirety of “The Pig Farmer.”

One day in Iowa I met a particular gentleman - and I use that term, gentleman, frankly, only because I am trying to be polite, for that is certainly not how I saw him at the time. He owned and ran what he called a “pork production facility.” I, on the other hand, would have called it a pig Auschwitz. The conditions were brutal.

The pigs were confined in cages that were barely larger than their own bodies, with the cages stacked on top of each other in tiers, three high. The sides and the bottoms of the cages were steel slats, so that excrement from the animals in the upper and middle tiers dropped through the slats on to the animals below. The aforementioned owner of this nightmare weighed, I am sure, at least 240 pounds (108 kilograms), but what was even more impressive about his appearance was that he seemed to be made out of concrete.

His movements had all the fluidity and grace of a brick wall. What made him even less appealing was that his language seemed to consist mainly of grunts, many of which sounded alike to me, and none of which were particularly pleasant to hear. Seeing how rigid he was and sensing the overall quality of his presence, I - rather brilliantly, I thought - concluded that his difficulties had not arisen merely because he hadn’t had time, that particular morning, to finish his entire daily yoga routine.

But I wasn’t about to divulge my opinions of him or his operation, for I was undercover, visiting slaughterhouses and feedlots to learn what I could about modern meat production. There were no bumper stickers on my car, and my clothes and hairstyle were carefully chosen to give no indication that I might have philosophical leanings other than those that were common in the area.

I told the farmer matter of factly that I was a researcher writing about animal agriculture, and asked if he’d mind speaking with me for a few minutes so that I might have the benefit of his knowledge. In response, he grunted a few words that I could not decipher, but that I gathered meant I could ask him questions and he would show me around. I was at this point not very happy about the situation, and this feeling did not improve when we entered one of the warehouses that housed his pigs.

In fact, my distress increased, for I was immediately struck by what I can only call an overpowering olfactory experience. The place reeked like you would not believe of ammonia, hydrogen sulfide, and other noxious gases that were the products of the animals’ wastes. These, unfortunately, seemed to have been piling up inside the building for far too long a time. As nauseating as the stench was for me, I wondered what it must be like for the animals. The cells that detect scent are known as ethmoidal cells.

Pigs, like dogs, have nearly 200 times the concentration of these cells in their noses as humans do. In a natural setting, they are able, while rooting around in the dirt, to detect the scent of an edible root through the earth itself. Given any kind of a chance, they will never soil their own nests, for they are actually quite clean animals, despite the reputation we have unfairly given them.

But here they had no contact with the earth, and their noses were beset by the unceasing odor of their own urine and feces multiplied a thousand times by the accumulated wastes of the other pigs unfortunate enough to be caged in that warehouse. I was in the building only for a few minutes, and the longer I remained in there, the more desperately I wanted to leave. But the pigs were prisoners there, barely able to take a single step, forced to endure this stench, and almost completely immobile, 24 hours a day, seven days a week, and with no time off, I can assure you, for holidays.

The man who ran the place was - I’ll give him this - kind enough to answer my questions, which were mainly about the drugs he used to handle swine diseases that are fairly common in factory pigs today. But my sentiments about him and his farm were not becoming any warmer. It didn’t help when, in response to a particularly loud squealing from one of the pigs, he delivered a sudden and threatening kick to the bars of its cage, causing a loud “clang” to reverberate through the warehouse and leading to screaming from many of the pigs.

Because it was becoming increasingly difficult to hide my distress, it crossed my mind that I should tell him what I thought of the conditions in which he kept his pigs, but then I thought better of it. This was a man, it was obvious, with whom there was no point in arguing.

After maybe 15 minutes, I’d had enough and was preparing to leave, and I felt sure he was glad to be about to be rid of me. But then something happened, something that changed my life, forever – and, as it turns out, his too. It began when his wife came out from the farmhouse and cordially invited me to stay for dinner.

After these messages, we will continue with “The Pig Farmer,” a chapter from John Robbins’s best-selling book, “The Food Revolution.” Please stay tuned to Supreme Master Television.

Welcome back to Animal World: Our Co-Inhabitants. We now continue with our reading of a chapter entitled “The Pig Farmer,” from John Robbins’s best-selling book, “The Food Revolution.”

The pig farmer grimaced when his wife spoke, but he dutifully turned to me and announced, “The wife would like you to stay for dinner.” He always called her “the wife,” by the way, which led me to deduce that he was not, apparently, on the leading edge of feminist thought in the country today. I don’t know whether you have ever done something without having a clue why, and to this day I couldn’t tell you what prompted me to do it, but I said, “Yes, I’d be delighted.”

And stay for dinner I did, though I didn’t eat the pork they served. The excuse I gave was that my doctor was worried about my cholesterol. I didn’t say that I was a vegetarian, nor that my cholesterol was 125. I was trying to be a polite and appropriate dinner guest. I didn’t want to say anything that might lead to any kind of disagreement.

The couple (and their two sons, who were also at the table) were, I could see, being nice to me, giving me dinner and all, and it was gradually becoming clear to me that, along with all the rest of it, they could be, in their way, somewhat decent people. I asked myself, if they were in my town, traveling, and I had chanced to meet them, would I have invited them to dinner? Not likely, I knew, not likely at all. Yet here they were, being as hospitable to me as they could. Yes, I had to admit it.

Much as I detested how the pigs were treated, this pig farmer wasn’t actually the reincarnation of Adolph Hitler. At least not at the moment. Of course, I still knew that if we were to scratch the surface we’d no doubt find ourselves in great conflict, and because that was not a direction in which I wanted to go, as the meal went along I sought to keep things on an even and constant keel.

Perhaps they sensed it too, for among us, we managed to see that the conversation remained, consistently and resolutely, shallow. We talked about the weather, about the Little League games in which their two sons played, and then, of course, about how the weather might affect the Little League games. We were actually doing rather well at keeping the conversation superficial and far from any topic around which conflict might occur. Or so I thought.

But then suddenly, out of nowhere, the man pointed at me forcefully with his finger, and snarled in a voice that I must say truly frightened me, “Sometimes I wish you animal rights people would just drop dead.” How on Earth he knew I had any affinity to animal rights I will never know - I had painstakingly avoided any mention of any such thing - but I do know that my stomach tightened immediately into a knot.

To make matters worse, at that moment his two sons leapt from the table, tore into the den, slammed the door behind them, and turned the TV on loud, presumably preparing to drown out what was to follow. At the same instant, his wife nervously picked up some dishes and scurried into the kitchen. As I watched the door close behind her and heard the water begin running, I had a sinking sensation. They had, there was no mistaking it, left me alone with him. I was, to put it bluntly, terrified.

Under the circumstances, a wrong move now could be disastrous. Trying to center myself, I tried to find some semblance of inner calm by watching my breath, but this I could not do, and for a very simple reason. There wasn’t any to watch. “What are they saying that’s so upsetting to you?” I said finally, pronouncing the words carefully and distinctly, trying not to show my terror. I was trying very hard at that moment to disassociate myself from the animal rights movement, a force in our society of which he, evidently, was not overly fond.

“They accuse me of mistreating my stock,” he growled. “Why would they say a thing like that?” I answered, knowing full well, of course, why they would, but thinking mostly about my own survival. His reply, to my surprise, while angry, was actually quite articulate.

He told me precisely what animal rights groups were saying about operations like his, and exactly why they were opposed to his way of doing things. Then, without pausing, he launched into a tirade about how he didn’t like being called cruel, and they didn’t know anything about the business he was in, and why couldn’t they mind their own business.

This concludes Part 1 of our reading of “The Pig Farmer,” a chapter from John Robbins’s best-selling book “The Food Revolution.” Please join us again tomorrow for the continuation of this heartfelt story. Books by John Robbins are available at

Insightful viewers, thank you for joining us today on Animal World: Our Co-Inhabitants. Coming up next is Enlightening Entertainment, following Noteworthy News. We wish you a blessed Christmas Eve and may we share peace and joy with all our animal friends.