"Even without the horrendous health, environmental, and human rights consequences of the animal industrial complex, the horrific treatment of other animals that it produces is in itself a powerful and compelling reason to resist and reject the system. Sentient beings who have preferences and desires, who are capable of profound social relationships and who have inherent value apart from their ill use by the Complex, are treated essentially as inanimate objects, as "biomachines." Most of these individuals, experiencing torturous confinement in CAFOS, have no opportunity for normal activity or stimuli, and many are kept in darkness for long periods. Their bodies often are crudely and painfully mutilated to facilitate growth or to mitigate the pathological behavior produced by overcrowding. Some animals are so intensively bred and genetically manipulated that they have difficulty standing. Animals are roughly handled and cruelly prodded when transported to slaughterhouses; once there, they are beaten and forced with electric prods onto the slaughterhouse floor, where many are still conscious when the “disassembly” begins. In just the United States, more than ten billion individuals suffer inexpressible horror every year in the name of "food" production."