The biggest thing that any individual can do to help animals and reduce the amount of cruelty in the world is to stop consuming animal products, including chicken, fish, eggs, red meat and milk.

The average American eats nearly one hundred animals per year, with most of these being chicken and fish. (It's important to note that chickens and fish feel pain and have distinct personalities just as dogs and cats do.)

Most animals (including fish) are raised in intensive conditions where animals cannot exhibit instinctive behaviors or live any semblance of a natural life. Many are confined in cages so small they cannot or can barely turn around, and most spend their entire lives indoors in dark, filthy sheds. To learn more about animal agriculture and how you can make more compassionate food choices, please click here.

What's the bright side of all of this? The bright side is that each person who reduces their meat consumption, eats vegetarian, or eats vegan will in the course of their lifetime spare hundreds or thousands of animals from the daily misery of animal agriculture. This provides The Humane League a tremendous opportunity to help animals through effective vegetarian advocacy work.

Each year we hand out hundreds of thousands of detailed Compassionate Choices booklets on college campuses and at concerts and festivals. These booklets give the public an eye-opening look at factory farming and provide resources and tips for going veg. Each year we hear from many people who went vegetarian as a result of getting a leaflet from us.

We also distribute tens of thousands of free Vegetarian Starter Kits through public news stand boxes (the same kind of news stand boxes you might get a free weekly newspaper or an Auto Trader guide from), located on busy city streets and by public transportation centers. Thousands of Veg Starter Kits are also mailed out each year to individuals who order them through our comprehensive veg resource site, VegStarterPack.com.

We created VegStarterPack.com to provide a concise collection of the best resources available online for anyone interested in eating vegetarian. To further help people make the transition, we've launched three statewide guides to veg-friendly restaurants, grocery stores, bakeries, bars and more. Our informative VegPA.com, VegNJ.com and VegMass.com websites are visited by tens of thousands of people each year. We also distribute, free of charge, print versions of our Greater Philadelphia Area and Greater Boston Area Veg Eating Guides to thousands of people each year. (Feel free to order one yourself from VegPA.com or VegMass.com.)

A very important component of our vegetarian advocacy work is online outreach, exposing key audiences to videos about factory farm cruelty and helpful resources on veg eating. We are currently drawing nearly 100,000 visitors each month to our Who's Against Animal Cruelty website through targeted Facebook advertisements and a viral outreach campaign.

In addition, we air television programs about factory farm cruelty and vegan cooking on numerous PBS, college and public access television stations. Our programs are designed both to educate the public and to inspire people to make a difference for animals in their own lives.

The Humane League also regularly tables at festivals, fairs and other community events to educate the public about animal agriculture and provide helpful resources for vegetarian eating. Lastly, we host an annual Baltimore Veg Fest to promote veg eating in the Maryland region.

The Humane League is always seeking volunteers to work with us on these easy and highly effective veg advocacy programs, in particular our veg leafleting. To get involved, please sign up today to be a part of The Humane League!