What’s your animal story? Nearly everybody has one, most of us several, usually involving a companion animal. I have one about Nell, my first dog. She hadn’t always been my dog, though. She belonged to my maternal grandfather and I’d many times heard the tale of Nell’s saving his life during the attempted burglary of his little gas station on a county highway. This life-saving feat was probably that she’d heard intruders and barked, but the story had been so embroidered by the time I came along, I knew Nell as a canine superhero, fully prepared to risk all for those in her charge.
           
When my grandparents’ health deteriorated and they could no longer care for Nell, she moved in with us. She was sixteen and I was six, in first grade at a private girls’ school in Kansas City. My parents had both made their way out of hardscrabble childhoods into successful careers; they could easily pay the tuition, but we so did not fit in. I wasn’t aware of that at six, and it seemed reasonable to me to enter Nell, despite her lack of “papers,” in the annual dog show.
           
Our competition included poodles with hair bows, an imposing Great Dane, and a broad bulldog named Winston, as so many are. Nell and I found our place and, on cue, proceeded to walk the circuit before the judges. After a couple of minutes, she got tired and opted to sit a spell. There we were: an ancient, arthritic mutt with short black hair and soulful eyes, and a chubby little girl with an unfortunate perm, yet to learn that in the eyes of this august company, she had no more “breeding” than her dog.
           
Had it been fifth grade instead of first, I’d have been mortified by Nell’s impromptu timeout, but I was still young enough to accept things at face value: she was tired and needed to sit. What’s wrong with that? When she was ready to walk again, we finished the route and waited for the judging with the other K-through-2nd girls and their dogs, who smelled strangely like – perfume? I wasn’t sure.
           
The results were in, first a slew of honorable mentions. That sounded so important, being honorable. We didn’t get one. Then third place – yellow ribbon. Second place – red (I remember to this day that the Great Dane got that one). “First place in the K-through-2nd Division goes to Nell, and her handler, Vicki Mucie.” I was overcome with pride: We won! They knew Nell was a heroine and a dog among dogs.
           
In retrospect, I’m sure the awarding of that blue ribbon was an uneasy act of charity, but my dog was a champion none the less. She stood for pride in who you are, sticking up for those you love, and sitting down when you’re tired because it just makes sense. Nell shaped my character. So did Billy, the dog who came next, a white standard poodle except when my mom had the grooming lady tint him pink. I was influenced, too, by the cats we hid from the landlords after my parents’ divorce, and the injured pigeons and sparrows we tried to save.

In adulthood, two mice, four cats, and two dogs have shared my life, most recently the scruffy black schnauzer-poodle-and-maybe-something-else I spotted in a cage on adoption day at Petco. That’s Forbes, here and now, world’s best dog. Of course, they’re all the world’s best dog -- and cat and horse and gerbil and parakeet. We know this because we’ve known them.

Very few of us get to know a cow or pig or chicken. We don’t have the opportunity to learn firsthand that any one of them could be the world’s best, too. And yet these beings are fully aware of themselves and their surroundings, and they are emotionally and intellectually complex. Not only are they sentient, fully capable of feeling both pain and pleasure, but they form bonds with members of their own species and with us, and they remember past experiences.

Even so, to provide some of us with franks and shakes and Buffalo wings, and others with broiled chicken, grilled salmon, egg white omelets, and non-fat yogurt, we slaughter these individuals by the billions and torture the vast majority mercilessly throughout the days, months, or years of their truncated lives. We tend to ignore what happens to them because it’s too awful to contemplate. But if it’s too awful to contemplate, it’s too awful to support.

Excerpted from THE GOOD KARMA DIET: Eat Gently, Feel Amazing, Age in Slow Motion by Victoria Moran, with the permission of Tarcher/Penguin, a division of Penguin Random House © 2015.