What scared me most — and not just during the Halloween season — was the meat industry.

This is the industry that mutilates, cages and butchers billions of cows, pigs and other sentient animals; exposes undocumented workers to chronic workplace injuries at low wages; exploits farmers and ranchers by dictating wholesale market prices; and promotes world hunger by feeding nutritious corn and soybeans to animals.

It’s the industry that generates more water pollution and greenhouse gases than any other human activity, creates deadly antibiotic-resistant pathogens by feeding antibiotics to animals, creates epidemics of salmonella, listeria, and other infectious illnesses, and raises mortality from chronic diseases.

Since dropping animal products from my menu, I am no longer scared of the meat industry at Halloween or any other time.