Iceland is the latest of 10 major supermarkets which now insist on CCTV cameras in all slaughterhouses supplying them with meat.

It's made necessary by Animal Aid's original filming of callous practices, like a pig being dragged to a stun pen by a pole in her mouth and chickens turned into footballs by piece-work slaughter workers.

Stunning or the captive bolt, the intended methods, are at least a quick, though brutal death.

It's a main reason why millions of people prefer a vegetarian or vegan diet.

Vegans reduce suffering a lot more also by avoiding the cow's separation from her calf after one to three days. In the 1980s, a cow in Devon walked seven miles of lanes the night after separation to reach her calf.

Huge acreages of crops grown for farm animals can be saved for other purposes, as well as avoiding powerful climate-changing methane.

Farms can then rely on protein like beans, spinach and nuts, and even grow meat without killing from cells in the not too distant future.

These facts of daily life are more unpleasant to some than others.

I acknowledge Fred Leicester of Mercury's More magazine that vegans shouldn't be sanctimonious, but we should give facts and not hide them under a carpet.

Mr Chris Seal, Leicester.