Interesting Info (Part 3)

This will be the last installment of the three part "Interesting Info" series. I have by no means touched on some of the cruelest and most shocking practices in the meat and dairy industries. However, I hope that the information presented from Jonathan Safran Foer's book Eating Animals will get you thinking a bit more about what is on your plate...

• "Cattle raised for beef are still adolescents when they meet their end."

• Obviously, dairy cows have to be impregnated in order to produce milk. Ever wonder what happens to their babies? (Well, I didn't either until a short time ago.) The females are raised to become milkers, just like their mothers. The males are sold to the veal industry, fed an iron-deprived diet, prevented from getting exercise (to keep the meat "tender") and slaughtered for human consumption after a very short life.  

• The bond between mother cows and their babies is very strong. There have been stories of mothers escaping factory farms and even regular farms in search of their babies (who have been taken from them so the mothers can be milked for people to consume their milk and all the products made from their milk--cheese, yogurt, ice cream, butter, etc.)

• In many attempts by Safran Foer to see the inside of slaughter facilities, he was repeatedly denied. He writes, "It isn't hard to figure out why the beef industry won't let even an enthusiastic carnivore near its slaughter facilities... A meat industry that follows the ethics most of us hold (providing a good life and an easy death for animals, little waste) is not a fantasy, but it cannot deliver the immense amount of cheap meat per capita we currently enjoy." 

• Beware when you see the term "cage free" on a carton of eggs. All that means is that there is no cage around the actual animal. There can literally be 30,000 to 50,000 (and more) egg layers in a small, crowded and confined facility. It doesn't mean the chickens are running around free on the old fashioned farms pictured on the labels of eggs and milk we buy. 

I've frequently read over the past year that if we had to kill our food ourselves, we would all be vegetarians. Or, as Paul McCartney has said, "If slaughterhouses had glass walls, we'd all be vegetarians." It is important that we understand what goes in to the production of our food. If you are ready to take the next step in learning about factory farm production, read some of the books I've listed on my book list. You can also see footage on www.peta.org and type in "Meet your Meat" to the search section. You can even watch a movie called "Earthlings" online (even the trailer for this movie is intense--this is the movie that initially made me want to become vegan). It is disturbing and difficult to watch these images, but they depict what is actually happening and we need to know these things.