It’s not fair that dogs and cats are so highly valued, yet a pig, chicken or cow must suffer her entire life.
I am not asking you to become a vegetarian or to support any animal rights organizations. I am asking you to question your values because if you are reading this blog you love animals.
There is something wrong with the way the United States raises animals for food. Too many people choose to look the other way when it comes to the abuse animals take before they end up on our plates. These animals suffer endlessly before they are eventually killed in the worst ways imaginable.
Believe me, I love a good hamburger. But I chose to give up all red meat in 2007. I also limit the chicken and seafood I eat.
Ace is of course a carnivore and continues to eat his lamb and rice dog food. Many people are opposed to using horse meat in dog food, but fewer people stand up for the ways other animals are inhumanely slaughtered for multiple purposes.
If you have not watched PETA’s Meet Your Meat video, I suggest you watch it. I chose not to embed the video on my blog because some people will be very bothered by the images.
Why is it OK for this to happen in 2009?
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Do your comments work yet?
Hey! They do! I just wanted to say that I’m glad you posted this.
Thanks, Apryl! I am having lots of random troubles with behind the scenes stuff on the blog. But at least the comments are working now!
Bummer – I hope you get everything back on track soon!
Thanks, me too!
I’ve always thought this double standard was weird. It is good to see that you are giving awareness to this growing problem.
Thanks, Chris.
That is a really interesting question. Many farm animals are clearly very smart and sentient. In particularly I would venture pigs and goats are at least as smart as dogs, and just as delightful. And I would like to see those animals treated as well as my own dogs. I have two ideas that I flip flop between.
The first is similar to yours, that I should not eat red meat. It seems an unbearable cruelty to kill someone’s brother, sister or child for something as transitory as my craving for a burger.
But other times I think that by eating my burger, I am giving a calf a chance at life. If I did not create a demand for beef, then the farmers would not be breeding them and there would be far fewer calves getting a chance at life. Instead, I think the moral imperative might only be to buy from a farmer that does a great job raising animals that have a wonderful albeit truncated life. If I were the calf, I think I would prefer better to have a short great life, than not to have been born. For example, at least from the website Redwood Hills Farms, seems like they give their goats a really good life (www.redwoodhill.com), and it feels ok to buy milk from them even though I know that many goats are culled as a byproduct of my buying milk.
Penny for your thoughts.
Yeah, you are very right. Thank you for your comment. As for the calves that are born in factory farms, I’d rather those calves were never born. But there are of course some farms that treat the animals at least fairly well up until the butchering process.
Lindsay,
unfortunately those farms are very rare – and getting rarer. If you don’t know exactly where it came from then a smiling cow “humane!” sticker means nothing.
I have been vegan for 5 years, ever since I learned how dairy cows and egg hens live (vegetarian before that.) I avoid all things PETA though. I think that group is run by the American Cattle Rancher Association or something to convince people that vegans are insane. (Kidding, sorta.)
Great blog! I found it when I was deciding between the gentle leader head halter and the halti.
Yeah, unfortunately.
I’ve thought about becoming vegan, but haven’t committed to it yet. I try to eat mostly raw, organic food. PETA has its good and bad sides.
Thanks for the compliment about my blog!
Um…there’s no text or anything to this blog post that I can see. I was interested in reading it.
Oh don’t even get me started…
The site should be back up soon. Thanks for stopping by!
This is a very touchy subject with a lot of people. I am an animal lover. I grew up on a farm with animals that we raised and then we ate. Sometimes it was real tough to lose an animal that you have raised since it was young. I will say that our animals were always happy and when the time came the deed was done very humanely.
These factory type farms are the ones that people need to take notice and get under control. The government is starting to take notice now and getting involved. It will take time but I think it will improve.
I didn’t watch the video because I can’t stand to watch any sort of abuse. I can’t even watch the commercial that they play on TV about rescuing dogs and cats that are abused.
Yeah, those are all good points, Shane. I hope people reading this will support small, local farms.
Ugh. We do try to get local when we can. What appalls me is – that video was for “human grade” food – can you imagine what is done for dog food?
oh I know! I was thinking the same thing! i can’t imagine how bad dog food is.
I totally agree with this. I made a vow last year to only eat meat that had had a happy, humane life. (I.e., local, grass-fed beef, cage-less meat, eggs, dairy). I don’t want to eat any more trash meat, like random-ass chicken sandwiches pumped full of hormones, or burgers that are actually made from scraps and bits of hundreds of different miserable cows. I follow this as best I can, although I have gone weak in the knees for a random corn-dog or plate of bacon. Or arby’s. I do like cooking, and my grocery bill has gone way down.
I think a good rule is, don’t eat anything you would not be able to kill yourself. And also that meat is a treat you should only occasionally eat.
Yeah, it is totally disgusting that 100 cows end up in one hamburger patty. Gross. I like your rule of not eating something unless you could have killed it yourself. I’ll follow that rule. Every time I see a certain relative, she says, “Are you still on that vegetarian diet?” Followed by, “So, what can you eat if you can’t have meat?” And people will say things like, “CAN you eat shrimp?” Or “CAN you eat chicken noodle soup?” I can eat whatever I want!