I have spent several days contemplating if I should, or should not write this article. I am not a ‘tree hugger’, Vegan, nor a member of any ‘activist’ group. I am just a regular person.
My wife and I go the supermarket, and like every other family we try to find the best deals. If your budget is $100 you shop carefully. Sometimes Chicken is the best deal, sometimes Pork.Once in a great while it may even be Beef.
More often than not it is pork that we end up with in our freezer. There are endless ways of cooking pork, My wife goes for the breaded and fried pork chops, I prefer the Mexican luxurious dish, Carnitas (real thing if far different from the stuff in restaurants).
The key point here is that Jan and I consume quite a lot of Pork. I am not naive as to where our Pork comes from. It comes from major suppliers. I have no illusions of little piglets frolicking in a grassy meadow, but I had always thought that these animals were at least raised in a humane manner.
It would seem that I was wrong. I do not know how to word this warning to readers. The horror in this video is far beyond anything that Hollywood could invent.
Please only watch this only if you understand the graphic and brutal nature of the CAFO world.
WARNING – EXTREMELY GRAPHIC
Simon Barrett
6 users commented in " Surviving The 21st Century: And This Little Piggy Went To Hell… "
Follow-up comment rss or Leave a TrackbackWhat is wrong with those workers?? Heartless, cruel, unbelievable. If they need a lawyer I recommend Bozo.
So we really want to buy food from someone who treats animals like this. A few motnhs ago, JBS appeared on Oprah and gave her a tour of one of their pristine factories and tried to whitewash their conduct. To issue a statement that this video was purprosely staged by animal lovers to make them feel bad is a very telling stance from an industry that spouts lies like a water from a steam a good rain.
Let me see. Animal lovers killing animals to prove someone else kills animals. Does anyone belive that nonsense?
I have written about “factory farms” (CAFOs) for years. I have been a vegetarian for 21 years now, and I could never go back to eating meat.
The companies want the public to think that the buildings are so clean you could eat off the floor. The public has no clue what these businesses are doing to the food supply.
The animals live in such close quarters that they have to have almost daily injections of antibiotics. In addition, to pump them up to market weight more quickly (more profit), they are also given hormone injections.
And, the millions of pounds of manure? Guess where it goes? Into a lagoon to be held until it is either injected or sprayed onto a field. Lagoons have ruptured sending the waste into rivers, and saturated fields also contribute to river contamination.
E. coli comes from waste – either animal or human. So when one hears about the rivers having high levels of e. coli, it usually means animal feces has somehow gotten into them.
I understand the draw and comfort of continuing with life-long habits. I too am a “regular person” as is my husband. In our combined lifetimes it represents almost one hundred years of eating meat… So when we made changes – I assure you it was not done without thought and urgency to do so.
As the post before me states, when you look at the devastation done to land – The overall health consequences of meat… And of course the horrific ways flesh reaches our plates – It seemed the proper time to investigate a plant based diet.
For me that was almost 8 years ago… For my husband about 3 — Both of us are very happy with our decisions as previous health issues subsided or disappeared. Our food budget is about the same or less… We’re comfortable in knowing that we’re not contributing to environmental woes – Or the added starvation of humans who could be fed the grain that livestock are fattened on…
Most importantly though – I think we’re very pleased that our lives don’t depend on the taking of other lives… Even if the animals were raised and killed “humanely” – There is an understanding of the truth that no being wishes to die… Pigs, like dogs, cats, chickens and man – All value their lives equally. Seems too sad to take that away without the need to do so. Consequently, our choices feel like they align more with our beliefs of doing as little harm as possible. There could be worse ways to live…
Here is a short video that made our choices all the easier to make:
http://www.nonviolenceunited.org/veganvideo.html
I admire your efforts in examining this issue – Many people lack that courage. May good thinking guide your actions. ~peace~
The only ones who can stop this is us… the consumers; I was a vegetarian for about 2 years and after watching all of these videos and all the cruelty in the dairy industry as well now I am a vegan. I know that everyone should have the right to choose what they want to eat but the way animals are treated for human consumption, it is just not acceptable and like you said, ýou don’t have to be a “tree hugger”, a vegan or a animal rights activist to know that this is totally wrong and simply out of a horror movie, this cannot be considered “the norm”. The only think we can do is stop consuming these animals and make these awful companies who only care about profits clean up their act and not just hide the dust under a rug or try to put blinders on people… and on your journey to try and make your voice be heard as a consumer, you may find yourself liking the options to dairy and meats, like it happened to me and end up living a cruelty free life thanks to these companies being so evil. I wish everyone would make their voice be heard, after all we should be the voice for the voiceless anyway.
Dear Simon,
You and your wife sound just like me.
The only difference is that I found out about the horrors endured by animals treated as our “food” a few years before you did.
I don’t label myself as anything except a regular person. But I did have to make some changes in my life, so I could live with my conscience — just like any other regular person who has had their eyes opened desires to do, I hope!
I began to spend lots of time thinking about animals and reading about them. I realized that appeasing my taste buds wasn’t nearly as important to me as I once thought.
I learned that each farm animal has thoughts and feelings, families and friends, and, if given the chance to live a normal life, much more intelligence and sensitivity than we humans give them credit for.
I also learned that they no more want to be killed than you or I do. So it seemed selfish, even unethical, to force them to die for my appetite.
Without any effort — that is, without any feeling of deprivation or willfulness — my consciousness shifted from what you might call oblivious and apathetic to aware and concerned.
What I remember from the get-go is how good it felt to really care — and to *act* on that newfound caring.
In fact, it felt so good that I didn’t miss meat at all after I ate my last piece of chicken at a party in 2003 or 2004 (I didn’t write down the date).
After that, my desire to be enlightened didn’t stop. The more I looked into dairy and egg production, and the more I tried to imagine the life of a cow and a hen and their babies, the better I understood that I couldn’t call myself a fully compassionate, merciful, just — or even sane — human if I were to pretend that my purchases of cow’s milk and milk derivatives and chicken eggs didn’t matter. I knew it DID matter — to the animals, to me, to the world. I couldn’t go back to un-knowing, even if I wanted to.
With these changes in my behavior toward animals has come the most amazing, indescribable freedom and peace. Living (to the best of my ability) in ways that do not harm others, having a guilt-free conscience, forming friendships with farm animals (and sponsoring them in sanctuaries) makes me feel pure and innocent. Truth be told, I feel like a kid again — a kid who naturally loves animals for who they are, not for what they can do for me. I sense that animals feel the same way, which makes it a lovely two-way street.
I wish you and your wife the best in your new journey, if and when you decide to take this joyous route. You’ll find lots of help from many wonderful people who have taken this path ahead of you. You might want to start by reading my favorite book on the ethics of eating animal-free meals: “The World Peace Diet” by Will Tuttle.
And there are cookbooks galore for all kinds of palates, including those of us who are still wedded to burgers, hotdogs, sausages, ribs, tenders, potato salad, pizza, cookies, cake, ice cream, cheese — yup, it’s all been “veganized” in delicious ways so that you’ll hardly know the difference.
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