What is the Best Kind of Animal Abuse? Are You Contributing?
In Environment on July 1st, 2008 | 451 views
by Vic Shayne, PhD
Animal abuse is a terrible, repulsive, despicable act. Few logical, normal people would disagree. It’s so bad, in fact, that a multi-million dollar NFL football player, Michael Vick, was convicted and sent to jail for involvement in dog fighting. Is this really animal abuse? I would say so. But what few people realize is that this is absolutely nothing compared to what is done to farm animals every single day that very few people know about. So why do we say no to dog fighting and yes to the hideous, painful removing of beaks from chickens? Or the force feeding of geese or the torture of pigs on a daily basis?
Animal abuse is alarming and disturbing and is behind most cartons of eggs, steaks, chicken, turkey, ham and bacon. Can you turn your back on this article? I hope not.
Why do you eat animal products that are the end product of a series of painful, inhumane treatment? It’s animal abuse by every definition. This article is to get you to think twice about what you eat. It’s not a promotion of vegetarianism, but of humane treatment of animals — animals that you end up eating!
Chickens, pigs, turkeys, cows, and other farm animals raised for meat, eggs, and milk make up more than 95% of the animals in the United States with whom humans interact. Yet how much do we really know about them?
Farm animals are sentient, complex, and unique. They are as capable of feeling pain and frustration, joy and excitement as those dogs and cats we welcome into our families, yet industrialized agriculture treats them merely as meat-, egg-, and milk-producing machines, instead of the living, sensitive beings they are.
Just like those animals we consider to be our companions or those in the wild, these animals deserve our respect and compassion.
To avoid giving you the gruesome details, just consider some facts about eggs. If you’d like to learn about the animals you eat and their real nature, visit the site of the Human Society by clicking here.
EGGS:
- Even in organic egg and free-range production, beak cutting and forced molting through starvation are permitted.
- With a Certified Humane AND Cage-Free designations, forced molting through starvation is prohibited, but beak cutting is allowed.
- Natural: This label has no relevance to animal welfare
Nurturing, highly social, brave, and smart, chickens have long been underestimated. Read on to see how complex, intelligent, and interesting they are.
With nearly no federal regulations to verify animal welfare claims on egg cartons, egg producers sometimes use written claims or visual imagery on cartons that mislead consumers about how those eggs were produced. (1)
1. The Humane Society: A Brief Guide to Egg Carton Labels and Their Relevance to Animal Welfare, Factory Farming Campaign, Ap 2008
Netanya
Says:July 3rd, 2008 at 4:28 am
Thanks for informative article, and for helping the animals caught in the vicious industrial Legal animal abuse system.
Nutrition Researchers
Says:July 8th, 2008 at 11:24 am
Even if there is a difference in opinion on whether people should become vegetarians, we cannot ignore the abuse that animals undergo. We can continue to come up with all the excuses and rationalizations, but this will never resolve the real problem that we face or choose to ignore — under the current farming system animals are abused. Like our pets, cows, pigs and chickens are social, responsive and feeling beings. There has to be a better way than to torture them. It’s just plain psychopathic.