Southern Fried Suffering

I wasn't able to watch this video to the end because I would never be able to banish the visions. I've already seen similar and remain haunted by them. Those precious animals. Where is compassion? empathy? reverence for life? Where is God?

Chicken: Recipe

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Chicken Seitan Recipe:
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More About 'Wheat Meat'
http://www.vrg.org/recipes/vjseitan.htm

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Fact Sheet: Battery Cages

Updated February 12, 2009

Click a fact to show references. Show all. Hide all.

1. In the United States, an estimated 95% of egg-laying hens are intensively confined in battery cages.

   United Egg Producers. (2008 Edition, published 2003). United Egg Producers Animal Husbandry Guidelines For U.S. Egg Laying Flocks. Retrieved November 15, 2008. page 1, paragraph 6.

2. As of December 2008, about 300 million birds are confined in battery cages, almost one for every U.S. citizen.

   USDA National Agriculture Statistics Service. (2008). Chickens and Eggs. Retrieved December 16, 2008. page 1.

3. Each cage confines 5 or 6 birds on average, but sometimes up to 10 birds.

   USDA/Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service, Veterinary Services. National Animal Health Monitoring System. (2000). Layers '99. Part II: Reference of 1999 Table Egg Layer Management in the U.S. Retrieved December 16, 2008. page 22: The average number of chickens per cage is about 5.6.
   Shields, Sara, and Ian J.H. Duncan. (2006). An HSUS Report: A Comparison of the Welfare of Hens in Battery Cages and Alternative Systems. Retrieved December 18, 2008. Under "Cages and Alternative Systems," it states that the most commonly used cages hold 5-10 birds per cage.
   Compassion Over Killing. (2005). New COK Investigation Leads to Criminal Charges of Animal Cruelty: Excerpts from the Investigator's Log Notes. Retrieved December 18, 2008. Notes from Wednesday, November 30, 2005 at Ebenshade Farms in Pennsylvania, investigator noted that most of the birds were overcrowded in cages, with as many as 10 birds per cage.

4. Voluntary industry guidelines specify a minimum of 67 square inches per hen. This is an area smaller than a standard sheet of paper.

   United Egg Producers. (2008 Edition, published 2003). United Egg Producers Animal Husbandry Guidelines For U.S. Egg Laying Flocks. Retrieved November 15, 2008. page 11, paragraph 1.

5. Like any animal, chickens are highly motivated to perform natural behaviors. These behaviors include nesting, perching, scratching, foraging, dust-bathing, exploring, and stretching. Caged chickens are denied all of these natural behaviors, causing them severe frustration.

   Shields, Sara, and Ian J.H. Duncan. (2006). An HSUS Report: A Comparison of the Welfare of Hens in Battery Cages and Alternative Systems. Retrieved December 18, 2008. This document provides a summary of natural chicken behavior and how it is frustrated by battery cage confinement.

6. Battery hens suffer from serious health problems, such as respiratory disease from constant exposure to ammonia fumes and fecal dust; osteoporosis, bone fractures, and prolapsed uteruses from being bred to lay eggs at an unnaturally high rate; and foot disorders, sores, and injuries from contact with the cage wire in outdated cage systems.

   Shields, Sara, and Ian J.H. Duncan. (2006). An HSUS Report: A Comparison of the Welfare of Hens in Battery Cages and Alternative Systems. Retrieved December 18, 2008. This document provides a summary of diseases and health problems battery chickens suffer.
   The Humane Society of the United States. (2008). An HSUS Report: Welfare Issues with Selective Breeding of Egg-Laying Hens for Productivity. Retrieved December 19, 2008. More detail on osteoporosis and cloacal prolapse resulting from selective breeding.

7. As a response to the lack of foraging opportunities in the barren cage environment, chickens sometimes engage in feather-pecking of their cagemates. So, before they are 10 days old, the ends of their beaks are seared off with hot blades.

   United Egg Producers. (2008 Edition, published 2003). United Egg Producers Animal Husbandry Guidelines For U.S. Egg Laying Flocks. Retrieved November 15, 2008. page 4: Guidelines for beak trimming.

8. Beak mutilation causes acute and sometimes chronic pain.

   Shields, Sara, and Ian J.H. Duncan. (2006). An HSUS Report: A Comparison of the Welfare of Hens in Battery Cages and Alternative Systems. Retrieved December 18, 2008. page 5: "Abnormal Behavior: Cannibalism and Feather-Pecking."

9. For every egg you buy, a hen will be forced to endure these conditions for over 32 hours.

   USDA National Agriculture Statistics Service. (2008). Chickens and Eggs. Retrieved December 16, 2008. page 1: Egg production for October 2008 was 2,276 eggs per 100 layers. This is 22.76 eggs per month per bird, which translates to 32.68 hours per egg, given that October has 31 days.

10. Chickens are confined for about a year and a half before their ability to lay eggs declines, then they are killed.

    USDA/Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service, Veterinary Services. National Animal Health Monitoring System. (2000). Layers '99. Part II: Reference of 1999 Table Egg Layer Management in the U.S. Retrieved December 16, 2008. page 23: The average age of laying hens entering battery cages is 17.5 weeks. Page 29: The average age of laying hens at slaughter is 101.5 weeks. 101.5-17.5 = 84 weeks, or about 19 months.

11. Eggs are not a necessary part of a nutritious diet, and there are many healthy, affordable alternatives that make it easy to leave eggs off of your shopping list for good. Some good egg alternatives include applesauce, bananas, commercial egg replacer powder (such as Ener-G Egg Replacer or Bob's Red Mill All Natural Egg Replacer) ground flaxseed, tofu, or vinegar and baking soda.

    For more information about how easy it is to replace eggs, see the following links:

    • HSUS: Endless Eggless Options
    • EggIndustry.com: Egg-Free Products & Recipes
    • About.com: Egg Substitutes
    • Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine: Cooking Without Eggs
12. The egg industry cannot be trusted to make responsible decisions regarding the welfare of chickens, because it has a profit motive to sacrifice their interests. There are currently no U.S. federal laws that protect the interests of chickens used for food.

    USDA/Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service. (2007). Animal Welfare Act Retrieved January 29, 2009. Section 2132, Definitions, part g. In the Animal Welfare Act, the word "animal" excludes poultry.

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Ground Up Alive: Baby Chicks Suffer

A CASE FOR NOT EATING EGGS!

by Adam Werbach

The non-profit organization Mercy for Animals has recently released a video shot at an Iowa egg hatchery showing workers killing unwanted male chicks by placing them in a grinder while still alive. The shocking footage is now spreading quickly around the internet along with calls for the company in question, Hy-Line, to reform its practices. Male chicks are routinely discarded because they don't produce eggs and don't grow large enough or quickly enough to be sold for meat. While there is nothing illegal about killing chicks in this way, the footage also contains images of chicks slipping through the grinder and dying slowly on the factory floor, which is a violation of corporate and industry ethical standards.

According to the AP, Mitch Head, the spokesperson for the United Egg Producers responded to the video by saying, "There is, unfortunately, no way to breed eggs that only produce female hens.” He continued, "If someone has a need for 200 million male chicks, we're happy to provide them to anyone who wants them. But we can find no market, no need."
The chicken processor, Hy-Line on its website says it produces about 30,000,000 chicks a year, and by that count, it would mean that it also kills about 30,000,000 male chicks a year as well.

Undercover footage: Warning: Graphic Images. Not for the squeamish or children.

This is not the first time that undercover footage has lead to calls for change in the food industry. The Hallmark/Westland meat recall, the largest in US history, was touched off by footage shot by a Human Society volunteer who took a job at the slaughterhouse. These videos point to the rapid change towards transparency that is being forced upon businesses. Companies that expect that they can operate behind closed doors in a way that would offend the sensibilities or ethical standards of the public are being forced to change. But will consumers be willing to pay more, or spend more time, for food that is not produced in an industrial fashion?
Adam Werbach is the author of Strategy for Sustainability TWITTER: @adamwerbach
Although we may not be able to stop these shocking practices today, we can pressure a large player in the chicken meat industry, McDonalds, to adopt more humane methods for slaughter.

Click to sign the petition letter.

Read more: chicks, animal welfare, baby-chicks, chicks ground up, united egg producer, hyline

Ground Up Alive: Baby Chicks Suffer

Cage Free - A New and Improved Abuse

Nephesh ~ Abolition, Direct Action and Veganism





By Tribe of Heart

As a strategy to end the use of battery cages, for example, several Animal Orginizaion are encouraging members and supporters to persuade individuals and institutions to switch to eggs labeled “cage-free.” One of the architects of this campaign has stated that the term “cage-free” is not misleading at all — for even though the hens are confined in artificial indoor environments, technically speaking, they are not in actual cages. But being technically factual and telling the truth are not necessarily the same. Just ask members of the general public to imagine the lives of chickens who produce “cage-free” eggs. Most will likely envision something akin to the mythical “Old MacDonald’s Farm,” contented animals freely wandering about a bucolic barnyard.
The reality? Millions of young hens standing shoulder to shoulder in huge enclosed warehouses, forced to dwell day and night in their own waste, enduring air so foul that workers sometimes wear gas masks to prevent permanent damage to their lungs. Just like their battery-caged sisters, “cage-free” hens are brutally debeaked, force molted (starved for days to restart an egg laying cycle), and, of course, slaughtered when they are no longer of use. Or, as one investigator discovered, if no buyer can be found for their ravaged bodies, they might just be packed into steel drums and gassed, the piles of their lifeless remains sent to a landfill or used as compost. Not to mention the millions of male chicks who, incapable of laying eggs, are unceremoniously suffocated in plastic bags or ground alive into fertilizer or feed, their lives snuffed out before they even begin.
“New and Improved” Abuse?

If we pursue justice by collaborating with industry, by helping develop and promote what we tell ourselves are slightly less hideous forms of exploitation, are we not attempting to displace one form of abuse with another?

While it is questionable whether such a strategy could eventually lead to the end of exploitation, one thing is certain: when animal advocates encourage the public to accept “new and improved” forms of abuse, we are powerfully reinforcing the status of nonhuman animals as property—to be acquired, used and disposed of at will. We are also significantly bolstering the credibility and positive public image of an industry with a long history of betraying public trust.

Even more troubling, we animal advocates cannot successfully carry out such a strategy without ourselves directly taking part in misleading the general public. Consider, for example, what it takes to successfully “sell” the idea that buying and consuming eggs labeled “cage-free“ is socially responsible, and even compassionate. If the full reality of “cage-free” egg production—or any other systematized exploitation of animals—were to be revealed, wouldn’t it be impossible to convince large numbers of people to support it?



Hence, to promote “cage-free” eggs, we must step across the invisible but critical line that separates an advocate from an apologist.

From Cage-free to Cruelty-free: How Truthiness Becomes Fiction

Let’s examine some of the statements that have appeared in local media where “cage-free” egg campaigns have run. Watch as the pressure to close the sale leads to the inevitable blurring of fact and fiction:

One student animal rights group characterizes their “cage-free” campaign as trying to get their college’s food service to no longer purchase its eggs from “large factory farms with cruel conditions.” The group’s leader states that “factory farms and caged hens are harmful to the environment,” and that “cage-free eggs are good for the animals and local farmers. ”



At another college, animal advocates state that if the university would switch to eggs labeled “cage-free,” “we could pride ourselves on knowing that these birds were living a decent life,” and that they'd no longer be supporting “environmentally unsustainable practices that exploit the land, the workers, the animals. ”





The truth is, most “cage-free” eggs are produced on industrialized farms, and there is little evidence to suggest “cage-free” production techniques are less harmful to the environment. They are certainly not “good for” animals.

Said one doctoral candidate, “If entire nations across Europe can ban battery cages and go cruelty-free, then I’m optimistic that [our university] certainly can as well!”


Animal Rights International, headed by Peter Singer, paid to have these billboard style ads run on the sides of New York City buses. Peter Singer's utilitarian approach guides the policies of many of the animal organizations currently collaborating with the animal exploiting industries.

But can an industry that mutilates and kills the young animals it exploits truthfully be called “cruelty-free”?

At another college, a student sponsor of a successful “cage-free” campaign says, “It’s good that this university can show that we’re compassionate toward animal rights. ” So switching to eggs labeled “cage-free” is now an expression of animal rights, a philosophy that rejects all exploitation and boycotts the consumption of animal products?



“We’re happy to do it,’’ said the food manager for a Fortune 500 company. “There’s a ripple effect that I think will happen. Other companies also will want to ensure humane treatment of animals. ’’

As one astute activist pointed out, terms that can be used in a relative sense when communicating with animal activists, are now being applied in an absolute sense when selling consumers on these “new and improved” animal products. So while one might choose to argue that some forms of exploitation and killing are less inhumane or less cruel than others, an informed advocate cannot honestly characterize any form of exploitation and killing as humane or free of cruelty. Yet this is exactly what the public is being led to believe.



Imagine what it means to do all the work needed to pull down the veil covering over the horrific injustice of battery egg production, and then, to turn around and methodically cover it up again with a new and improved facade: “Cage-free” eggs—the cruelty-free, socially responsible, environmentally sustainable alternative. Good for the animals, good for farmers, good for workers, good for you.

This, at a time when more and more people around the world are being addicted to an animal protein-centered diet, the proven cause of most chronic illness. This, at a time when we face record obesity, and avian influenza looms as the next pandemic. This, at a time when UN researchers have determined that animal agriculture produces more global warming impact than all the world’s cars, trucks, buses, planes, trains and ships combined.
And Let’s Not Forget, They’re Tastier Too

A repeating theme of news stories around the “cage-free” egg campaign—actually common to much of the coverage of advocate-approved labeling schemes—is how delicious these “new and improved” animal products are.
One campus dining service conducted a taste test, failing to find even one student who didn’t think “cage-free” eggs tasted better. Another dining manager was quoted complimenting their freshness. She spoke of how one of their chefs “made banana bread with the eggs and said the bread rose to be lighter and fluffier,” and how “students seem interested in tasting the eggs,” concluding that “people seem to be eating more eggs just to try them out. ”

Is there any doubt our cause is being co-opted?

But how can anyone blame well-meaning activists for contributing to the growing smorgasbord of mis- and dis-information? After all, they’ve been convinced by people they admire that if they tell the truth, they will not reduce suffering as much as by offering up the false reassurances of truthiness. They’ve been convinced that replacing one form of abuse with another is a viable path to ending exploitation.
As the core values and principles of the movement are perversely put in service of selling the very products of suffering and exploitation they were intended to abolish, people of integrity and goodwill become increasingly disoriented. They lose their ability to recognize they’ve been drawn into a destructive conflict of interest, mistaking it for “pragmatism” and “common sense. ”

A Half Truth is a Whole Lie


Is it time to take a look in the mirror? Do we really want to convince our most idealistic young people that skillful manipulation is a surefire path to a better world? That PR spin, and not teaching, is the answer? Do we want to perpetuate the destructive fantasy that a social justice movement can be run like a multi-national corporation?



Ignorance, denial and dishonesty are at the very root, not just of exploitation itself, but of the social and psychological forces that allow its toleration. When we are willing to sacrifice the truth, to dilute its power in order to accrue short-term gains, however noble they may seem to be, we break free of our ethical moorings and begin to drift off course, inevitably carried away by the same currents that drive those caught up in exploitation.







In our heart of hearts, we know there is a better path. If we take the time to listen, our conscience will show us the way.
Tribe of Heart

The Faces of "Free-Range" Farming



Peaceful Prairie Sanctuary