Friday, November 25, 2011

"One meal, soon forgotten, in exchange for a whole life."

Hello, and thank you for reading. It's been a while since I've posted anything. Yesterday was Thanksgiving so it seems like an appropriate time to post something again...

Thanksgiving is a great day (for those of us who have much to give thanks for). Theoretically it's a time when we gather with friends and family to enjoy each other and the bounty in our lives. We eat, we drink, we're merry and we stuff ourselves silly. There are a lot of things I can appreciate about this minus most people's main course: turkey.

Turkey on Thanksgiving has become such a tradition that most people never really stop to think about it at all. Did you know that more than 45 million turkeys are killed each year just for Thanksgiving dinners (out of about 300 million killed all year)? Do you think that there's a way to kill so many animals in a humane way? I hate to break it to you if you think so, but there isn't. It's actually impossible and that's the reason why factory farming exists: Farmer Bob can't produce 45 million turkeys but huge agribusiness can. And of course, with that comes torture from the beginning to the end. The chicks are thrown around after their born (on conveyor belts), debeaked, have their toes cut off (no anesthetic of course). Like chickens, they are raised in filthy extremely over-crowded spaces where they can barely turn around, their bodies grow way too fast due to hormones and breeding. Eventually they're transported to slaughter where they have to endure the gruesome and terrifying murder procedures. You can read about all of this on the Farm Sanctuary website.

It's really sad what happens to these birds. They're alive. They're sentient beings capable of feeling pain and pleasure.  Our society disregards them as inanimate objects and condones massive amounts of torture. Personally, I have never missed eating turkey on Thanksgiving (or meat on any other day). I just wish people would stop for a minute and consider the life and death they're gorging themselves on.

"One meal, soon forgotten, in exchange for a whole life."

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