First Blog

I’m writing this blog to inform you about the way we live today, and how the CAFO (concentrated animal feeding operations) system works. Some of you may be aware but many of you are not.  The truth about everything we eat, what society has and may become lies behind the CAFO system. I am reading this book “The Cafo Reader: The Tragedy of Industrial Animal Factories” by Daniel Imhoff. Reading his book I’ve learned a lot. Are you aware that nearly 10 billion animals (mostly chickens, pigs and cows) are raised and slaughtered every year in the United States alone? This is the food we eat every day. All the fast food ads, the pictures they show us in the supermarket labels of the perfect animal husbandry farm isn’t the truth. Imhoff writes "In CAFO, animals are concentrated in unnaturally high stocking rates by the thousands or tens of thousands and under unnatural conditions, often unable to breath fresh air, see the light of day, walk outside, peck at plants or insects, scratch the earth, or eat a blade of grass, they are fed high-calorie grain based diet (sometimes including reclaimed animal manure, ground-up fish, or recycled animal parts) designed to maximize growth and weight gain in the shortest amount of time.” By reading I cant help but think twice about what I’m eating what Imhoff describes is pure torture. So that chickens aren’t able to peck one another their beaks are partially seared off, piglet’s tails are “docked” so they can be still in a crammed environment and more. This is cruelty; CAFO defines this cruelty as benefit to the health and well being of the animals and ability to provide “safe” food supply for a hungry planet. This system doesn’t only destroy innocent lives of the animals its destroying ours as well. We see this as acceptable because a value menu at Mc Donald's or Burger King is cheaper and less time consuming. What we don’t see how our health and environment is being destroyed. Imhoff talks about a study by The World Watch Institute, on how the pegs global livestock production is responsible for 32 billion tons of carbon dioxide annually as well as 51% of all green house emissions cause of that there are no 5 hundred reported “dead zones” throughout the world. I feel this is important because we see our planet slowly changing, last winter we had tremendous snow this year we had none at all and the change is drastic. People around us aren't aware of the reality of the things we consume and where they come from.  Tragedy's  starting to evolve in society, our environment and health.  And maybe it’s CAFO is a system that’s at the root of it all.