Blog 2

In my recent blog I informed you on a book I am reading, “The CAFO Reader: The Tragedy of Industrial Animal Factories” by Daniel Imhoff. I’ve been looking for information on industrial animal factories and I came across this video clip on YouTube.com called “Farm to Fridge” by Mercy for Animals, which was traumatizing to watch. People need to be informed about the slavery this system is embracing. The torture that these animals are put through is heartless, intense and sickening to see. It’s only by actually seeing the circumstances these innocent animals live in is where you think twice about what foods your buying and what you should be eating. Both the video clip and readings from the CAFO system give immense information of the slavery, controlling and emotionally dead industrial system we’ve been accepting.

Poultry/Eggs:

 We all know what a McChicken is and we probably all ate chicken nuggets once before. Though we don’t know where our chicken came from. According to Mercy for Animals, Slaughter plants birds are killed by being hung upside down from there legs on moving shackles, then dragged through an electric vaunt of water that paralyzes them but still leaves them conscious. Pulled across a blade that slices their throats while blood drips down in a bin (From Farm to Fridge).

The way our chicken is slaughtered in these industrial factories is highly unnatural. In this clip I watched a male worker in rain boots, viciously stomp on a chickens head over and over again. Another male worker pulled and twisted a chicken’s head to make its neck crack, the poor chicken was thrown on the floor and you could see it still moving. This practice is done daily, this is the factory’s way of getting rid of sick or injured chickens.

Birds are NOT walking around in a beautiful farm. Every chicken, turkey as well as every other animal are kept in crates unable to move and denied basic behavioral and natural needs. “Male baby chicks cannot lay eggs so they are killed within hours of being born. They are thrown in grinding machines while still alive. Another way workers get ride of male chicks is by throwing them in trash bins and later smothering or suffocating them. Female chicks aren’t left off so easy either. The have a destiny filled with cruelty and torture” (From Farm to Fridge). I watched baby chicks get their beaks cut off with a hot blade; this mutilation is called “de-beaking”. This technique is needed due to over crowded living conditions. It’s a mutilation that causes chronic pain. In the video you watch a little chick with half a beak left and the pain in her eyes. There are long assembly lines filled with chicken hens stuffed inside a small cage. Fact: 95% of egg laying hens spend their lives confide in tiny wire cages (From Farm to Fridge).

Dairy/ Beef:

 The majority of dairy cows are kept confined. They are kept in tight spaces with only enough space to move their heads. Cows that are injured or sick are called “downers”. Instead of taking a cow to veterinarian cows are left to slowly die and suffer from their injuries (From Farm to Fridge). This is the factory’s way of getting rid of sick and injured cows. Baby calves are dragged away from their mothers and violently killed.

I watched a worker walk in and grab a baby calve form his neck with his bare hands while he was drinking on from his mothers utters. It’s so sick to think this is what’s done just so humans can drink milk. At a fraction of their natural life span so-called spent, dairy cows are plotted on to transport trucks and sent to slaughterhouses (From Farm to Fridge).

Beef comes from hanging a cow upside down while a worker slices his throat open and watches all the blood gush down into a bin. In the video Mercy for animal’s representatives states that “Unreliable stunning practices at slaughter houses commend cattle’s to getting their throats cut, limbs hacked off all while still alive.

Pork

I watched a pregnant sow laying down in a narrow metal stall smaller then her body, unable to move and barely enough space to breath. This is where they lay during their entire 4-month pregnancy. I watched a newborn piglet being thrown to a worker, the worker with no remorse caries the piglet upside down, cuts his skin open, without hesitation rips out his testicles and cuts off his tail. You can hear the baby piglet screaming in pain, squirming around trying to get away. The factory’s way of getting rid of sick or injured piglets is being slammed to the ground, head first.

To think that this is allowed, that this is our food system. These are animals, with emotions not reflexes. The view that society, CAFO, and the workers perceive these animals is the same way the Nazi perceived the Jews. Slavery is defined by “A civil relationship in which one person has absolute power over the life, fortune, and liberty.” That’s exactly what this system is based on.  We all are blind to it.

The passages in Slaughterhouse by Gail A. Eisintz are quite intense but very informative. I read this narrative that really struck my attention. An Industrial Farm worker, Tommy Vladak explains his position and astonishing moments while slaughtering hogs. As corrupted as it seems this is a man that took much pride in his job. Tommy surprises me when he states, “There was one night I’ll never forget as long as I live..  A little female hog was coming through the chutes. She got away and the supervisor said ‘Stick that bitch!’ I grabbed her and flipped her over. She looked up at me. It was like she was saying ‘Yeah I know it’s your job, do it.’ That was the first time I ever looked at a live hogs eyes. And stuck her” (Slaughterhouse 74).

Whether it was Tommy going insane, or whether it was his inner voice. It’s the fact that he felt something for the first time. About most of these workers are emotionally damaged. They learn just like society learns to see these animals as nothing less then nutrition. I can agree that we live off of dairy, poultry, and pork. But I cannot agree that the techniques used in the factory farms are the healthiest nor right way to do kill them.

Its slavery, it’s controlling and it’s emotion-less what we’ve been allowing innocent animals go through. Imagine showing a 7yr old child a slaughtering video such as “from farm to fridge”. I could bet all the money I have that child will not view meat the same ever again. But why are we willing to allow this? Why can a child see the simple difference between right and wrong but an adult can care-less? These are questions you need to ask your self. Look into society with different views. Don’t believe what you given to you. Get answers. Get information. 

From Farm to Fridge

Peer review with tutor!

I grew up in Paraguay a country where it’s normal to raise then later on kill your dinner in order to survive. I was always a little troubled by the idea of animals being killed because I’m an animal lover, though I became accustomed to it because I knew my food was raised in a free environment as well healthy. I would’ve never known that food bought in the United States would be a far cry from that lifestyle in Paraguay. The root to where our food comes/raised from is the CAFO (Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations) system. This is a system that our world depends on, so you’d think they’d make sure its clean and healthy right? Wrong. The CAFO system is not only unclean and UN healthy, CAFO is pure animal torture, harmful to their workers and us the consumers, also polluting the earth.

Reading “The CAFO Reader: the tragedy of industrial animal factories”, by Daniel Imhoff helped me gain knowledge of the food we eat daily. Its in our supermarkets it in society and its in our fridge. CAFO is where all our livestock is raised. This isn’t a farm-based environment where there’s animal husbandry and chickens, cows, pigs, turkeys and their baby’s are running around free. It’s a factory, with machines, pesticides and millions of workers. Conventional wisdom has it that at least four domestic animals are raised for every person on the planet. In the United States alone, nearly 10 billion domesticated livestock ¾mostly chickens, pigs, and cows¾ are raised and SLAUGHTERED annually (immhoff  xii). These animals we consume are under unnatural conditions, breathing little air and never able to see sunlight. Chickens naturally are fed corn, cows eat grass, and pigs are feed apples but in this industrial lifestyle these innocent animals are fed a 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 (imhoff xiv).  Seems that everything about this industry is anything but natural, they alter each and every one of these animals to fit and conform in this horrible environment. According to Imhoff, chick’s beaks can be partially seared off so they cannot fatally strike another. The tails of piglets are “docked” to instill “avoidance behavior” inside a stall crammed with hogs… The CAFO industry argues that while such practices may seem cruel to some, they are done to benefit the health and welfare of the animals and to provide an abundant and safe food supply for a hungry planet. While CAFO is wrong when they claim that their cruel actions are done with good intentions and for the health of the animal, CAFO is only right that it feeds a hungry planet (Imhoff xv). It’s affordable and every fast food restaurant are selling it

We are absorbing animals that are constructed too grow under unnatural size’s and under unnatural terms, most of us have no insight of what it leads too. Obesity and high blood cholesterol levels are among the leading risk factors for heart disease. Both of these conditions are associated with heavy meat consumption (Imhoff 70). Americans are dyeing of these conditions; the truth of it all is what’s been hidden. Americans obtain enormous amounts of meat and poultry on a daily basis so it’s logical to create a system that can feed a billion of us in the shortest amount of time. Since the 1920’s when scientist discovered adding vitamins A and D to the food the give these animals will help them keep the animals inside for a full year, able to channel their energy so they can grow faster. Ever since then mortality and diseases have been growing faster as well. These outbreaks weren’t only caused from confinement, livestock’s are given regular doses of antibiotics too grow faster, pasture was replaced by grains, and farmers turned to technology (synthetic fertilizers, toxic pesticides and herbicides) (Imhoff xiv). This method’s that they so call “diet” is also the cause of mad cow disease. Researchers state that this intense meat consumption are linked to heart disease, stroke, diabetes, and certain types of cancers (Imhoff 64). They’ve replaced moral ethics with efficiency, feeding cattle’s animal proteins from other infected cows and sheep. This is practice the only recently has been banned by the U.S food and drug administration (Rollin 8). Not only are we consuming diseases but so are the people working in farm factories. These are life-threatening jobs. Imhoff reports that CAFO workers suffer from numerous medical conditions, including repetitive motion injuries and respiratory illness associated with poor air quality. CAFO workers experience respiratory disease such as chronic bronchitis and occupational asthma (Imhoff 70). Many people are blind to the CAFO industry furthermore what its doing to everyone.

CAFO system not only damages our health its damaging our earth. Slaughtering millions of animals a day may cause things to get messy. There are waste, sick animal’s and contaminated left overs that this system would need to get ride of. CAFO’s strategy is to truck them off-site, rather than recycling their waste into fertilizer. Lagoons and holding ponds are the main resources where all waste is dumped. “Nearly 60% of the world’s freshwater resources are diverted for agriculture, which of at least a third goes to animal productions… World Watch Institute estimates that the livestock sector could be responsible for as much as 50% of all climate-changing emissions making it the most critical influential factor in global warming” (Imhoff 79).  This system is so opposite of responsible and natural that it’s ruining our atmosphere. Everything they dump is contaminated with green house gases like carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous dioxide and in result there is now 400 dead zones spread thought this whole entire world (Imhoff 64).