EXPLICIT

In keeping this blog, I've been trying and trying to put off this entry.  Every time I start trying to talk to people about how their food is made, they always say, "Just don't tell me about the slaughterhouses, I don't wanna hear it!"  And the thing is, I get it.  People want to imagine their burger grew up in a beautiful field with lots of grass to eat and lots of other cows to hang out with.  I didn't want to know Bessie was packed into a  pen like a sardine, or that she couldn't even walk when she was taken to the slaughterhouse.  I never wanted to hear that my food gets covered in feces during processing, that 10% of all chickens are expected to die in transport, or that Babe had to share a pen with dozens of other pigs (and some of those pigs were already dead in their cage).  But WHY doesn't anyone want to hear these things?  If you intend to put that into your body, into your children's bodies, shouldn't you want to know, if nothing else, that it's CLEAN?

So, here we are, at the beginning of the blog no one wanted to be written.  And if no one wants to read it, then I refuse to write it.  I'm going to show it to you.  If you're squeamish, I recommend you navigate to a less sad-but-true kind of site.  I recommend cuteoverload.

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Old McDonald's Farm (Version 2011)

 

Cows chained indoors, covered in their own excrement.

 A downed calf.  These "downers" are the result of malnutrition and deplorable living conditions.  They are usually left to die of exposure.

 

 Laying hens confined in battery cages.  These chickens will spend their whole life in these cages.  Many will be destroyed after one laying season.

Broiler chickens fight for space in "modern barns."  There are no regulations on the amount of space needed to house a certain number of chickens.

Some pigs get their own pen...with no space to move.

Chickens are shackled by the legs at the processing plant. Many of their bones will be broken during this process, and though their throats are systematically slit before being hung, it is not uncommon for the chicken to survive all the way to slaughter.

 Male chicks born at a laying operation are useless to the industry.  Some are gassed, others are ground up alive.

 A cow suffering from Mastitis, an infection of the udders caused by overmilking.  This disease has been proven to be caused by using hormones used to increase a dairy cow's milk production.

Dead piglets left in their pen with all the others.  The pig in back appears to be rotting.

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I'm sorry if you found those images unpleasant, I know I do.  But, I have a question for you now that you've seen them.  If you can't stand to look at this stuff, how can you tolerate putting it in your mouth?