Why go vegetarian? Well, for us it is a matter of really two things: 1) the health benefits and 2) due to the poor treatment of the animals, it really breaks my heart.
Here is a quick view of some of the issues that surround the production and consumption of meat:
*courtesy The Meatrix
Additives
Much of the food we find at today’s supermarkets is highly processed and contains numerous food additives. These substances are used to change the way food tastes and looks (altering the color and texture), to improve the nutritional quality of foods (adding vitamins and minerals), and to increase the food’s shelf life to prevent spoilage.
Air Pollution
Industrial farms produce massive amounts of animal waste that is known to release greenhouse gasses into the air. Aside from the air pollution that comes from farm waste, the industrialized food system also burns significant amounts of fossil fuels to power the trucks that distribute products.
Animal Welfare
As farms have become more industrialized, animals have become more of a commodity. They are considered units of production, rather than living, breathing beings, and as a result these animals are treated inhumanely. But increasingly, more and more consumers are demanding better treatment of animals.
Antibiotics
Because of the crowded and unsanitary conditions on factory farms, animals are often fed low doses of antibiotics. Antibiotics are also used to make the animals grow faster. This is contributing to the growing problem of antibiotic-resistant bacteria in humans.
Biodiversity
Biodiversity is important because ecosystems rely on the interaction of a variety of plant and animal species, and because various breeds of animals and plants have valuable genetic material. Industrial agriculture is one among many unsustainable human activities that has lead to rapid decreases in the world’s biodiversity.
Climate Change
So how is food—supposedly life-sustaining stuff—one of the key factors in an environmental crisis that threatens the basis of life on earth? A big part of the answer is in the rapid and radical twentieth-century transformation of our food system from sustainably based, locally focused production, to a fossil-fuel addicted industrialized system.
Cloning
Cloning of animals used in food production is a controversial issue both because of its ethical implications and the potential threat it poses to human health.
Dairy
Dairy foods production is a multi-billion dollar industry, and over the past century it has grown increasingly concentrated in the hands of a few major corporations. This has lead to widespread environmental damage, low standards of animal welfare, and mass production of milk tainted with antibiotics, artificial growth hormones and pesticide residues.
Economics
Proponents of industrial agriculture claim that large-scale factory farming is the most efficient way to produce huge quantities of inexpensive food and that without industrial agriculture, food prices would be excessively high. But the price of industrial food does not take into account the true costs of production. When these hidden environmental and health costs are factored in, industrial food costs more than sustainable.
Environment
Agriculture has an enormous impact on the environment, but whether the impact is good or bad depends on the type of agriculture used. Sustainable agriculture puts back what it takes from the environment, while factory farming pollutes our air, water and soil.
Factory FarmingMeat and dairy production in the United States has changed dramatically over the past 30 years. Small family farms have been replaced by huge livestock facilities, where animals suffer horribly, workers are mistreated, the environment is being destroyed, and where rural communities are falling apart.
Family Farms
Family farmers are being forced out of business at an alarming rate, and hundreds of small farmers sell their land every week. The dramatic expansion of industrial agriculture has made it increasingly difficult for small family farmers in the US, but many small family farms have found hope within the sustainable food movement.
Feed
Animals on industrial farms are fed the cheapest grains and waste products in order to fatten them quickly. This leads to widespread health problems, so low doses of antibiotics are also added to the feed. The result is unhealthy animals and unhealthy food for consumers.
Food Irradiation
Irradiation is used to increase the shelf life of the food so it can travel longer distances and keep for as long as possible. This processing method has not been properly tested for safety and it depletes the vitamin content of food.
Food Safety
The significant corporate consolidation of global food production has created a food system that values quantity over quality. Every single decision a farmer, or corporation, makes about growing or raising a certain kind of food affects the final product. Cutting corners on the quality of animal feed, waste management, level of training for farm workers, processing methods and distribution all contribute to the safety of our food.
Fossil Fuel and Energy Use
Industrial agriculture relies on machinery to produce food and trucks to transport the food throughout the country, and likewise consumes massive amounts of fuel and energy. Sustainable farms work to minimize their energy use, and since their products are bought locally, minimal fuel is burned in order to transport their goods.
Genetic Engineering
Genetic Engineering (GE) is the process of transferring genes from one plant or animal to another. The technology has not been properly tested, so no one knows if GE food is safe to eat. Currently, crops are genetically engineered, and some believe that animals are next.
Health
Sustainable foods are healthier than industrial food because of higher levels of “good” fats and nutrients in grass-fed animal products and lower pesticide residues in organic foods. Meanwhile, industrially-produced food is detrimental to our health because it leads to outbreaks of food-borne illness, contributes to antibiotic resistance, and pollutes drinking water.
Heritage and Heirloom Foods
Farmers throughout the world once raised thousands of different animal breeds and plant varieties. However, since today’s industrial farms rely upon only a few specialized livestock breeds and plant varieties, thousands of non-commercial animal breeds and crop varieties have disappeared, along with the valuable genetic diversity they possessed. Fortunately, a growing number of sustainable farmers are preserving agricultural variety and protecting biodiversity by raising “heritage” or “heirloom” animal breeds, fruits, and vegetables.
Hormones
Artificial hormones are implanted in beef and dairy cattle to make them grow faster and produce more milk. The US government claims the hormones are safe, but the European Union has banned hormones because of a possible link between hormones and some types of cancer.
Mad Cow Disease
Mad cow disease is transmitted when one cow eats the brain and spinal tissue of an infected cow. Humans can also contract vCJD (the human form of mad cow) this way, and over 150 people have died from this disease since the 1990’s.
Pesticides
Pesticides are sprayed on crops that are fed to farm animals. Residues are stored in the animals’ fat and tissue, and enter our bodies when we eat the meat. Pesticides have been linked to many medical problems.
Policy and Legislation
Current agricultural policy promotes industrial farming and neglects small farmers. In many cases, our tax money goes to support research and operating costs for large food corporations.
Precautionary Principle
Rather than banning the use of new technologies before they’re shown to be safe, our federal agencies allow potentially dangerous products to enter the food supply, putting public health at risk.
Poverty & Hunger
The new development philosophy helps those in poverty help themselves. In both rural and urban areas, individuals are being encouraged (or taking it upon themselves) to take control of their own food security. Urban communities are reclaiming brown-fields and, using sustainable agricultural techniques, are providing their communities with healthful, fresh food while creating small businesses around selling these products to their communities.
rBGH
Artificial bST is produced using recombinant DNA technology (biotechnology), also called Bovine Growth Hormone (BGH), and known as rbST or rBGH for short. When injected into cows, rBGH increases milk production 10-15 percent and in some cases up to 40 percent.
Slaughterhouses and Processing
The US meatpacking industry is dominated by a handful of corporations that process massive quantities of meat in huge plants. As a result of inadequate food safety standards and lax inspection practices by the USDA, these corporations are able to operate unsanitary facilities and send out meat contaminated with dangerous bacteria. These facilities are also extremely dangerous, and meat-packing is among the most hazardous jobs in the nation.
Waste
Some industrial livestock facilities produce as much sewage as a small city, but they are not required to treat all this waste. Instead, the waste is held in large pools and spread on farm fields where it often runs off into nearby water systems.
WaterAmerican consumers are drinking more bottled water every year, in part because they think it is somehow safer than tap water. Tap water is generally just as safe, clean, and healthy as bottled water—in many cases even more so. By taking back the tap, you can save money, protect your health, and help prevent environmental and social problems as well.
Water Pollution
The waste from industrial farms leaks into streams, lakes, oceans and ground water with bacteria, antibiotic residue, pesticides and chemical fertilizer. This pollution can lead to the destruction of aquatic ecosystems and contamination of human drinking water.
Workers
Workers on industrial farms and in meat processing facilities work in hazardous conditions, and are underpaid and mistreated.
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Here is a little bit of detailed information regarding the way animals that are intended to be eaten are treated:
once again, courtesy The Meatrix
Every year, hundreds of thousands of animals raised for food experience terrible living conditions because the majority of meat, dairy, and poultry production in the U.S. takes place in industrialized or factory farms1. These factory farms are large, profit driven companies which view animals as units of production, rather than living creatures, and exchange the animals' health and welfare for efficiency and profit. While views differ about the degree of comfort and freedom that farm animals deserve, most people can agree on a minimum standard of cleanliness and space, and that animals should not needlessly suffer.
The basic structure of industrial farms is at odds with the well-being of the animals they raise. Confining animals indoors as closely together as possible, rather than letting them graze on open land, exposes them to high levels of toxins from decomposing manure. To counteract the disease inherent in such conditions, animals are given constant low daily doses of antibiotics which are contributing to problems with antibiotic-resistant bacteria. Though they are also exposed to pesticides, other unhealthy additives, and types of food they wouldn't normally eat. The animals can also be bred and given hormones only to increase production.
Life on a Factory Farm
Other common practices, such as debeaking chickens or cutting off cows' tails, are said to increase efficiency and safety, but they also cause discomfort, pain, and stress for the animals. Though these tactics may help "mechanize" the animals and can increase yields by causing less interference with production, this does not justify the resulting suffering. In every stage of development on a factory farm, animals suffer needless mutations and cramped, confined living conditions. Scientists have even linked animal stress to food quality and safety2. When an animal is subject to stress and pain, it is more prone to disease and can produce lower quality meat, milk, or eggs.
Cows
The First Year
Calves born into dairy production are usually removed from their dam, or mother, after only about 12 hours. Once a male calf born into a dairy factory farm is weaned, he will be raised for veal, castrated and sent to feedlots to be fattened, or in rare cases raised for breeding3. The heifers, or young female cows, will be raised as "replacement heifers" on the same farm or sold to another dairy farm. All calves born into factory farms undergo procedures usually unnecessary outside of a factory farm setting. They are dehorned, have extra teats removed (if a heifer), and are usually fed a milk replacer (a dried product made from cheese-making by-products or other sources of proteins like soy)4. The use of a milk replacer brings up concerns about the spread of BSE (bovine spongiform encephalopathy, or Mad Cow's Disease) because some of the allowable protein content in milk replacers is derived from cow's blood cells5. Common practice on dairy factory farms also includes tail docking, or the removal of approximately two-thirds of the tail. This painful procedure is conducted without anesthetic and is supposedly meant to keep the cow from developing infections caused by constant exposure to manure. Studies have shown that this process not only causes the animal a significant amount of pain and stress6, but also has no benefit for the animal's health. In fact, tail docking has been shown to moderately increase stress for cows because they are no longer able to use their tails to swat flies. This results in a greater number of flies around the cattle and the use of other fly-avoidance behaviors7. For these reasons, the American Veterinary Medical Association officially opposes the routine tail docking of cattle8.
Breeding and Growth
In the U.S., dairy cows have been bred to produce higher and higher amounts of milk, and evidence shows this practice has led to a higher occurrence of disease9. While the average dairy cow produced almost 5,300 pounds of milk a year in 1950, today, a typical cow produces more than 18,000 pounds10. In addition to the breeding, in order to artificially increase milk production, a certain number (estimated around 33%) of dairy cattle are injected with rBGH, an artificial growth hormone.
For the duration of their productive lives, factory farmed dairy cattle are kept in one of three types of housing units: tie-stall barns, where they spend their life tethered by their neck to a stall; free-stall barns, where cattle are kept indoors and provided stalls for milking and rest; or dry lots, which is an area with no vegetation where the cattle are kept between trips to the milking barn11. Beef cattle are usually raised on dry lots, but so are some dairy cows. In all of these situations, cattle are in high concentrations and often suffer diseases of the feet and udder from standing in their own manure and being exposed to harsh weather conditions. Stripped of the ability to graze, cattle are given feed which contains some straw and grass, but also protein sources from "by-product feedstuffs", including meat and bone meal, an inappropriate food for herbivorous (vegetarian) cattle. The harsh living conditions, excess hormones, and inappropriate diet provide a perfect mixture for disease and injury.
Slaughter
Once beef cows have grown to an adequate size and dairy cows are no longer producing milk at an acceptable rate, the cattle are taken to be slaughtered. In August 2008, the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) announced it will draft legislation completely banning the slaughter of any downer-cattle (those too sick or lame to walk) - though as September 2008 no legislation or regulations had been passed. Before May 2008, USDA regulations stated that downer-cattle could be slaughtered for food if they passed the ante-mortem, or before slaughter, inspection at the slaughterhouse12. This practice of slaughtering sick or injured cattle caused much pain to the already suffering animal, as they were pushed, prodded and shoved into the slaughterhouse by any means possible, since they were unable to walk. While slaughterhouses are required to meet USDA standards for cleanliness and humane treatment during slaughter13, they are also in the business of killing animals: the faster the slaughter and butchering, the more meat produced and the more money made. Because of the pressure to slaughter animals quickly, mistakes that result in the violation of USDA regulations and lead to the mistreatment of the animals, unavoidably occur. In some slaughterhouses, almost 400 cattle per day are slaughtered, and at this speed it is "nearly impossible to guarantee each is slaughtered within the regulations".14 Cattle are ushered as quickly as possible from farm to truck to slaughter, sometimes resulting in injury. In addition, slaughterhouses have been reported as regularly failing to completely stun animals before the slaughtering process begins. This results in cows being hung and bled while they are still conscious.15
The First Year
On a factory farm, just before giving birth, a sow, or mother pig, is placed into a small crate on her side, completely limiting her movement, but still allowing the piglets to feed16. Sows will often spend their entire life encaged in the crates or in a cramped pen that encourages pregnancy17. The piglets' teeth and tails are clipped soon after birth. The practice of tail clipping or docking is done to prevent the piglets from biting each other's tails, but this phenomenon has only been observed in pigs in a factory farm environment18.
Growth and Development
Once the piglets are weaned, they are separated from their mother and confined in pens with concrete floors. Rooting, or digging in the dirt and straw, is a natural activity for pigs; and when restricted from this activity, they show visible signs of stress and aggression19, such as tail-biting. The concrete floors have also been linked to skeletal deformities of the feet, and the poorly ventilated confines have resulted in frequent lung damage and pneumonia20.
Slaughter
The stress and mistreatment pigs experience during transport, in combination with illness and injury from the poor housing conditions, causes many pigs to die on the way to the slaughterhouse21.
Chickens
Breeding
Broilers (chickens raised for meat production) have been bred to grow muscle at a rate faster than ever and now reach market weight in half the time than they did in the 1940's. This fast rate of muscle growth is often not matched by bone growth and can cause serious deformities and loss of the ability to walk22.
Growth and Development
Approximately 98% of chickens used in egg production live in a cage of only about 48 sq. in. (about half as big as a piece of letter sized paper)23. Broiler chickens are often reared at similarly high densities in pens with concrete slatted floors or occasionally litter (straw) covered concrete floors24. Because of this high density and a limited ability to forage, chickens often display aggression and can peck each other to death25. In order to prevent this, it is common practice to sear off approximately half the chickens' beaks, which has been shown to cause severe and lasting pain. 26 The close quarters is also a haven for the spread of disease.
Layers (or chickens used in egg production) can essentially be starved for up to two weeks, to induce molting and increase egg production once the feeding cycle is resumed. While molting is a natural response to the onset of a winter season, in its Animal Husbandry Guidelines, the United Egg Producers (UEP) condemned the use of starvation methods to induce molting.27
Looking Forward
Because of the increased awareness that factory farms create an environment where animals are treated as "factory parts", consumers have demanded change and the better treatment of animals. In response, some large food service enterprises like fast food giants McDonald's and Wendy's have required some better standards of animal welfare from the factories that produce their meat28 and eggs. Beef producers for these restaurant chains have showed significant and rapid improvements in the treatment and slaughter of their cows because of consumer demand. For example, since 1999 McDonald's Corporation has demanded of their beef suppliers a great reduction or complete elimination of the use of electric prods as agents to move cattle. Both Wendy's and McDonald's have implemented and maintained success of stunning audits for the plants that supply them with beef to improve the rate of successful first stun attempts. This means more cattle are stunned (knocked unconscious) before slaughter so that when they are bled, they do not suffer. However, much more can still be done to improve the situation.29
Improving animal welfare in today's industrial agriculture system will require widespread changes in the attitudes of farm owners, managers, and workers, but many technical adjustments that make animals more comfortable and content are simply a matter of better training and attention to the animals.30 Many practices considered to be more humane are beneficial to both the farmer and the consumer: happy animals tend to be healthier, less prone to disease and premature death, and produce better quality meat, milk, and eggs.
The best possible thing consumers can do to improve the standards of animal welfare in farming is to buy from local, independent farms and small-scale, sustainable family farms that provide their animals with good food and housing, promote general health and allow them to carry out their natural behaviors like rooting, pecking, and grazing31. Meeting the farmer and visiting their farm will give you a good idea of how their animals live. By supporting sustainable farming, consumers vote with their dollars for a higher standard of treatment and quality of life for farm animals.
Additionally, there are several organizations that have developed standards and a label that guarantees the humane treatment of animals. The Animal Welfare Approved program and food label promote the well-being of animals and the sustainability of humane family farms and provide a vehicle to "unite conscious consumers with farmers who raise their animals with compassion". Its standards are based around the principal of "five freedoms": that humanely raised animals have freedom from hunger and thirst, discomfort, pain, injury and disease, fear and distress, and have the freedom to behave normally32.
Do animals really feel pain from tail-docking & debeaking?
Research conducted by USDA Agricultural Research Service immunologist Susan Eicher and neuroscientist Heng-wei Cheng indicates that behavioral and physiological signs suggest that the practice of tail docking causes animals to suffer from chronic pain33. Additional research has shown that inhumane practices like trimming birds' beaks can cause animals "lasting pain" and the process is too stressful to be condoned5
What You Can Do
Finding humanely-raised meat, dairy and eggs can take a little research because organic standards do not adequately cover animal welfare issues Therefore, it is important to know your farmer or local butcher, and ask them how the animals were raised and if they were slaughtered humanely. If you can, visit the farm and judge the conditions yourself. Visit the Eat Well Guide to find farms, stores, and restaurants near you.
Search out companies and brands that follow very strict animal welfare guidelines.
Look for the Animal Welfare Approved label to ensure the products were produced on family farms where the animals were allowed to behave naturally and socialize freely.
Did You Know?
In the 1960s, the US Congress received more letters from citizens concerned with animal welfare issues than letters concerning civil rights and the Vietnam War34.
Due to genetic manipulation, 90% of broiler chickens have trouble walking17.
Ammonia and other gases from manure irritate animals' lungs, and one study of 34,000 pigs found that 65% of the animals had "pneumonia-like lesions" in their lungs13.
Farm animals are regulated under the USDA's Animal Welfare Act (AWA) only when used in biomedical research, testing, teaching and exhibition, not those used only for food and fiber production. 35
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stay tuned, coming up next are some delicious VEGETARIAN RECIPES from around the net that I can't wait to try!
