When the Cows and Chickens Come Home to Roost
Take something that is living, full of blood, waste, and fluids. Kill it. Let it linger. Wrap it up and sell it. Then cook it and eat it. Yeah. That really didnt seem like it might be very good for me for very long. I admit, I havent always thought this deeply about the food I eat. I haven’t always been a vegan, though I spent many years being a vegetarian. Two years ago I started eating meat again. I was torn, but I found “bright spots” in going out and eating at all sorts of places. I posted about enjoying it- even after a bout with rare slices of meat made me sick. We all come to where we need to be, when we need to be there. For me, committing to being a vegan earlier this year was where I needed to be. Since I had been thinking about it for a while, this made my transition a bit easier. Now as part of my many roads less traveled, I explore this path in life, and on this blog. I will often post things such as the video above to inform. Perhaps it might help someone commit to a life that I consider for myself to be more ethical and healthy. I can’t tell you what to do, or what to see as such, but I can only say what is right for me.
I was a vegan when I visited the Harris Ranch feedlot and took the shots you’ll see in the video. I had passed the lot years ago when I lived in California and probably the biggest thing I noticed then was the stench. Now I notice and think about what goes on there and what it means for the environment, my future, and my health. Take a look at the marketing of steak, green grass, and farming that is presented on their website.
In many ways, who could blame them. Does anyone, vegan or omnivore really want to see a slaughtered or diseased cow on their product page? It is their business, and ultimately as long as people as consumers continue to request meat, places like the Harris Ranch will exist. That’s where the change has to come. If people request non animal products, they will appear in multitude. The capitalist has no care for context. Only in the content of the earning. Nor is the Harris Ranch the only feedlot in the US. Although they state somewhere deep on their website that their 800 acre feedlot has the capacity to “produce” 250,000 head of cattle a year, and that they sell 150 million pounds of beef per year–this is just for the West Coast.
As I say in the video, our images of the foods that we eat are often clouded by marketing and mis-information. We imagine, as was shown in Food Inc, and in the clip below, that our food animals are raised on rolling hills of grass or on land with family farmers throwing feed at them, calling, “Here chick chick.” Maybe we even go so far to think that they are humanly slaughtered. Is there such a thing?
If we can’t think about the animals, and I truly suggest that we do–thinking about exactly how our food gets to the table is the biggest answer I can give to anyone who asks me, “How can you stay a vegan?” But even if we can’t do that. Even if we can’t expand our minds further out to think about the environmental damage that animal waste run off from factory farms creates in our communities. Even if we can’t think about the role of concentrated animal “exhaust” on our air. Even if we can’t think about how we could practically end human hunger just by diverting the funds required or even better the actual crops of corn and grain used to feed animals factory farmed for consumption. Instead send that money or crops to human beings. Even if we can’t think that broadly. Think narrowly. Think about our own bodies.
According to a July 12, 2010 release from Health Care Without Harm and the Pew Campaign on Human Health and Industrial Farming (link) (full press story):
“Experts estimate that up to 70 percent of the antibiotics sold in the United States are given to healthy animals on industrial farms to promote growth and compensate for the effects of overcrowding and unsanitary conditions. Four decades of scientific research has demonstrated that feeding antibiotics to food animals over a long period of time promotes the development of dangerous strains of drug-resistant bacteria that can infect humans who work with these animals or process or consume their meat.”
Seventy percent of the antibiotics sold here are not given to people but to healthy animals. First, let’s consider that we often hear about food animals being given growth hormones, and because of this knowledge, people rightfully shun the resulting product. Is the use of antibiotics as a secondary method to induce abnormal growth a way to slip through regulation? Second, we must certainly understand the human peril to eating meats that have been dosed with antibiotics. Dr. Lance Price, director of the Translational Genomics Research Institute’s Center for Metagenomics and Human Health in Flagstaff, Ariz, said, “This is an extremely dangerous practice. It hastens the day when our antibiotics fail.”
If we continue to consume factory farmed animals that have been pumped full of antibiotics, we could be a nation unable to ward off a health crisis. In my last post, I discussed an email I received that was looking for people to test a plague vaccine. This was for the Department of Defense. Antibiotics perhaps play no role in this type of crisis, but can we risk an inability to provide antibiotics that work because our bodily systems have been flooded “invoultarily” by the foods that we eat? Imagine. Then consider the options.
Keep watching my blog as I talk about my vegan journey. There are lots of things important to me that aren’t about this issue and I will certainly continue to post on them, but this is certainly a big one for me.
Books I Recommend on Veganism:
By Any Greens Necessary- A Revolutionary Guide for Black Women Who Want to Eat Great, Get Healthy, Lose Weight, and Look Phat -Tracye McQuirter
Becoming Vegan-The Complete Guide to Adopting a Healthy Plant-Based Diet-Davis and Melina
Eating Animals- Jonathan Safron Foer
Why We Love Dogs, Eat Pigs, and Wear Cows - Melanie Joy
Animal Ingredients from A to Z- Eg Smith Collective
Cookbooks I Recommend for Vegan Grub:
Native Foods Restaurant Cookbook- by Chef Tanya Petrovna
Vegan Soul Kitchen- Bryant Terry (extra website)
Vegan Yum Yum: Decadent (But Doable) Animal-Free Recipes for Entertaining and Everyday -Lauryn Ulm (website with free recipes)
Sites I Recommend for Finding Places to Eat Out:
Happy Cow Compassionate Eating Guide
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