Feb 21
2008
Justin
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Category: Abolish Factory Farming
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For those with the stomach, this graphic video led to the largest meat recall in world history. North America has by far the most abhorrent animal husbandry practices on the planet that contribute to the spread of all kinds of health problems including ecoli, salmonella, campylobacter, not to mention the enormous contribution to climate change from clearing rain forests, methane belched and pooped out and the “modern” factory farm’s dependence on carbon intensive industrial agriculture.
If you are going to continue to eat meat, dairy and eggs, commit to sourcing it from farmers that do not employ “modern” factory methods. Animals raised in environments that allow them to express their natural instincts and fed a diet that they have evolved on will greatly lessen your chances of eating contaminated meat and will support your local farming community. It costs a little more but will alleviate enormous suffering on a vast scale. For anyone who wants a much more thorough and well referenced look at the state of food, I highly recommend John Robbins new book: The Food Revolution or Micheal Pollin’s: The Omnivore’s Dillema.
Resources
Nov 17
2007
Justin
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Category: Abolish Factory Farming, News
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Factory farming is an abhorrent practice that creates enormous suffering and pollution on this planet. Our treatment of animals is not unlike that of the Africans through the dark era that accepted slavery as a status quo and Hitler’s treatment of the Jews. Millions of animals are kept in concentration camp-like conditions around the planet, making them and us vulnerable to e. coli, Avian Flu and other major health threats.
In my late teens and early twenties, I held the belief that animals were born for food and it didn’t really matter how we kept them. But after visiting a factory farm, researching the practice and meditating on the ethics of consuming flesh from such operations, the notion of supporting the practice through my continued purchase of meat, regardless of it’s source began to feel incongruent with my internal beliefs. The argument that “animals were born for it” began to feel like saying blacks were born to be slaves or the Jews deserved what the Nazis did. Such statements seem absolutely absurd to most people alive now but were not uncommon just 50 - 100 years ago.
It is my hope that we can evolve our collective awareness and reject this practice as we have come to reject racial and religious intolerance. John Robbin’s book, Diet For a New America was highly influential in my thinking on this issue.
To get an idea of the scale of factory farming in the US check out this site: http://www.factoryfarmmap.org/
For those with the stomach, this graphic video led to the largest meat recall in world history. North America has by far the most abhorrent animal husbandry practices on the planet that contribute to the spread of all kinds of health problems including ecoli, salmonella, campylobacter, not to mention the enormous contribution to climate change from clearing rain forests, methane belched and pooped out and the “modern” factory farm’s dependence on carbon intensive industrial agriculture.
