Factory farming nutrition fact

Somebody said that if animal farms (today) and slaughterhouses had glass walls, we all would become vegetarians... I don't intend to push you through vegetarianism ( personally I am not - my husband is), but do you know what happens to the animals you are eating?

Factory Farming is a Nutrition Fact:

Money is always more important then the condition of the animals.
Factory farming is one of the worst forms of animal abuse in these day's society. Every year millions of animals live and die in miserable circumstances. These animals are being abused, to make as much profit as possible, against as low as possible costs. Chickens who are only allowed 1 hour rest, the rest of the day they need to eat to get fat, so they can by sold as quickly as possible. Many pigs see sunlight for the first time when they are loaded into trucks to go to the slaughterhouse. In spite of the fact that their stables have windows, also many cows have to spent their entire lives in a stable till it is time to transport them. The housing of these animals is often so cramped that they can nearly not lie down or move. Besides that, as a nutrition fact, these animals are also stuffed with all kinds of chemical drugs, which will get into your body when you eat this meat. Read more

Watch the journey into The Meatrix , for an animated look at animal life and what that means for human health in the world of factory farming.

Source: Free Range Graphics and Global Resource Action Center for the Environment (GRACE)

... Is this a nutrition fact for us? Well, just think about...

... The smell of excrement is overwhelming. The pigs - who have an acute sense of smell - can never escape. Ammonia fumes damage their lungs and, not surprisingly, many die of respiratory diseases.

Almost all mother pigs - the breeding sows - are kept in what are termed ‘total confinement facilities’. This innocuous term actually means imprisonment - indoors and confined in metal crates just inches wider than their bodies. These desperate creatures can never walk or turn around for their entire lives. Total confinement is the fate of 83% of mother pigs, according to the USDA.

Slaughterhouses

If they survive the farms and transport, the animals—whether factory-farmed or free-range—are slaughtered.

Animals in slaughterhouses can smell, hear, and often see the slaughter of those before them.

As the animals struggle, the human workers, who are pressured to keep the lines moving quickly, often react with impatience towards the animals.

... On May 24, 2000, King5.com new service in Seattle, WA, broke a story about undercover footage taken at a nearby IBP slaughterhouse. According to their report, “The video shows fallen cows being trampled and dragged, others are tortured with electric prods. One cow has fallen and workers stick an electric prod on its head, then place the prod down its mouth. Still other cows are hung on chains, fully conscious, blinking and kicking. The worker who shot the tape said one cow was already at a station where legs are removed. ‘It would be horrible if someone were to cut off your leg without anesthesia.’” 25

Do animals have a soul?

- Well, have you ever looked in their eyes?

The question is not:
Can they reason? nor, • Can they talk?
but: - Can they suffer?

Jeremy Bentham, An Introduction to the Principles of Morals & Legislation , 1789

Animals are God's creatures, not human property, nor utilities, nor resources, nor commodities, but precious beings in God's sight. - Rev. Andrew Linzey, Oxford, Animal Theology, 1995

... The federal law requiring slaughterhouses to kill animals humanely has been increasingly ignored as meat plants grow bigger. Cockerham said that he often saw plant workers cut the feet, ears, and udders off cattle that were conscious on the production line after stun guns failed to work properly. "They were still blinking and moving. It's a sickening thing to see," he said.

Read more

Massive use of antibiotics in animal production can affect humans in two major ways.

First of all, the drugs can quicken the evolution of drug-resistant bacteria that may then infect humans with untreatable diseases.

In addtition, all those antibiotics and various other drugs accumulate in an animal's body. So do whatever growth hormones the creature ingested.

When the animal eventually becomes meat, this chemical cocktail enters the body of whomever eats it.

The effect of eating all these chemicals is not known.

Back to Nutrition Fact