Often times I am asked, why vegan? This is a tricky question because most people don’t want to know about the dark side of agriculture, especially Big Aggra. Most people don’t want to hear about the systemic abuse of cows, pigs, chickens and turkeys. More often than not, if I even hint about this topic, I get the hand followed by, “I don’t want know?” Not wanting to completely scare people off, I’ll down shift into the health benefits of a vegan diet. It would seem, more people care about the health benefits than the the fact they would be sparing lives that is to say, the lives of animals.
I work in an office and find it incredibly amusing when someone will bring in doughnuts from some artisan shop located in one of our urban-artsy, slightly left-of-center-neighborhoods and my office mates will throw up their arms in protest complaining about the evils of doughnuts. Really? Let me get this straight, you’ll eat so-called “organic free-range” egg (when nothing could be further from the truth) from an abused hen. You’ll eat veal, which is an abused, neglected, male dairy calf (and byproduct of the dairy industry). You will eat hamburger which is ground-up “spent” dairy cows but you won’t eat a doughnut? I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again, “Organic” “Free-Range” “Grass-Fed” DOES NOT MEAN THESE ANIMALS LIVED A HAPPY LIFE BEFORE BEING SENT TO SLAUGHTER! Do your own research. There are many many sources that reveal this labeling is nothing more than that, labeling to dupe you the unsuspecting all trusting consumer into believing the milk you are drinking came from a happy cow, who frolicked in the California sun when in reality, that animal never set foot outside (except for when it was sent to slaughter) and was never allowed to bond or raise her young which is stolen from her so you can pour milk or cream in your coffee, milk on your cereal, eat cheese, yogurt and lastly, ice cream.
My feeling is simply this: EAT THE DOUGHNUT. You clearly do not care about your health if you’re consuming dairy, organic or otherwise, bacon, eggs, chicken and ground up cows. All of these animals are exploited, and none of them lived a good life before being slaughtered.
People say they don’t want to know or care. Well you know what, you should know and you should care because vegan or not, you’re eating this stuff and you’re feeding it to your kids. If you think the Ag-Gag laws are nothing more than a means to shut up us crazy “terrorist” animal rights activists, think again. Those laws will prevent ANYONE from looking under the hood. It also means, the inmates will be running the asylum, you know, self-regulating? Do you want the factory farm industry to self-regulate? Really? Fine. Go ahead, turn a deaf ear to the Ag-Gag laws and when and if you, your child or someone closed to you becomes sick from *e-Coli, you’ll have no one to blame but yourself.
If you don’t believe me, check out this article by Anajali Sareen of Huff-Po. Perhaps she can convince why you should care.
Here is an excerpt:
One thing we should all be able to agree upon, however, is that factory farming isn’t good for anyone. Large-scale, industrialized animal agriculture is bad for the animals, bad for us and bad for the environment. It wreaks havoc upon worker wellness and human health and is inefficient from a world hunger perspective.
The animal agriculture industry is attempting to push bills across the nation that would make it harder for citizens to see what takes place inside factory farms. Once we’re no longer able to see inside these farms, it will be that much more difficult to change our broken system.
With our food system the way it currently is, there are many reasons to be angry about industrialized animal agriculture.
If you eating animals with nary a care for how they lived (and died) then clearly you do. not. care. So like I said, eat the doughnut and don’t forget to chase it with a glass of milk.
Rant over.
😐
-GAL 2013
“Aushwitz begins wherever someone looks at a slaughterhouse and thinks: they’re ONLY animals.” ~Theodor W. Adorno
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*Whole Foods sold fish so toxic in mercury that one customer’s blood levels had to be reported to the Center for Disease Control. (17) Whole Foods didn’t start identifying potentially mercury-laden fish in its California stores until the government forced them to do so. Even then, a quarter of Whole Foods stores failed to display proper signage as required by law. (18)
In 2008, five people had to be hospitalized after eating E.coli-contaminated beef from Whole Foods. The beef was sold even after it was supposed to have been recalled. (22) Others were sickened by bad milk from Whole Foods, resulting in “hundreds of thousands of dollars in medical expenses…. One victim, a twenty-eight year old mother, will likely require a kidney transplant.”SOURCE
Girl for Animal Liberation 