This opinion piece from Mark Bittman in the New York Times makes a very good point…
Animals on Corporate farms and mass produced poultry, beef and pork come from animals raised in conditions that are almost unimaginable.
I gave up veal years ago…
I try to buy local and free-range as much as possible because I know the animals are treated humanely.
I can’t go vegan, but I do try to find meat that at least seems to come from farms that treat their animals humanely.
If all we pet lovers put pressure on the system to improve the lot of farm animals, think how much we could accomplish…
It would be better not only for the animals, but for us….
But thanks to Common Farming Exemptions, as long as I “raise” animals for food and it’s done by my fellow “farmers” (in this case, manufacturers might be a better word), I can put around 200 million male chicks a year through grinders (graphic video here), castrate — mostly without anesthetic — 65 million calves and piglets a year, breed sick animals (don’t forget: more than half a billion eggs were recalled last summer, from just two Iowa farms) who in turn breed antibiotic-resistant bacteria, allow those sick animals to die without individual veterinary care, imprison animals in cages so small they cannot turn around, skin live animals, or kill animals en masse to stem disease outbreaks.
All of this is legal, because we will eat them.
via Why Don’t Farm Animals Get the Respect Pets Do? – NYTimes.com.
Lost in the 21st Century 