"Eating animals", about factory farming

[Eden]

I don't know about chickens.... The chicken farm (broilers) that was visited in Food Inc was *horrifying*. I've never thought chickens were incredibly high up in the brain power area, so not having an enriching environment perhaps isn't so abusive (unlike pigs which are as smart as dogs...), but the factory farming of those chickens was disgusting - dark, dank, overcrowded, lots of sick, dead and dying chickens - many that could barely move. Put me waaaaaay off chicken. Then they go to processing factories which are a whole other horror in themselves.

I do think that the area that the farming is in may make a difference. The farm visited in Food Inc was in the south and producing for one of the huge conglomerates - Purdue maybe? I think chicken farms up here are better, but I still don't eat much chicken and spring for free range, organic when I do.....

A friend of ours who's a chef says he can tell the difference. He said they usually get Washington chickens, but occasionally they are not available and they are sent southern chickens. He says he can tell when he's breaking them down when they are southern ones - he says the joints are very tight and the legs don't move freely.......

As far as beef goes - the whole feed lot, slaughter house thing was just so incredibly nasty I won't buy anything but local, grass fed meat that was killed and butchered on the farm where it was raised. Needless to say I don't eat much beef....

[abejita]

We used to eat meat every day for lunch and dinner because that is how I grew up. Over the last 7 or 8 years we have been progressively eating better and better. For a long time I knew that grass fed beef was much better for us, but the expense always put me off. Then we watched Food Inc and we made the commitment to eat better meat. To keep our grocery bill from spiking too much, we started eating less meat but buying grass fed and pastured. Right now, we usually have seafood one night, meat maybe twice and the rest is vegetarian. We are lucky to live in Dallas where these things are readily available and reasonably priced. We can order meat to pick up with our co-op shares or go to the Farmer's markets to pick it up. Even Whole Foods carries grass fed beef along with pastured pork and lamb.

[NoNo]

I just picked these from my aunt's backyard coop. I had to fight a hen who was sitting on 20 of them! I asked if we could eat them when their egg-laying cycle was over, but was told they wouldn't be very good except maybe for soup. I can tell you a coop has quite an odor after a week of 90-100 degree heat!

[tulip]

As far as beef goes - the whole feed lot, slaughter house thing was just so incredibly nasty I won't buy anything but local, grass fed meat that was killed and butchered on the farm where it was raised. Needless to say I don't eat much beef....

Farms typically don't have slaughter facilities on-site. They have to ship the cattle elsewhere. The slaughter (or "processing" as it's euphemistically called) facilities have to meet FDA standards, and often take animals from many different farms. They are still small-scale operations compared to the large commercial facilities, but they are not on-site at the farm.

I get my beef and bison from farms. I go to the farm to pick it up the beef, and I buy the bison at the farmer's market. The cattle and bison are raised on the family farms, but they are slaughtered and processed a few hundred miles away. The bison is processed in Pennsylvania, the cattle in Virginia. Both types of meat are frozen at the plants and delivered back to the farms in Virginia. The meat must be frozen per FDA regs.

I like beef and bison. Local farm-raised meat is so much more flavorful and tender than the grocery store stuff. I have no problem eating meat, but do my utmost to avoid factory meat whenever possible. Luckily, the good stuff is getting easier to find.

NoNo--that's a great photo. I would love to keep chickens, but I travel too much. I do have neighbors who keep them, though. And ducks.

[Eden]

Farms typically don't have slaughter facilities on-site. They have to ship the cattle elsewhere. The slaughter (or "processing" as it's euphemistically called) facilities have to meet FDA standards, and often take animals from many different farms. They are still small-scale operations compared to the large commercial facilities, but they are not on-site at the farm.

Indeed - it is not particularly easy to find, nor is it inexpensive, but the co-op that I've been doing a lot of shopping at carries beef (as well as pork, chicken and game hens) from a fairly local farm - I think its less than 50 miles from my house - that has a mobile slaughter operation come to their farm to process their beef. There's a guy who sells beef and lamb at most of the local farm markets that says he slaughters on site too. I wouldn't be too surprised if both farms use the same service. I'm sure one farm only could never support a business like that.

[NoNo]

I also picked a boatload of lettuce, the last of the summer I think, and stringbeans. My fridge is packed with them, and I'll be giving a lot away. I think you're better off knowing someone who has chickens and will give you eggs than having to clean, feed, and protect your own.

The woman at the market also sends her animals off to be processed. She said the plant in Connecticut kills them (and she watches) and then sends them to another place to be processed. The plant in New York will kill and process there. I'm having the Italian sweet sausage for the first time, and it's very tasty. A little salty, but so yummy! I swear I'm eating far more meat now that I'm at the market every week and it's right there. I like to peek into her cooler and figure out what I want to try that week (I do the same with the veggie stand on the other side of my table)

[lph]

All these posts about ethical eating are very heartening to read, I'm still feeling a bit sick to my stomach after reading that book. Haven't finished it yet, but I will. I'm not ready to give up meat completely, nor do I really feel it imperative, but I most certainly will be investigating how to get hold of meat from animals that haven't suffered unduely. At the moment I don't feel like eating meat at all.

What bothers me most, I think, is realizing that there most probably will always be a market for factory farm meat. There will always be enough consumers who don't have the time, money or patience to choose anything but the cheapest and most easily available food. So it feels a bit pointless, as if I can buy myself a better conscience, but it won't really do much about the process.

[abejita]

There will always be enough consumers who don't have the time, money or patience to choose anything but the cheapest and most easily available food. So it feels a bit pointless, as if I can buy myself a better conscience, but it won't really do much about the process.

But it is not pointless!! 1.) It is so much better for you health wise. Grassfed beef is leaner, has more 'good' fat and you have almost no chance of salmonella or mad cow disease. 2.) It sends a message. The more people who seek our and buy these products, the more large companies realize that people are not willing to accept the conditions that these animals are raised and slaughtered in. Just look at how many things you can find at main stream grocery stores that are labeled natural or no hormones added. You didn't see any of that stuff 10 yrs ago, but it became important to main stream consumers and you started to see manufacturers complying. You vote with your money!

[arielmoon]

I am vegan and although I dont not encourage people to eat animals, I am also a health foodie so I try to suggest grass fed/ free range/ organic to those that are going to. For your own sake.

Food Inc is another good film about factory farming that does not encourage vegism but rather moving away from factory farming. As a human being I found so much of the practices truly disturbing.

[blumensh]

I'm a raw vegan but my kids eat some meat (one of my kids could easily be a vegetarian but thee other is a meat eater) and my husband eats some fish but he's mostly vegetarian. The more you learn about meat processing the more it oogs me out. We try to stick to farmer's market meats and free range eggs but it's not always easy to find.

[tiva]

Broiler farms probably do vary a lot from location to location--here in southern WI, they follow fairly reputable practices, but they may be awful in other locations. But at least hoop house chickens here are treated in ways that respect their evolution a bit, as flocking creatures that need to move and peck (they have litter; they can dig and peck; they can interact with each other). Factory layers are kept alone, in tiny cages where they can't move, and it drives them insane, sometimes literally. Some slaughterhouses follow good practices; others don't. Processing plants are notorious for treating workers horribly.

So what do we do? Consumer pressure really makes a huge difference, so it does matter what you buy, and how you use your political and economic influence.

[Norse]

We eat a lot of chicken, veggies, some fish (DP doesn't like as much), followed by pork and lastly, red meat. We support sustainable local farmers and try to buy all our meat and egg products from them, and veggies when in season and not available from my garden. While I like my veggies, I also like meat but, like many, want to know that the animals were treated ethically. I highly, highly recommend The Compassionate Carnivore by Catherine Friend for those of us who eat meat. http://www.compassionatecarnivore.com/

[badger]

What bothers me most, I think, is realizing that there most probably will always be a market for factory farm meat. There will always be enough consumers who don't have the time, money or patience to choose anything but the cheapest and most easily available food. So it feels a bit pointless, as if I can buy myself a better conscience, but it won't really do much about the process.

I think we have to remember that we're pretty much like-minded here where we care about fitness and health, and for the most part I think we all care about animals and the earth we live on.

I know a lot of people don't care about animals or environment and wouldn't bat an eyelash if they were told of the conditions these animals are subjected to. They might say "oh, that's too bad", but they'll still buy cheap factory meat, and lots of it.

***

When I clicked on the link tiva posted about pasture meat, the farm that could deliver to me employs a mobile abbatoir. I thought that was great, because I can imagine the panic the animals feel when they're loaded up in those awful trucks to the slaughter house. It doesn't matter how low on the "intelligence" scale they are, they all know something bad is up, so the less time they feel that, the better.

[GLC1968]

What bothers me most, I think, is realizing that there most probably will always be a market for factory farm meat. There will always be enough consumers who don't have the time, money or patience to choose anything but the cheapest and most easily available food. So it feels a bit pointless, as if I can buy myself a better conscience, but it won't really do much about the process.

But it will. As others have said - you vote with your dollars. Just look at how many people here are eating better because their eyes were opened by such books as the one you are reading. If that person thought 'well, what good will it do if I write a book, so many will still want cheap meat that it won't affect anything' then you'd never even be questioning it, right?

The more people who demand humanely raised meat and locally grown produce, the more it will be available. The more that's available, the better the chance that more people will buy it. Look at the organics market - it's the fastest growing segment of the produce market in this country. No, it's not perfect, but it's still a better choice than round-up ready corn, right?

And HFCS - look at how so, so many producers are moving away from it because word is now out that it's bad. And RBGH - it's being dropped by so many dairy farmers because WalMart refuses to carry milk that contains it because that's what their customers demanded. There is power in numbers.

The reason meat is so cheap is because the public demanded it and the government complied (overly simplified, of course). If the public demands quality and IS WILLING TO PAY FOR IT, then we can get it. We just have to be vocal about it and our voice is our cash. We can afford it (collective 'we') by limiting the amount of meat we eat and accepting that our food costs should be a larger portion of our budgets than previously accepted.

The Omnivore's Dilema quite simply changed my life. It's the reason we now own a tiny farm, drink raw milk, eat our own eggs from our own chickens, grow about 50% of our own veggies and about 75% of our own fruit. We also will eventually be producing our own chicken meat. What we can't produce, we buy locally first from people we know, secondly from farmers markets and thirdly from local grocerers. Worst case, we buy from regular grocery stores and choose local/organic when possible.

And just so you all know, factory farm broiler chicken is no better than other factory meats. I don't care that their conditions are better than the layers - the birds themselves are a genetic distortion that should never have been created. Have you ever seen them up close? They can't walk like a normal chicken - hell, half of them can't even stand up because their breasts are so huge and their legs are so weak. They eat literally 24-7 and hardly ever sleep because they are always eating. They live exceedingly short and ackward lives and then are killed for their breast meat only. It's sick. What kind of animal gets to 'maturity' in 8 weeks and then dies if left to live longer than that? It's so, so, so wrong. When we get to raising our own chickens, we will be raising heritage breeds that are 'dual purpose'. The girls will be kept as layers and the boys will be raised on free-range until natural maturity and then humanely killed for meat. It's much more expensive to raise chickens like that, but I will not be party to those 'franken birds'.

[GLC1968]

Oh, and one more thing - genetic diversity.

The more factory farmed food (meats and produce) we buy, the less genetic diversity that is out there. Without diversity, we are without protection from disease and other disasters. Did you all know that something like 95% of all the broccoli sold in this country is the exact same type? All of the chicken and all of the turkey meat sold in the US (through traditional sources) is the same breed - all of it. There are only about 20 types of apples commercially produced in this country? 20! There used to be over 200 varieties grown commercially! The vast majority of the eggs commercially produced in this country is from one single type of bird. This is monoculture and it is killing our food supply.

It's not just about animal conditions (though, of course, that's a concern), it's also about the lack of diversity and long term sustainability.

Anyway...I'll stop here before I get too worked up... I do have work to do today, afterall.