It seems like everybody I meet is somehow concerned with the way animals are treated. Even meat eaters are aware that slaughtering an animal is unpleasant for it.These folks will tell you that the animals deserve better treatment.They say that they buy only “humanely treated” meat,or “free-range” eggs and “organic” milk,and they think that they are “ethical” consumers and that by buying these products they are not contributing to animal cruelty.Billions of animals are killed every year merely to appease our gluttonous appetites.And nobody makes the connection.Instead, we fool ourselves into thinking that we are making humane choices,failing to recognize what hypocrites we really are. Modern farms are nothing like the pictures in your kids’ books or on TV.And there are many wrong ideas about the practices and principles of a “humane” operation.The nasty process of turning live animals into ground-up chunks of flesh begins as the animals are babies and then they are sent to slaughter, in spite of whether they are raised
conventionally or in operations that are labeled “humane,” “sustainable,” “natural,” “free-range,” “cage-free,” “heritage-bred,” “grass-fed” or “organic.” It doesn’t matter whether it is a large or small farm, manipulating animals’ reproductive systems for human gain is at the heart of the animal agriculture industry.People don’t think about the keeping of male studs, the stimulation of the genitals, the collection of semen, the castrating of males, and the insemination into the female when they sit down at the dinner table.These poor animals go through the stressful, painful, and humiliating process of artificial insemination.Dairy cows are strapped into what the industry terms a “rape rack;” “natural turkeys” have to be artificially inseminated because their breasts are so large they’re unable to mate in the usual manner; and “free-range” egg farms buy their hens from egg hatcheries that kill millions of day-old male chicks every year.A lot of people who speak of “humane” meat are really referring to the conditions under which animals are raised -not killed.And there’s a big difference.When their bodies are fat enough (aka “ripe”) for the dinner table, spent and overused from producing eggs and milk, and no longer useful in the way they were meant to be, as in the case of male studs on dairy farms, animals from both conventional and “humane” farms are all transported (first to the feedlot in the case of “beef cattle”) to the slaughterhouse.The transportation process is excruciating and often fatal.The only law designed to “protect” animals in transport does not pertain to 95% of the animals killed for human consumption, as birds and rabbits (all classified as “poultry” are not protected).As a result, in transport, animals are forced to endure oppressive heat, bitter cold, stress, overcrowding, and respiratory problems from ammonia-laden urine.It doesn’t matter how they’re raised, all animals killed for food are sent to slaughterhouses where their lives are brutally ended.By law, animals must be slaughtered at USDA-certified facilities, which really only means that the facility is kept somewhat clean.Everyone from federal meat inspectors to slaughterhouse workers have admitted to routinely witnessing the strangling, beating, scalding, skinning, and butchering of live, fully conscious animals.To see the proof just google it.At small farms, where the owners can kill the animals themselves (in the case of birds), every one of them will tell you that, though it was hard in the beginning to slit the throat of the animals, it gets easier after awhile.They get ‘numb’ to it.Compassionate people all have the same goal: the elimination of oppression, exploitation, and violence.Abuse, violence, cruelty – they all spring from the same source, and they all have the same effect – more abuse, more violence, more cruelty.The link between cruelty to animals and violence toward people has been well established.When we tell ourselves we’re eating meat from “humanely raised animals,”we’re leaving out a huge part of the equation.The slaughtering of an animal is a bloody and violent act, and death does not come easy for those who want to live.As much as we don’t want to believe we are the cause of someone else’s suffering, our consumption of meat,dairy, eggs and other animal products perpetuates the pointless violence and unnecessary cruelty that is inherent in the deliberate breeding and killing of animals for human consumption.If we didn’t have a problem with it, we wouldn’t have to make up so many excuses and justifications.We dance around the truth, label our choices “humane,” and try to find some kind of compromise so we can have our meat and eat it, too.The problem is not with how we raise the animal,…the problem is that we EAT them.We can survive on a plant-based diet; we don’t need to kill animals to be healthy, and in fact animal fat and protein are linked with many human diseases.What does it say about us that when given the opportunity to prevent cruelty, violence, and disease we instead choose to turn away—because of tradition, culture, habit, convenience or pleasure?We are not finding the answers we are looking for because we are not asking the right questions.Kinder and gentler raising of animals for slaughter only lets us feel less guilty about our cruelty than it actually reduces the suffering of the animal when it is sent to slaughter.If we really want to be compassionate,then the answer is this: We can simply stop eating animals.Every animal born into this world to be used as a machine to produce meat, eggs or milk has the same desire for maternal comfort and protection, the same ability to feel pain, and the same impulse to live as any living creature.There’s nothing humane about breeding animals only to kill them, and there’s nothing humane about ending the life of a healthy animal before their natural life is over. In short, there is nothing humane about eating meat.
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