5 Simple Ways to Eat More Compassionately in the New Year

1. Eat less chicken and fewer eggs. When you reduce or eliminate chicken and egg consumption, you’re helping some of the most abused animals on the planet. Chickens raised for meat are crammed by the thousands into filthy warehouses and denied access to the outdoors, fresh air and sunlight for their entire lives. Specifically excluded from the Federal Humane Slaughter Act, chickens are carried through the slaughter process so rapidly that many are injured but not killed and are instead boiled alive when it comes time to remove their feathers. Gardein and Quorn, two brands widely available in supermarkets, make chicken alternatives that — wait for it — taste just like chicken! Minus the fear and suffering, of course.

Chickens raised for eggs don’t have it much better. They are packed so tightly in fetid cages that they can never engage in basic natural behaviors or even stretch their wings. Millions are starved for a few weeks each year to shock their bodies into another egg-laying cycle. Think about it: Is your momentary enjoyment of an omelet really worth making an already depressed and miserable animal go hungry for weeks? If that doesn’t sit right with you, opt for the high-protein, cruelty-free tofu scramble instead.

2. Replace cow’s milk with a healthy, animal-friendly, non-dairy, calcium-fortified milk made from almonds, rice, oats, coconut, soy or hemp. It’s complete hooey that people need cow’s milk for calcium. Cow’s milk is for baby calves, and there are plenty of delicious, more healthful and calcium-rich plant-based alternatives we can consume. The only way for people to consume cow’s milk is to routinely tear newborn calves from their mothers as dairy cows are trapped in an endless cycle of pregnancy and lactation. Pushed beyond their biological limits, they are worn out and sent to slaughter after just a few years “in production.” Have you had an almond milk or soy milk mocha latte? They are fantastic and truly guilt free!

3. Avoid foie gras like the plague. Foie gras, or fatty duck liver, is only produced by the systematic and abusive practice of over feeding ducks via a metal tube that is forced down their throats. Foie gras is in a class with veal in terms of the cruelty inflicted on animals, and we should shun it every bit as much.

4. Resolve to eat vegetarian one day each week. If the above seems like too big of a challenge to start, eat vegetarian at one meal a week. Before long, you’ll realize how easy and delicious it is to eat vegetarian, and it will feel effortless to increase how often you eat vegetarian meals. Using this incremental approach, you may decide to eliminate animal products from your diet all together. Simply decreasing your consumption of factory-farmed meat will prevent countless animals from living a life of pure misery. More than 95 percent of all meat sold in restaurants and supermarkets comes from animals so cruelly confined they cannot lie down comfortably, extend their limbs, or engage in any of their natural behaviors.

5. Eat more plants! From salads and pasta dishes to vegetarian meats and cheeses, there’s a new world of flavorful alternatives to enjoy as part of a kinder, healthier eating plan. If you want cheese, try the Daiya non-dairy varieties; for sausage, reach for the Field Roast chipotle or apple sage links; instead of a hamburger, try a veggie burger with pickles, tomato, onion and other fresh toppings; when the kids want chicken nuggets, they won’t even realize that Quorn brand nuggets are missing the meat.

It’s 2012 — isn’t it time we stop eating foods produced by industries that treat animals like unfeeling commodities and start eating in a way that reflects the healthy, evolved, compassionate society we aspire to be? Let this be the year you opt out of eating cruelly. You’ll be amazed at how great it feels (and tastes) to eat compassionately.

For more by Gene Baur, visit farmsanctuary.typepad.com/making_hay/

Photo credit: Beth Terry

An Expression of Gratitude, A Celebration of Life

Here at Farm Sanctuary, we rescue and protect farm animals from cruelty, inspire change in the way society views and treats farm animals, and promote compassionate vegan living. Over this past weekend, I attended our annual Celebration FOR the Turkeys events at our Orland, Calif., and Watkins Glen, N.Y., shelters, where we provide lifelong sanctuary for nearly 1,000 rescued farm animals, including dozens of turkeys who have been rescued from factory farms.

Our Celebration FOR the Turkeys events were started in 1986.  These are fun, light-hearted gatherings, yet they also serve a more serious purpose—they encourage people begin kinder traditions that are an expression of gratitude and compassion toward all living creatures.

Thanksgiving is a cherished, family oriented time we all enjoy.  But, at the center of this holiday is a turkey – a living individual who goes unacknowledged from birth to death and is treated as a mere commodity in our food system.  Each year, nearly 300 million turkeys are raised and slaughtered in the United States, including almost 50 million for the Thanksgiving holiday alone. The vast majority of turkeys are raised on factory farms and their lives are merciless and short.

Turkeys are crammed by the thousands into windowless sheds and denied basic humane consideration.  Each turkey is typically allotted only 3 square feet of space, making natural behaviors nearly impossible.  As you can imagine, in such crowded conditions the turkeys become stressed, and fighting is common.  To limit their capacity to injure each other, parts of turkeys’ beaks and toes are routinely amputated without anesthesia, making it difficult for the birds to eat and walk. Injured or sick birds typically don’t receive medical care, as it is more cost-effective for agribusiness to accept the loss of a certain number of birds rather than providing them with appropriate attention.  They are, however, regularly fed a diet of antibiotics, which provides some protection from infection and helps them to grow quickly—larger birds mean more meat and more meat means more money.  The cruelty continues during transport and slaughter and then they reach the grocery store shelves.

When people attend one of our Celebration FOR the Turkeys events, the turkeys are our honored guests.  The birds are served an elaborate meal, which includes many of their favorite foods: squash, cranberries, pumpkin and more.  At these events, people truly have a chance to meet and experience turkeys as emotional, intelligent individuals.  Whenever we have an opportunity to get to know animals—be they cats, dogs, turkeys or other farm animals—it becomes clear that each one has a personality all his or her own and a great joy and will to live.

These events symbolize for us that the cruelty inherent in factory farming does not have to exist.  We can easily forge new traditions.  Traditions that are equally enjoyable and family oriented, and express our gratitude with compassion and kindness.  Here, we acknowledge other living creatures and celebrate life.

For more by this author, visit farmsanctuary.typepad.com/making_hay/

Photo credit: nosha

Dairy Industry Cruelty: One of Agriculture’s Best Kept Secrets

The cruelty inflicted upon calves in the dairy industry is one of agribusiness’s best kept secrets. Many consumers might assume that because cows are not slaughtered directly for their milk, dairy products are somehow less inhumane. What many consumers aren’t aware of is that when they purchase milk, cheese or other dairy products, they are contributing to a brutal cycle of suffering for countless calves. In order for a cow to produce milk, she has to have a calf, and those calves are taken away from their mothers immediately after birth. Half of those calves are male, and they’re often used in veal production.

More and more Americans are beginning to understand these realities of factory farming and are taking a stand. Earlier this month, we were excited to report that after thousands of citizens in Ohio spoke out against the cruel confinement of veal calves, livestock officials voted to reverse an earlier decision and give calves more room to move.

But following on the heels of this important step forward for calves, comes a shocking new investigative video by Mercy for Animals. Reminding us that there is still much work to be done, the video depicts workers at a dairy calf farm in Texas subjecting young cows to horrific abuse, bludgeoning them with pickaxes and beating and neglecting them. The video is a poignant look at the horrific lives of calves born into the dairy industry.

Over the years, Farm Sanctuary and others have documented the cruel conditions of factory farms, including at a veal farm in Wisconsin. Our “Behind the Mustache” video gives a behind-the-scenes look at the California dairy industry. It’s videos like these that have helped create change in laws and policies for farm animals and inspire citizens to reconsider their diets and take action. We’re confident that Mercy for Animals’ powerful new video will help further the animals’ cause.

Since Farm Sanctuary’s inception, my colleagues and I have conducted numerous visits to farms, stockyards and slaughterhouses to document conditions. Exposing animal abuse through photos and videos is a powerful tool and agribusiness is well aware of that fact. I recently wrote about two state bills, in Florida and Iowa, which would criminalize the documentation of “animal facilities.” Since then, similar legislation has been introduced in Minnesota.

In light of these videos and photographs, the agriculture industry is fighting hard to keep consumers in the dark about where their food really comes from. That’s why it’s important that we use these investigations as tools to educate our communities and show lawmakers the importance of revealing abuse. I hope you’ll use these resources to help create change.

Photo credit: NDSU Ag Communication

“Vegan America” is Closer Than You Think

Thousands of years ago, Hippocrates, the founder of western medicine, said, “Let food be thy medicine.” Tragically, the way most Americans eat, food is more like poison, making us sick and killing us prematurely. Heart disease and cancer are the nation’s top killers, and the risks of both can be reduced by eating plants instead of animal products. Removing meat, milk and eggs from the menu also prevents animal suffering and goes a long way toward lightening our environmental footprint. People are finally recognizing the profound impacts of their food choices, and we are now in the midst of a burgeoning food movement.

We read about it daily – more and more people are eating local and organic, going vegetarian and even vegan. I want to see it for myself, so I’m out on a three week, cross-country adventure to explore “vegan America.” It’s called the Just Eats Tour and you can follow along daily here.

The Just Eats Tour is part of Farm Sanctuary’s 25^th anniversary. We were founded in 1986 to combat the abuses of factory farming and to promote plant based eating. In the early years, we funded the organization by selling veggie hot dogs out of an old VW van at Grateful Dead concerts. Farm Sanctuary is now America’s leading farm animal protection organization, supported by more than 230,000 citizens across the United States.

We work to educate people about the animal cruelty and other abuses of factory farming, and believe that most people, when provided with information, will make healthier, more humane and environmentally sustainable choices. We also advocate for legal reforms, and although the laws are still grossly inadequate, we have been able to pass groundbreaking legislation to lessen the suffering of animals exploited by the food industry. And, we operate sanctuaries in New York and California where we care for nearly 1,000 chickens, turkeys, pigs, cows and other rescued farm animals. Once they come to Farm Sanctuary, the animals are treated like our friends, not our food. We encourage people to consider adopting vegan lifestyles, and we disseminate information like this fun video we recently released to expose the environmental impacts of animal agriculture.

I’ve been vegan since 1985, and it is great to see a growing interest in this lifestyle, especially in the past couple of years. People are coming to it for diverse reasons – health, spirituality, a desire to live gently on the earth or to prevent animal suffering. Among those who have moved toward eating plants instead of animals are: Bill Clinton, Natalie Portman, Woody Harrelson, Mike Tyson, Lea Michelle, Steve Wynn, Mary Tyler Moore, Alicia Silverstone, Russell Simmons, Ellen DeGeneres, Jesse Eisenberg, Biz Stone, John Mackey and Prince Fielder. Vegans still comprise a small percentage of the U.S. population, but our numbers are growing.

The Just Eats Tour began at a black tie gala in New York City at Cipriani’s on Wall Street on May 14^th and three weeks later we’ll arrive at Farm Sanctuary’s shelter in Orland, California for our annual Hoe Down on June 4^th. Along the way, we’ll visit big cities and rural communities. We’ll speak with chefs, business owners, entrepreneurs, fitness experts, celebrities and everyday heroes who are exploring vegan living. We’ll be posting recipes, videos, photos and other resources. We also want you to share your recipes on our website, and we encourage you to take the Vegan Challenge.

We hope this tour will help Americans better recognize the impacts of their food choices, learn about positive alternatives, and ultimately, choose healthier, more humane and sustainable options. You can keep up with the Just Eats Tour daily by checking our website at www.justeatstour.org.

A New Decade and Reason for Hope

Let’s welcome Gene Baur, CSL’s newest Blog Posse member! Today, Gene highlights some of the legislative victories for animals over the last decade. But, he also points that we have a long way to go in our fight for animal rights. We can all make a difference today by participating in Meatless Monday!

The first decade of this millennium has been marked by stark contrasts. Industrialized animal farming continued to expand and gain control over an ever greater share of the marketplace, and the number of animals exploited for food in the U.S. increased steadily, reaching 10 billion per year. At the same time, there’s been growing public awareness and unprecedented opposition to the waste, inefficiency and abuses of animal agriculture. While agribusiness spends billions of dollars to sell its products, bestselling books like “Skinny Bitch” and “Eating Animals” have exposed millions to the harms of factory farming for the first time.

At the beginning of the last decade, no U.S. law existed to prohibit cruel confinement systems, like veal crates, gestation crates and battery cages. In fact, most state anti-cruelty laws exempted farm animals from basic humane protections. But, over the past decade, some states took action to outlaw common factory farming cruelties. Two states passed laws to ban battery cages (CA, MI), five passed laws to ban veal crates (AZ, CA, CO, ME, MI), and seven passed laws to ban gestation crates (AZ, CA, CO, FL, OR, ME, MI). Responding to growing public pressure, Smithfield, the world’s largest pork producer, pledged to phase out gestation crates (2–foot-wide metal enclosures where female breeding pigs are confined for years). We have a long way to go, but as the new decade dawns, we are poised to see additional laws and policies enacted to prevent cruel factory farming practices.

The last decade started with Farm Sanctuary suing the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) to compel the agency to prohibit the marketing and slaughter of downed animals (animals who are too sick or injured even to stand) for human food. By the end of the decade, the Obama administration had locked in a federal ban on slaughtering downed cattle for human food. A similar ban should be enacted to apply to pigs and other species.

The Obama family recently planted an organic vegetable garden at the White House to encourage children to eat more fruits and vegetables, and the USDA established a community garden, dubbed “The People’s Garden,” at its headquarters in the nation’s capital. I recently moved to Washington, D.C. to further our work with policy makers to protect animals, consumers and the environment, and promote plant-based agriculture.

We are in the midst of a growing food movement, and I am optimistic about the coming decade. As agribusiness interests convene for meetings to discuss ways to defend their practices, compassionate citizens are picking up steam. Scientists and researchers at leading universities and institutions are issuing reports that decry the many harms of animal agriculture.

At the end of the last decade, for the first time in generations, the USDA’s year-end records showed that the number of animals killed for food in the U.S. dropped. Let’s hope that this is the beginning of a solid trend, along with the increasing number of farmer’s markets, community supported agriculture programs and community gardens across the U.S. We have a long way to go, but there is definitely reason for hope.