I’m outraged.
As I’ve mentioned before, lately I’ve been listening to Colleen Patrick-Gudreau’s Vegetarian Food for Thought podcasts. I really love her clarity and thoroughness in her efforts to educate about food choices and debunk myths about vegetarianism.
In one of her podcasts, Colleen mentions Heritage Foods, USA, an organization that serves as the sales and marketing arms of the Slow Food Movement. In the podcast she read a piece of their “About Us” page and it was so…insane… I just had to look for myself.
Here it is:
The farms and foods that once sustained our forefathers as they settled this great land are now endangered. Farms are going belly up every day and the foods small farms raise are being lost forever because they are ignored by industrial agriculture. Just as the Bald Eagle and Panda Bear are on the brink of extinction in the wild, so are numerous varieties of livestock like Bourbon Red turkeys, Red Wattle pigs, Tunis sheep, Barred-Plymouth Rock chickens and Iroquois corn flour. If we want to save them, we must eat them! And Heritage Foods USA exists to help accomplish this goal by selling foods from small farms to consumers and wholesale accounts.
Huh? If we want to save them, we must eat them???
Ok…if we eat the animals then we increase demand for them and so small farms will continue to manufacture them.
I get it.
But…
- Is continuing to torture and slaughter the Bourbon Red turnkeys, Red Wattle pigs, Tunis sheep, and Barred-Plymouth Rock chickens really helping them?
- We’ve manipulated domestic animals to the point that they are no longer natural. Should we really continue to treat these living beings as products to be harvested and manufactured?
- Does this mean we should start eating Bald Eagles and Panda Bears to help support the efforts to save them from the brink of extinction?
- Heritage Foods says they promote “humane production.” How is sitting down to eat the corpse of a defenseless victim “humane?”
- Isn’t this just propaganda to sell more “product?”
Ringing the necks of turkeys is considered "acceptable" by the industry
We need a paradigm shift.
We need to stop treating animals like commodities.
Animals are living, breathing, feeling, sentient beings.
If you have or have ever had a pet you know this to be true.
Ok. Rant over. I’d love to open up a dialogue about this. I’ve stated my opinion…what’s yours?
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hmmmm…….. i will say this…
we do NOT have to eat animals in order to save them from extinction. (the whole eating a bald eagle is quite a stretch).
we must have a paradigm shift in our thinking in order to be conscious consumers. convenience is becoming quite inconvenient for our health, the health care system and our planet.
we must support the small farmer. a lot of small family farmers employ humane methods of raising and slaughtering their livestock. i can only say however, that i visited only one of these farms of which i speak. http://www.fieldsofathenryfarm.com/
more later…
I AGREE! With everything you said.
However I’m not convinced that just because a farm is a “small family,” “free range,” or “organic” farm that they are using “humane methods.”
For example, ALL male chicks are thrown away like they are trash because they cannot lay eggs. ALL “spent” hens are killed at about 1-2 years of age. Farms simply cannot afford to take care of these “non-producing” animals. All egg-laying hens are forced molted – that means they are starved for about 14 days so that they will be shocked into another laying cycle. Layers are debeaked with no anesthesia. This happens at “free range” farms as well as at “conventional.”
All of this comes down to economics. It’s all about how to get the most eggs for the least amount of money. How can a small farm truly employ humane methods and survive financially?
I haven’t visited the farm you listed above – I would love to though!
Can someone explain what “humane method of slaughtering livestock” REALLY means?
there is no such thing as “happy meat”. it is just another marketing ploy. even the so-called humane farms use very inhumane methods and the animals do suffer in their abrieviated life and in death. and if it isn’t enough than we are torturing other beings, we are also destroying our planet and depleting our natural resources all in the name of almighty meat. why don’t we just start using DDT and prescribing thalidomide again??
I agree, Erica. Sadly, it’s all so unnecessary as you can get all the nutrients you need from plants.