Do you really think about your food? Wonder about what kind of a life it had before it became a cellophane-wrapped package in your grocery store?
On November 4th, the citizens of California will be voting on a measure to legislate humane treatment of farm animals. This is important stuff, folks. Not just because animals in factory farms must suffer unimaginable levels of hell, but it also makes sense from a food safety perspective:
- Food animals who are treated well and provided with at least minimum accommodation of their natural behaviors and physical needs are healthier and safer for human consumption.
- Due to the large numbers of animals confined in close quarters in typical factory farms, there are many opportunities for animals to be infected by several strains of pathogens, leading to increased chance for a strain to emerge that can infect and spread in humans.
- Practices that restrict natural motion, such as sow gestation crates, induce high levels of stress in the animals and threaten their health, which in turn may threaten human health.
Honestly, watch this video and try to tell me that this isn't the right thing to do in California and all across North America.
I'm a staunch vegetarian partly for animal rights issues. I know there is some irony in asking for farm animals to have a healthy environment in which to grow before they're taken away for slaughter, but I see it as progress. I think it demeans and debases us as a people when we turn a blind eye to the suffering of another animal, regardless of how detached we may feel from agriculture. To do anything else is to be complicit in the abuse.
If you wouldn't allow a dog or a cat to be treated in this way, how is a cow, pig, or chicken any different?
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