Egg Industry Broken Wide Open

If anyone still believes that "organic" eggs are a humane choice, please look at these gut-wrenching photos from the Organic Valley farm in Wisconsin: They show birds in stinking, stifling, windowless warehouses, crammed so tightly together that they're barely able to move—much less spread their wings, scratch in the dirt, or interact normally in any way.

The heartbreaking photos were released by a farm-policy research group called The Cornucopia Institute in a report called "Scrambled Eggs," which details the entrenched abuse in industrial-scale egg factories.

Like many other facilities that raise pullets (young birds), this house in
Southwest Wisconsin confines the animals, granting no outdoor access
whatsoever, and provides virtually no natural light in the building. 
Photo by The Cornucopia Institute.

36,000 birds in an aviary system in Wisconsin, supplying Chino Valley Ranchers.
The hens also have access to an outdoor run. Photo by The Cornucopia Institute.

As the pictures attest, "organic" doesn't mean that birds are allowed to be free. Cage-free does not mean free range, of course, and so the chickens can still be crammed into sheds and forced to suffer through having a part of their beak cut off, just like birds on factory farms. But "organic" does mean that the chickens aren't fed antibiotics—leaving them all the more susceptible to illness in the filthy, poorly ventilated, crowded conditions.

The outside view of a 60,000 bird “organic” henhouse in Pennsylvania.
The other side of the building has a small grassy porch as “outdoor access.”
Photo by The Cornucopia Institute.

A two-story henhouse with tens of thousands of organic hens inside.
The small, enclosed porch on the first floor provides “outdoor access” for the
chickens on the second floor as well—it is accessible via a ramp that leads
chickens down, single-file.
Photo by The Cornucopia Institute.

Written by Jennifer O'Connor

Source : The PETA Files

The Difference Between Human and Animal Rights

A video describing how exactly rights relate to animals, pointing out that humans only have rights because they ARE animals - and that the label and vocal language the humanity is the only thing standing in the way of animals claiming the rights they should already possess.

There’s Murder in Every Glass of Milk

By Ashley Hopkins

Last post I touched on how dairy comes from raped, abused and exploited mothers. Now image you are her newborn baby.

Having spent your entire life so far inside the warmth of your mother’s womb, the rush of her blood bringing comfort and the movement of her body rocking you to sleep, suddenly, you are thrust out into the strange, cold world. Confused, disoriented, feeling the weight of your own body after having spent your entire life thus far in a liquid suspension – you know your mother’s smell, the sound of her voice. You cry out for her, looking to be soothed by the same one who been their for you all the while.

In nature, as soon as your wet, slippery newborn body hit the ground, your mother would turn around and immediately start kissing and licking your stinky coat, an act that helps stimulate breathing and bring comfort. As you struggled to get steady on your stick-thin legs, she’d be there, her warm breathe brushing your matted coat, ready and waiting with an udder full of warm, nutrient-rich milk. Born with the natural instinct to seek your mother’s teat, the simple act soothes and reassures you: “It’s okay. Mama’s right here. I’m safe”.

This whole natural process is completely interrupted on commercial factory farms. In the Farm Sanctuary video “It Doesn’t Have to Be This Way”, a newborn calf, steam curling of his freshly born body, is seen being dragged through a mud and feces filled lot immediately after having passed through the birth canal. A careless farm hand drags him by a leg through the filth as his poor mother desperately runs after him, helpless, desperate.

If you are born a male, a dairy “by-product” (not genetically bred to grow grotesquely large and unable to produce milk), this is your fate. No mother to comfort you and no human around who thinks you’re more than just a veal production unit, you are thrown into a dark, wood slate crate – no bedding, no straw. A chain, just shy of a foot long, pinches your neck, securing you into this place that will be your home for the next 6 months until you are trucked off to slaughter, too weak from muscle atrophy to even walk. You are deprived of your mother’s milk and kept stationary so that your flesh stays nice and tender, just what veal connoisseurs are after. Some heartless farm hands take advantage of your desperate need to suckle what ever is put in your mouth – you know no better, you just want your mama.

Even if your tail hadn’t been hacked off for “sanitary” reasons (one less thing to get covered in your chronic, nutrient-deprived diarrhea), you’d never wag it. You have nothing that makes you even remotely happy. Six months of no sun, no grass, no breeze blowing through your fur, no mother, no love, no kisses. Six months of “why, why, why?!” You are living in a hellhole that is worse than the fate that fell upon many at Auschwitz. You are another number, another forgotten victim of our modern day holocaust.

Female calves suffer an ill existence as well. They are forced into the same slavery their mother’s suffer. Endless cycles of rape, being robbed of their child, and having their milk forcibly removed, with no compensation for their lives of servitude.

The one thing mother cows and their babies, be they boy or girl, have in common is their final fate: slaughter. Even on “organic, grass-fed” farms, cows are offered no retirement to a lush green field where they can chew cud till their last breath. No pat on the back or “atta girl”. Mother and child will all, at one point, get shoved into an over crowded cattle car and trucked off to slaughter. Having their life taken away so that a man could profit, they are forced to “sacrifice” their body – their only true belonging – so that Burger King can have a dollar value menu.

This is the face of dairy. This is where the cheese on your veggie pizza came from. This is where the half-n-half in your grande mocha latte came from. This is where the cow’s milk in your cereal came from. Is THIS worth it when there are humane, compassionate vegan alternatives to every dairy product in existence?

Do the right thing. Dump meat. Dump dairy. No mother deserves to be robbed of her child and a life that even remotely resembles a natural existence so that humans can eat what her breasts secrete. No food has or ever will be worth that price.

Source : Vegan Campus

11 Reasons to Stop Eating Dairy

Milk and dairy products are not the health foods we’ve been told they are.  Here are 11 reasons to stop consuming them:

1. Cow’s milk is intended for baby cows.  We’re the only species (other than those we are domesticating) that drinks milk after infancy.  And, we’re definitely the only ones drinking the milk of a different species.

2.  Hormones. Not only are the naturally-present hormones in cow’s milk stronger than human hormones, the animals are routinely given steroids and other hormones to plump them up and increase milk production.  These hormones can negatively impact humans’ delicate hormonal balance.

3.  Most cows are fed inappropriate food.  Commercial feed for cows contains all sorts of ingredients that include:  genetically-modified (GM) corn, GM soy, animal products, chicken manure, cottonseed, pesticides, and antibiotics.

4.  Dairy products, when metabolized, are acid-forming.  Our bodies are constantly striving for biochemical balance to keep our blood at 7.365 pH.  Eating excessive acid-forming products can cause our bodies to overuse some of its acid-balancing mechanisms, one of which is the bones.  Alkaline calcium is stored in the bones and released to combat excessive acidity in the body.  Over time, bones can become fragile.

5.  Research shows that the countries whose citizens consume the most dairy products have the HIGHEST incidence of osteoporosis.

6.  Most dairy cows live in confined, inhumane conditions, never seeing the pastures of green grass they were intended to eat.

7. Most dairy products are pasteurized to kill potentially-harmful bacteria.  During the pasteurization process, vitamins, proteins, and enzymes are destroyed.  Enzymes assist with the digestion process.  When they are destroyed through pasteurization, milk becomes harder to digest, therefore putting a strain on our bodies’ enzyme systems.

8.  Dairy products are mucous-forming. They can contribute to respiratory disorders.  When I remove dairy and sugar from the diets of my clients, they stop experiencing hay fever and seasonal allergies.

9.  Research links dairy products with arthritis. In one study on rabbits, scientist Richard Panush was able to PRODUCE inflamed joints in the animals by switching their water to milk.  In another study, scientists observed more than a 50% reduction in the pain and swelling of arthritis when participants eliminated milk and dairy products from their diet.

10  Most milk is homogenized, which denatures the milk’s proteins, making it harder to digest.  Many peoples’ bodies react to these proteins as though they are “foreign invaders” causing their immune systems to overreact.  Research also links homogenized milk to heart disease.

11.  Pesticides in cow feed find their way into milk and dairy products that we consume.

Check out my Dairy-Free Soft Cheese recipe for a delicious alternative to dairy cheese.

Source : Care2

Food INC

Everyone should watch the movie FOOD INC. It’s very informative and will change the way you think of food! People really need to be educated about where their food comes from!

Buy the DVD of Food INC here!