How it all Vegan
I want you to close your eyes. Ok. Never mind. That won’t work, because then you can’t read what to do next. Hmmm. Alright. I want you to think, focus on your own personal perception of farming. Not corn or rice or wheat. But meat. So maybe that entails “ranching”? What does your perception hold? Is it green pastures, salt licks, free roaming animals – cows, sheep, pigs, chickens, turkeys? Does it entail a family waking at dawn or before to care for the animals, milk the cows, grab the eggs? When you look at your steak or ribs or drumstick is that what you see? The thing is, as little as twenty years ago, that was probably the case. Families, land, animals in semi-natural habitats. That was part of the picture of the meat & dairy industry.
Now is a different time. What you are falling for now is a marketing strategy. The cows writing those billboards to “eat mor chikn” are experiencing much more natural surroundings than the ones being used for our consumption. If this were paint being applied to the side of your house, if this were plastic used for the rear bumper of your car, I would understand the nonchalant, dismissive response to the meat & dairy industry. But this is something you put in your body and your children’s bodies. This is your sustenance. This is like the air we breathe and the water we drink. This is our food. This is our food that is being lied about, that is being injected with things that endanger us. If you drink milk, you are drinking a liquid that is not only laced with antibiotics and hormones but also pus. Do you believe that?
Do you believe that male chicks are tossed into dumpsters by the 1000s….thousands….alive because they are not egg producing females and there is no use for them? Writhing, twisting, struggling, BREATHING. Do you know there is such a thing as a dead pile at slaughterhouses? Doesn’t that seem like an oxymoron? But animals are dragged by any means possible to a pile and tossed, alive, on top of each other to struggle sometimes violently to right themselves to no avail. Do you know that calves are taken from their dairy mothers to be shoved into a tiny crate, tethered by a rope no more than a foot long around the neck? They cannot turn, they cannot lie down, they cannot clean themselves. In total darkness, given a diet that keeps them anemic and with continuous diarrhea. They are then removed from the box, usually unable to walk, and they are dragged by a leg or neck whichever is available, or kicked or beaten and thrown around like a sack of potatoes. These animals that you order at the nearest fast food restaurant are kept in total darkness. They never experience grass, fresh air or what God intended for them to experience. They are no longer animals in the era of agribusiness – they are products. They are units.
But I want you to stop for one minute and think about this…please.
If God had meant for us to treat animals in this way – to experiment on them, to warehouse them, - why would He have given them a central nervous systems IDENTICAL to ours so that they could experience pain as we do? Why would He make them social beings? Why would He give them personalities? How is your adored dog or beloved cat any different than a pig or a goat or a cow or chicken? Because they aren’t smart? Boy, that better not be the criteria for being eaten because I have a huge list of names of people to be picked up! No, we don’t eat animals because they aren’t smart, because we really don’t know how smart animals are, do we? Or do we? Have you seen the video of the pig that plays video games? Or the chimps that sign? Now think about this for a second. A chimp was taught our language. I believe other animals have been taught our language. Now, as clever as we are, has anyone learned dogspeak? Cattalk? Cow chatter? Anyone know about a human that has learned an animal’s language? Yet, they learn ours? Oh, because we are so clever and can teach them? Yeah. Right.
A long time ago. Ok not so long ago, black people were referred to as “sub-humans”. Literally. My father said that, so it wasn’t that long ago. Sub-humans. This was the mindset that allowed people to treat black people so horrifically. There was a time when children were in workhouses. Orphans sold off as cheap labor. Recently, we have been made aware of working conditions and the use of child labor in sweatshops. Several years ago, any mental abnormality – autism, mental retardation, schizophrenia – any deviation from what was considered “normal” allowed for the institutionalization of these people. They were warehoused and terribly mistreated – subjected to shock treatment, ice therapy, crazy medications. And it existed for a long time until someone caught wind of what was happening behind the big brick walls of these institutions. . We see it throughout history – ignorance allowing for the terrible mistreatment of perfectly innocent beings. The beauty, however, of this is that someone woke up and said “you know what? I don’t think that someone with autism should be thrown away.” And that person started something. She or he was probably batted down, made to feel foolish, reviled, rejected but as the saying goes “all the darkness in the world cannot put out the light of one candle”. And that is how the film Peaceable Kingdom begins.
This is a film that should be on every channel on every television in every corner of the world. This is a film that says what you have known all your life is wrong. Animals are thinking feeling creatures that are sanctified by God (look it up – and when you find a passage that refers to animals - read the whole passage). The image I have burned in my memory now is how the industry handles chickens – slinging them by the handful like bags of rice on metal conveyor belts and the way the Farm Sanctuary rescuers carefully cradle and soothe each bird saved from a slow miserable death following the destruction of their warehouse by a twister. The owners had left hundreds of thousands of birds to starve to death in twisted and ruined cages. I wonder, which would you be? I believe that most of us want to be perceived as the one that comforts, not destroys. That nurtures, not abandons. That cares, not ignores. The two people that started Farm Sanctuary, (http://www.farmsanctuary.org) a place for rescued factory farm animals, bring these wonderful creatures to the community –allowing people to connect with each of the animals and see them for the individual beings that they are. The people who speak in the film for the most part are not just the owners of Farm Sanctuary, but people who were innately involved in the meat and dairy industry. All of the people state an early love for animals – as children. Which is true for all kids – isn’t it? Kids love animals – the intrinsic innocence is a kinship. There are those that like to bring up the brutality of nature. Those that balk at the image of kindness to animals as being naïve. Nature is tough. Nature is vicious. Ahh. True. But not vicious for viciousness sake. Brutal but not for brutality’s sake. Cruel but not for cruelty’s sake. A lion gets the baby deer and we all hope the baby gets away. But the reality is, lion’s don’t have grocery stores. Lions are eating to live and eating what they were meant to eat. They eat as much as they can, and then the hyenas come and feast, then vultures and then the parasites. Brutal but part of a natural order. There is no question about that whatsoever. But do not confuse nature with man’s horrific cruelty for cruelty’s sake. We do not need to pile 100s of thousands of chickens into rows and rows of wire cages for nature’s sake. There is nothing, absolutely nothing natural about the way the meat and dairy industry conduct business. Nothing. God and nature are absolutely absent. There is no grass. There is no fresh air. There is no nature. I heard that the fact that meat consumption is doubling exponentially every year, and the land cannot sustain that kind of demand - that is why we HAVE to have warehousing – for the environment and the demand. That is why we warehouse animals, who by the way prefer to be inside away from the cruel elements – wind, rain, predators, etc. They enjoy being in a controlled environment. Ever seen a dog that has been kept in a cage for too long? Ever seen a man kept in prison too long? This is part of the marketing. The strategy is to lull the average citizen into a false sense of comfort and serenity. The animals are fine. They are happy. They are “free” to roam the “range”. Think green pastures. Think singing, witty cows. It’s all good, people, don’t worry we have it under control. Now eat your burger because it tastes so good, and who the heck wants to eat some soy cardboard burger? Not a real man, by God!
Do you think that the huge corporations that are running the factory farms want you to know any details? Do you think they want you to know that a substance that is banned in England and Europe is still being used here on dairy cows that causes horrible problems for the cows and causes cancer in humans? Do you really think they want you to know that they spray insecticides over the cattle to keep fly infestation down and that pesticide gets into the feed? Do you think they want you to know that as long as an animal can make it to the slaughterhouse – it’s meat? Whether is riddled with tumors, cancerous, has infected sores, it’s all edible? If this was something that was used to make carpet, maybe you wouldn’t really care. But you’re eating this – don’t you want to know where it’s been? I mean, seriously, we all know the five second rule – you drop something –say, a cookie, on the floor, and if you can get to it before five seconds is up then it’s edible. At six seconds do you toss it in the trash? Seconds matter with food on the floor, but you don’t want to know about the months that are involved in your veal? Your cheese? Your bacon? Do you trust corporations that much that you would ingest something without really knowing where it has been?
Did you know that one in two men will experience cancer? One in three women? Do you know that a vegan lifestyle will eradicate – ELIMINATE – your chances of getting heart disease – the number one killer of adults in America?
And of course, who perpetuates the “stereotypical” vegan? The militant cotton wearing no make up activists that berates your selfishness and lack of compassion. I have yet to meet her. Or him. Most of the vegetarians and vegans I have met are exactly what I would expect them to be. Kind. Caring. Funny. Lively. Not all, because really there is no stereotypical anything. I have seen fat vegetarians (that blows that cliché), I have seen Goth and country club vegetarians. The negative image portrayed is being delivered for a reason. If the image of vegans or vegetarians was as normal and as boring as it really is, after all we are just people, then there would be no reason not to be curious about it. But if you can dispel something as weird or difficult or unsafe or militant you can make it unappealing to the vast majority of people. I wonder who would be interested in doing that….hmm.
It’s hard being informed with all the information out there. It becomes like a buzzing ball of mosquitoes – something you just want to shut off, and get away from. And labels! They can put anything they want, with absolutely no guarantee to the consumer that there is actually any truth involved. I see something labeled “dairy free” “lactose free” and I know to check the label. Why? Because the ingredients will tell me if there really is dairy in it, and most of the time, there is. I am a vegan. And it is hard. It is hard because it is not the norm. But it is so worth it. I am no better than any other person on this planet, I do not have super human willpower that allows me to not desire things that are pleasurable. But there is a cost to everything. When you are married, and you see a hot babe, you make a choice based on the ramifications of that choice. If you hook up with said hot babe, you risk everything you have with your spouse. If you don’t, you risk not having the satisfying experience of that particular hot babe. Is the choice worth it? Is the choice to consume something that you find wholly delightful and satisfying to your appetite worth the cost and the risk? Is that burger worth the risk of what that particular piece of meat might contain that will hurt your health? Is that burger worth the cost to an innocent animal? What if dog became the heralded choice for fajitas? Dog fajitas – now at your favorite restaurant. Would you try it? If you would, would you think of your pet and wonder if he could smell it on your breath when you came home or about his safety? If you don’t or say “gross!” at that option – why do you say that? What is the difference? Why is a dog allowed to enjoy an elevated status in our society as opposed to a pig or chicken or cow? Where is the disconnect that allows one animal to sit comfortably on a pillow bed, with his own bowl, his own collar, and his own personal doctor yet another animal is forced into a concrete and metal jail unable to move, fed by machine, castrated without anesthetics, beaten, frightened, isolated, kept in darkness until it is forced to line up and enter a building which vibrates with the screams of his peers? Have you ever witnessed terror in an animal’s eyes? Is that something you can dismiss so easily? If you have a dog, have you ever held it and soothed it as it stood shaking on the vet’s examination table? Does it hit you that all animals experience fear yet billions are subjected to fatal, terrifying consequences devoid of the tender and loving kindness you show your pet while undergoing routine care? Cows, pigs, sheep, turkeys, chickens are electrocuted, kicked, stomped upon, broken, torn, shredded, whipped, beaten mercilessly and this is all they know of human beings. Billions every year. Billions. God, it's just too much to bear.
Get this film. If you don’t know how, contact me, and I will get the information to you. It is too powerful to miss. I am getting a copy of this to every member of my family. Stop buying into the marketing scheme. You are too intelligent and not so busy to be hoodwinked like this. You will be proud of yourself and you will be released from ignorance. And then you can start, even if it is slowly with one meal a week void of animal products, and you can say to yourself – “no animal had to suffer for me today.” And that is the payoff, that is what makes compassionate eating and living so very, very worth it. Nothing had to suffer for me today.