Eating Animals: Animals as Food

BASICS

Numbers

About 10 billion land animals die annually in food production in the US
218 million are killed by hunters, in animal shelters, research, product testing, dissection, and fur farms (2% of total killed)
More numbers

Types of Farming

Factory farming (vast majority of US farming)--Confined Animal Feeding Operations (CAFOs)
Factory farming with reforms - in some states/industries
Humane farming (but how humane?) - products available at Whole Foods and other stores

#1 FACTORY FARMING

The Big Picture

The Meatrix (about history of factory farming)
Food Inc
Glass Walls (PETA video) (watch :57 -3:30)

Broiler Chickens (for meat)

crowding (20,000 per barn)
debeaking, ammonia fumes
collapsing under own weight
very short lives (5-7 weeks vs. many years)
slaughter (below)

Pigs (for pork, ham, bacon)

crowding
tail-docking
sow crates (for pregnant pigs)
farrowing crates (for birthing and lactating pigs)
slaughter (below)

New York Times, May 2020 (click for more info)

By Alisha Vargas from Reno, NV, US - Piglets Nursing,
CC BY 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=6498410

Beef Cattle

castration
branding
range life until 8 months,
feedlot for several months
corn diet, antibiotics, hormones
slaughter (below)
More info: Power Steer

Veal

Laying Hens (for eggs)

crowding (each chicken has less space than a piece of typing paper)
debeaking
male chicks immediately killed
short lives
slaughter (see below)

Looking down into a dumpster - discarded male chicks

Glass Walls (PETA) -- watch 1:51 - 3:30

Dairy Cows

mothers separated from calves (see calf hutches here)
over-milking, mastitis, BST
What happens to the males? (read about sexed semen)

Seafood

seine fishing
bycatch

Slaughter

Slaughter of pigs, cattle (USDA regulated)

Transported on hot, crowded trucks
Animals shot in head with stun gun, lose consciousness (ideally)
Hoisted upside-down, throats slit
Animals killed at a rate of 400 per hour
Temple Grandin reforms: more auditing, curved chute

Slaughter of chickens (minimally regulated)

thrown on trucks, long trip, no water
shackled upside down, dragged through electrified water, throats slit

Fish

death by suffocation

#2 FACTORY FARMING WITH REFORMS

Proposition 2 (California, 2008) - each animal must have enough room to turn around
Proposition 12 (California) - stipulates square feet, prohibits sale of products that don't comply, even if animals raised in other states
Supreme Court case (pending): National Pork Producers v. Ross - pork producers in other states want to be able to sell in California even if they don't comply with California standards
Smithfield farms (huge pork producers) to phase out sow crates; did they or didn't they?
McDonalds phasing out sow crates