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For the third quarter of the book, "The Food Revolution" by John Robbins, I read pages 168 to 252 which covered chapters 10 to 14. These chapters covered a lot of shocking information that I was glad to read about.
Main Topics
The main topics covered in chapters 10-14 are: how animals are being raised and the terrible conditions they are put through. Robbin talks about the slaughter houses and how some animals dont even see day light until they are taken to them. These chapters also cover how many animals are slaughtered each day/minute which is very shocking.
Significant Things I learned
Farmers have been economically advantagous to raise their animals in conditions that are completely unnatural and unhealthy. With the antibiotics mixed into each meal, the use of hormones, drugs, and biocides the animals can be kept a live so that the overcrowding becomes cost effective. The crazy thing is that the extreme crowding of animals incrases the rates of animal illnesses but their profits increase.
Many farm animals are chained in individual cages so small they cannot take a signle step ih their entire lifetime. There are non profit organizatinos such as PETA and HFA that educate the public of the realistics of factory farming. McDonalds was nominated for the prestigious Business Ethics award but the business Ethics magagzine decided not to give the award to McDonalds becacut they were concerned about the cruelty of McDonalds slaughter houses. PETA tried helping them out and offerered them other alternatives such as putting vegie burgers and more healthy choices on their menue. To date McDonalds has not attempted to require slaughterhouses to meet humane standards.
When most people think about chicken and hens they think of them as "stupid birds". Typically 7 or 8 are crammed into 18 inch by 20 inch cages. They cannot simply lie down or spread their wings. For pigs,million are raised for meat in the U.S. and 65 million are raised in total confinement factories where they never see the light until they are being brought to the slaughter houses. An eye opener is British pigs are not raised in total confinement factories. Also, 70% of U.S. pigs have pneumonia at the time of slaughter, which, to me does not sound healthy for humans one bit. Some very interesting information I read was every 24 hours in the U.S. 90,000 cows and calves are slaughtered and 14,000 of chickens are slaughtered every minute.
Implications of What I Read
John Robbins brought up some great points and had a lot of eye opening information. I now see why some people become vegetarians. It was very sad to read about animal cruelty and how they are confined to such little spaces. It broke my heart to read that some animals have never been able to take a step in their lifetime and some don't see light until they are being taken to the slaughterhouse. I was shocked at the numbers of how many animals were killed each day and each minute. I almost feel guilty for eating meat because those animals go through so much. I am glad I now know the facts about animal cruelty and it makes me re evaluate how much I should eat, if any at all.
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