How modern livestock is treated
If you wear leather, eat meat, wash with soap, or have a variety of boxed food products, you should be aware of how animals are treated that provide those products. None of us is completely independent of products that are in some way related to animals. A simple product such a Jello is made from pigs and the soap you use often has animal oils or lanolin (made from sheep). That being said, do you really know how livestock is treated?
Remember those commercials that state “Happy cows come from California.” Well I got news for you, cows in dairys in California do not have access to open fields. They are kept in a feed lot type of area that is often surrounded by fields. Those fields are grown to produce hay which is dried, baled and stored for the cows to eat later. Cows fair better in Oregon and other surrounding states that have ample rain for their cow pastures.
Most people are aware of where their eggs come from. After that e-coli outbreak a few months back, we were all subjected to images of chickens in very small cages in darkened barns. But do you know how chickens are killed for the dinning table? There are machines that the chickens are processed through. They are hung by their feet on a conveyor system and it takes them through a machine that kills them with very hot steam. The same machine removes their feathers. So one end you see a live chicken go in and the other end a dead, cleaned of feathers and hanging upside down bird comes out. The horror the birds must go through in that contraption.
Now if you really want to know more about this gruesome but necessary subject and are not afraid of the truth then I suggest you get a copy of the DVD called Food, Inc. It was made in 2009 and details most of how animals are treated in the food industry. It also covers how the FDA is not protecting the public like it should from health related problems. If you cannot find that DVD on sale anywhere, see if you can catch it on Netflix, Discovery Channel, PBS or one of those documentary channels.
Finding out how animals are treated by industries will be a real eye opener for many of you.
