Top 10 Reasons Not to Eat Pigs

 1) Porking You Up
It’s a fact—ham, sausage, and bacon strips will go right to your hips. Eating pork products, which are loaded with artery-clogging cholesterol and saturated fat, is a good way to increase your waistline and increase your chances of developing deadly diseases such as heart disease, diabetes, arthritis, osteoporosis, Alzheimer’s, asthma, and impotence. Research has shown that vegetarians are 50 percent less likely to develop heart disease, and they have 40 percent of the cancer rate of meat-eaters. Plus, meat-eaters are nine times more likely to be obese than pure vegetarians are. Every time you eat animal products, you’re also ingesting bacteria, antibiotics, dioxins, hormones, and a host of other toxins that can accumulate in your body and remain there for years.

2) Pigs Have Feelings Too
Ninety-seven percent of pigs in the United States today are raised in factory farms, where they will never run across sprawling pastures, bask in the sun, breathe fresh air, or do anything else that comes naturally to them. Crowded into warehouses with nothing to do and nowhere to go, they are kept on a steady diet of drugs to keep them alive and make them grow faster, but the drugs cause many of the animals to become crippled under their own bulk.

3) Pigs and Playstations
Think that you can outplay a pig on your Playstation? You may be surprised. According to research, pigs are much smarter than dogs, and they even do better at video games than some primates. In fact, pigs are extremely clever animals who form complex social networks and have excellent memories. Eating a pig is like eating your dog! As actor Cameron Diaz put it after hearing that pigs have the mental capacities of a 3-year-old human: "[Eating bacon is] like eating my niece!"

4) Pigs Prefer Mud, Not Crud
Pigs are actually very clean animals. If they are given sufficient space, pigs are careful not to soil the areas where they sleep or eat. And forget the silly saying “sweating like a pig”—pigs can’t even sweat! That’s why they bathe in water or mud to cool off. But in factory farms, they’re forced to live in their own feces and vomit and even amid the corpses of other pigs. Conditions are so filthy that at any given time, more than one-quarter of pigs suffer from mange—think of your worst case of poison ivy, and imagine having to suffer from it for the rest of your life.

5) Farming Family Values
Factory farms are pure hell for pigs and their babies. Mother pigs spend most of their lives in tiny “gestation” crates, which are so small that the animals are unable to turn around or even lie down comfortably. They are repeatedly impregnated until they are slaughtered. Piglets, who are taken away from their distraught mothers after just a few weeks, have their tails chopped off, their teeth are clipped off with pliers, and the males are castrated—all without painkillers.

6) The Manure Is Blowing in the Wind …
A pig farm with 5,000 animals produces as much fecal waste as a city of 50,000 people. In 1995, 25 million gallons of putrid hog urine and feces spilled into a North Carolina river, immediately killing between 10 and 14 million fish. To get around water pollution limits, factory farms will frequently take the tons of urine and feces that are stored in cesspools and turn them into liquid waste that they spray into the air. This manure-filled mist is carried away by the wind and inhaled by the people who live nearby.

7) Bacteria-Laden Bacon and Harmful Ham
Extremely crowded conditions, poor ventilation, and filth in factory farms cause such rampant disease in pigs that 70 percent of them have pneumonia by the time they’re sent to the slaughterhouse. In order to keep pigs alive in conditions that would otherwise kill them and to promote unnaturally fast growth, the industry keeps pigs on a steady diet of the antibiotics that we depend on to treat human illnesses. This overuse of antibiotics has led to the development of “superbacteria,” or antibiotic-resistant bacterial strains. The ham, bacon, and sausage that you’re eating may make the drugs that your doctor prescribes the next time you get sick completely ineffective.

8) Hell on Wheels
More than 170,000 pigs die in transport each year, and more than 420,000 are crippled by the time they arrive at the slaughterhouse. Transport trucks, which carry pigs hundreds of miles through all weather extremes with no food or water, regularly flip over, throwing injured and dying animals onto the road. These terrified and injured animals are rarely offered veterinary care, and most languish in pain for hours; some even bleed to death on the side of the road. After an accident in April 2005, Smithfield spokesperson Jerry Hostetter told one reporter, “I hate to admit it, but it happens all the time.”

9) Killing Them Without Kindness 
A typical slaughterhouse kills up to 1,100 pigs every hour, which makes it impossible for them to be given humane, painless deaths. The U.S. Department of Agriculture documented 14 humane slaughter violations at one processing plant, where inspectors found hogs who “were walking and squealing after being stunned [with a stun gun] as many as four times.” Because of improper stunning methods and extremely fast line speeds, many pigs are still alive when they are dumped into scalding-hot hair-removal tanks—they literally drown in scalding-hot water.

The Hidden Lives of Pigs

President Harry Truman stated, “No man should be allowed to be President who does not understand hogs.” Most people know very little about these fascinating animals. In fact, pigs are curious and insightful animals thought to have intelligence beyond that of an average 3-year-old human child. They are smarter than dogs and every bit as friendly, loyal, and affectionate. When in their natural surroundings, not on factory farms, they are social, playful, protective animals who bond with each other, make beds, relax in the sun, and cool off in the mud.

Since most people are not that familiar with pigs, you may be surprised to learn that they dream, recognize their names, play video games more effectively than some primates, and lead social lives of a complexity previously observed only in primates.
People who run animal sanctuaries often describe pigs with human characteristics, because they’ve learned that, like humans, pigs enjoy listening to music, playing with soccer balls, and getting massages.

Pigs Are Friends, Not Food!

Pigs on today’s farms are denied their every desire; they never run across sprawling pastures, bask in the sun, breathe fresh air, or do anything else that comes naturally to them. Mother pigs (sows) spend most of their lives in tiny “gestation” crates, which are too small for them to turn around in. They are continually impregnated until they are slaughtered. Piglets are taken away from their distraught mothers after just a few weeks, and their tails are chopped off, the ends of their teeth are snipped off with pliers, and the males are castrated. No painkillers are given to ease their suffering.
Because of improper stunning methods, many pigs are still alive when they are dumped into scalding-hot water, which is intended to remove their hair and soften their skin. When they’re killed, male pigs are still babies, only about 6 months old. Since their natural life span is 6 to 9 years, they never mature to enjoy a full life. On any given day in the United States, about 1,000 pigs are killed every hour. The average American meat-eater is responsible for the abuse and deaths of approximately 31 pigs.

 

Many people think of Charlotte’s Web and Babe when they imagine how pigs are raised for meat. Unfortunately, these Hollywood tales do not depict reality. Almost all of the 100 million pigs killed for food in the United States every year endure horrific conditions in controlled animal feeding operations (CAFOs), the meat industry’s euphemism for factory farms. Smarter than dogs, these social, sensitive animals spend their lives in overcrowded, filthy warehouses, often seeing direct sunlight for the first time as they are crammed onto a truck bound for the slaughterhouse.

A mother pig, or sow, spends her adult life confined to a tiny metal crate. She will never feel the warmth of a nest or the affectionate nuzzle of her mate—she will spend her life surrounded by thick, cold metal bars, living on wet, feces-caked concrete floors. When she is old enough to give birth, she will be artificially impregnated and then imprisoned again for the entire length of her pregnancy in a “gestation crate,” a cage only 2 feet wide—too small for her even to turn around or lie down in comfortably.
After giving birth, a mother pig is moved to a “farrowing crate,” a contraption even worse and smaller than a gestation crate, with only a tiny additional concrete area on which the piglets can nurse. Workers will sometimes tie the mother’s legs apart so she cannot get a break from the suckling piglets. She may develop open “bed sores” on her body from the lack of movement. This practice is so barbaric that gestation crates have been banned in Florida, the U.K., and Sweden and will be banned in the European Union in 2013.

When pregnant sows are ready to give birth, they are moved from a gestation crate to a farrowing crate. One worker describes the process: “They beat the shit out of them [the mother pigs] to get them inside the crates because they don’t want to go. This is their only chance to walk around, get a little exercise, and they don’t want to go [back into a crate]

In nature, pigs live for 15 years, but pigs on factory farms are sent to slaughter after just six months of life.  To get the terrified pigs onto the transport trucks bound for the slaughterhouse, workers may beat them on their sensitive noses and backs or stick electric prods in their rectums. Crammed into 18-wheelers, pigs struggle to get air and are usually given no food or water for the entire journey (often hundreds of miles). A former pig transporter told PETA that pigs are “packed in so tight, their guts actually pop out their butts—a little softball of guts actually comes out.” Pigs suffer from temperature extremes and are forced to inhale ammonia fumes and diesel exhaust.

 

According to a 2006 industry report, more than 1 million pigs die each year from the horrors of transport alone. Another industry report notes that, in some transport loads, as many as 10 percent of pigs are “downers,” animals who are so ill or injured that they are unable to stand and walk on their own. Downer pigs have no protection from the most unthinkable cruelty: These sick and injured pigs will be kicked, struck with electric prods, and finally dragged off the trucks to their deaths.

Pigs are transported for hundreds of miles through all weather extremes to the slaughterhouse. One worker reports: “In the wintertime there are always hogs stuck to the sides and floors of the trucks. They [slaughterhouse workers] go in there with wires or knives and just cut or pry the hogs loose. The skin pulls right off. These hogs were alive when we did this.” In her renowned book, Slaughterhouse, Gail Eisnitz writes: “When hogs arrive frozen at slaughterhouses—which is a common occurrence—their protections under the Humane Slaughter Act are mysteriously waived. Since they are of no value for human consumption, antemortem inspectors neither examine them nor make a decision as to their disposition. Nor are they provided shelter or promptly stunned. Instead they are left to fend for themselves until they die.

Factory Farms Mutilate Baby Pigs

Young piglets’ tails are cut off, and male piglets’ testicles are torn out, without the use of painkillers.

Workers cut piglets’ teeth, without the use of painkillers, in order to prevent them from biting each other out of boredom and frustration.

On factory farms, the following procedures are performed on piglets only weeks old. The pig-flesh industry refuses to use painkillers even though local anesthesia would cost about 1 penny per baby pig.

“Castration”

A worker slices into a piglet’s scrotum and pulls out his testicles while the piglet screams and writhes in pain. Imagine asking a veterinarian to neuter your dog—but without pain relief. That would be a felony in most states.

“Ear-notching”

Large hunks of each piglet’s ears are sliced off with scissors to make identification patterns.

“Tail-docking”

Piglets have their tails cut off to reduce tail biting, a habit that arises from boredom and frustration in stressful factory farm conditions. Scientists testify that the pain is severe and continues for many days.

“Tooth-clipping”

The piglet’s incisor teeth are cut off with pliers that are similar to wire cutters so that they can’t cause injuries by chewing on themselves or their neighbors when the extreme confinement drives them insane. Imagine dental surgery without anesthetics.

 

Source: PETA

The Meat Industry - Pigs

With corporate hog factories replacing traditional hog farms, pigs are being treated more as inanimate tools of production than as living, feeling animals.

As babies, they are subjected to painful mutilations without anesthesia or pain relievers. The piglets' tails are cut off to minimize tail biting, an aberrant behavior which occurs when these highly intelligent animals are kept in deprived factory farm environments. In addition, notches are taken out of the piglets' ears for identification.

At 2 to 3 weeks of age, the piglets are taken away from their mothers, by which time, approximately 15% will have died. The surviving piglets are crowded into pens with metal bars and concrete floors. A headline from National Hog Farmer magazine advises, "Crowding Pigs Pays...". The pigs endure overcrowded confinement buildings for their entire lives - until they reach a slaughter weight of 250 pounds at 6 months of age.

The air in hog factories is laden with dust, dander, and noxious gases which are produced by the animals' urine and feces. Studies of workers in swine confinement buildings have found 60 percent to have breathing problems, despite their spending only a few hours a day inside confinement buildings. For pigs, who live their entire lives in factory farm confinement, respiratory disease is rampant.

Modern hog factories are a fertile breeding ground for a wide variety of diseases. A Pork industry report explains: "Porcine Reproductive and Respiratory Syndrome, or PRRS, was first reported in U.S. herds in 1987. It is now estimated to be in as many as 60 percent of U.S. herds... Swine arthritis has increased in economic importance with confinement rearing, partly because of damage related to flooring conditions and partly because of faster growth rates and lack of exercise... The incidence of salmonellosis has continued to increase. It is estimated that one-third to half of farms have some level of salmonellosis... Epidemic transmissible gastroenteritis, or TGE, is a dreaded disease because it's hard to keep out of herds, there's no effective treatment and it carries a devastating mortality rate in baby pigs. Nearly all pigs less than 10 days old die if infected... Forty to 70 percent of U.S. pigs show evidence of infection with bratislava (a type of Leptospirosis)... Tests indicate 80 percent to 85 percent of sows in major swine producing areas have been exposed to parvo virus".

 

Modern breeding sows are treated like piglet making machines. Living a continuous cycle of impregnation and birth, the sows each have more than 20 piglets per year. After being impregnated, the sows are confined in small pens or metal gestation crates which are just 2 feet wide. At the end of their 4 month pregnancy, they are transferred to farrowing crates to give birth. The sows barely have room to stand up and lie down, and many suffer from sores on their shoulders. They are denied straw bedding and forced to stand and lie on hard floors. When asked about this, a pork industry representative wrote, "...straw is very expensive and there certainly would not be a supply of straw in the country to supply all the farrowing pens in the U.S."

Numerous research studies conducted over the last 25 years have pointed to physical and psychological maladies experienced by sows in confinement. The unnatural flooring and lack of exercise causes obesity and crippling leg disorders, while the deprived environment results in neurotic coping behaviors such as bar biting, dog sitting, and "mourning".

After giving birth and nursing their young for two to three weeks, the piglets are taken away to be fattened, and the sow is re-impregnated. Hog factories strive to keep their sows '100 % active', as an article in Successful Farming explains, "Any sow that is not gestating, lactating or within seven days post weaning is non-active." When the sow is no longer deemed a productive breeder, she is sent to slaughter.

In addition to experiencing overcrowded housing, sows and pigs are also experience crowding in transportation - despite the fact that this crowding causes suffering and deaths. As a hog industry expert writes, "Death losses during transport are too high - amounting to more than $8 million per year. But it doesn't take a lot of imagination to figure out why we load as many hogs on a truck as we do. It's cheaper. So it becomes a moral issue. Is it right to overload a truck and save $.25 per head in the process, while the overcrowding contributes to the deaths of 80,000 hogs each year?".

Prior to being hung upside down by their back legs and bled to death at the slaughterhouse, pigs are supposed to be 'stunned' and rendered unconscious. However, 'stunning' is terribly imprecise, and this results in conscious animals hanging upside down, kicking and struggling, while a slaughterhouse worker tries to 'stick' them in the neck with a knife. If the worker is unsuccessful, the pig will be carried to the next station on the slaughterhouse assembly line, the scalding tank, where he/she will be boiled alive.

Locked down, the pigs become aggressive and violent due to density and lack of stimulations. In order to control this, the pig's tails are cut without pain killers. Some farmers also sever the pig's fangs.

A concrete or grid floor makes cleaning easier but causes posture difficulties and legs distortions. An American pig farmer commented about the decision to choose these types of floors: we are not paid to breed animal with good posture, we are paid by weight.

A zenith of cruelty are the pregnancy and nursing facilities against which large campaigns are conducted abroad. The breeders fear that because of the extreme density, the sow will crush her young during nursing. Logic dictates that supplying them with more space is the required solution; however, the breeders choose an opposite solution: no space at all. Through all four months of pregnancy, the sow is locked down in a tight stall, in which she can only move one step in every direction. But even this minimal exercise is prevented during the months of nursing. The sow is restrained down with metal bars. Animal activists documented in the Lahav farm using a hidden camera that the pressure on the sow is so intense that she can't even turn around or rise.

Source: Shevi / MercyForAnimals

Behind the Walls

A Viva! investigation reveals most pigs are crammed in disease-ridden, indoor units where they live in their own filth. A cocktail of drugs keeps them alive and forces fast growth. Please help us end the suffering.

I once had idyllic childhood images of pigs - happy, content and wallowing in a mud pool. When I recently saw what life is really like for pigs on today's farms, I was left feeling physically sick for days. I suppose I knew they lived on concrete, indoors in intensive factory farms. However, I was not prepared for the intensity of their confinement, the awful reality of their boredom, the noises their heads make hitting the doors to their cages and the overwhelming smell they have to endure. It's been a while since I saw those pigs, but thinking about it still upsets me deeply. The females are left in what are called gestation crates, where they are surrounded by metal bars and can barely move - they can't walk, turn around or even lie down comfortably.

Pregnant sows are kept in these prisons for most of their lives - four months at a time for the duration of each pregnancy. Their only relief is occasionally being moved to another metal-barred prison (where they give birth and feed their young), or when they are waiting to be impregnated again.

In the gestation shed, there was a constant clanging noise. It was the sows hitting their heads against the doors of their cages as if trying to escape. After a while, some would give up and lie down, while others again took up their futile action. All I could think of when I left the place was that these poor animals would remain there, probably for years to come, rotating between the two types of prison, for the rest of their lives.

A sow gives birth in a farrowing crate where she is again denied nearly all movement and is forced to provide her piglets with milk 24 hours a day. I saw charts on the wall that reduced her life to a series of statistics - the number of piglets she had, how many lived, and how many died. I knew that when those statistics showed a lowered production, the sow herself would be killed. In a more natural environment, her adorable little piglets would endlessly explore, play with one another and root in the ground. Here they could do none of these things and slept on grated metal flooring. I also saw the fattening pens where pigs are fattened up for slaughter. They are essentially concrete cells, each holding about a dozen pigs. In one cell, a pig had an ear missing. Another had a rupture the size of a grapefruit protruding from his stomach. There was a dead pig, constantly nudged and licked by his cell mates. The smell in these places is overwhelming. I had the option of walking away and I still cannot imagine how these poor animals - who have an acute sense of smell - can endure the stench. I know what has happened elsewhere - pigs have asphyxiated because the ventilation system failed.

What I saw was the obvious squalor and pain of intensive farming. Sadly, there is other, less obvious suffering. In time, the legs of breeding sows become weak, affecting their ability to give birth naturally and to walk. On some farms, workers have been known to viciously beat these weakened animals to get them to move from breeding areas to slaughter. Sows are being pushed to their biological limits, and mortality rates are increasing. Some herds have reported monthly mortality rates exceeding 15%.

Piglets can be forcibly weaned starting at two weeks old - two months before they're ready. Their tails are cut off to minimize tail-biting, which results from the unnatural environment. Their needle sharp teeth are clipped to prevent biting in such an intensive environment, and notches are cut in their ears for identification purposes. All these procedures are done without painkillers.

Death accompanies them at every stage of their short, five or six month life. Up to 70 percent of some herds may suffer from respiratory problems and a number of other diseases. On the farms of one huge producer, 420,000 hogs a year died prematurely. These losses are built into the economics of pig farming. Animals may not even survive the transport to slaughter - dying from heat stroke or freezing to death, depending on the time of year. In 1998, nearly 277,000 pigs were dead on arrival at the slaughterhouse.

The story doesn't even end here. Many pigs are inadequately stunned. Some are merely paralyzed and can feel all that happens to them during slaughter. Pigs have even been known to enter the scalding tank fully conscious and are essentially boiled alive.

Through all the misery I witnessed on my investigation, I still saw a little of the pigs of my childhood. Pigs whose ears flopped when they ran to me, hoping I had food; pigs whose eyes seemed to reflect the misery of their lives; sows whose intelligence shone through the hopelessness of their frustration. But what will remain with me forever is the sound of desperate pigs banging their heads against immovable doors and their constant and repeated biting at the prison bars that held them captive. This, I now know, is a sign of mental collapse. What has happened to the human race that it can close it eyes to this suffering?

I also visited some of the larger pig farms in North Carolina. There were thousands of pigs housed in sheds. Many were dead or dying - one actually died right in front of me. This was the same for the piglets being housed in what the industry so frightfully terms a nursery! The dying and dead pigs were still in the pens with the living pigs. A revealing insight on how this industry views animals is offered by its treatment of the dead and dying. They were tossed in the aisles: some barely alive, some rotting. Sick or injured pigs who were still alive could not reach food or water and were sure to die a painful death. There was a pig so thin he barely looked like a pig at all. He too had some type of rupture protruding from his stomach; in addition to this, his ribs were showing. He was in desperate need of veterinary care, but apparently none was being provided - if he was being monitored by anyone at all.

What can you do:
If you want to stop this cruelty don't eat pigs! Cutting out the horror behind ham can be easier than you think. There are plenty of fake sandwich meats and soy hot dogs.

Go vegan! Animals raised for food live desolate lives of pain and misery.

Source: VivaUsa.org

Slaughterhouses

If they survive the farms and transport, the animals—whether factory-farmed or free-range—are slaughtered. Animals in slaughterhouses can smell, hear, and often see the slaughter of those before them. As the animals struggle, the human workers, who are pressured to keep the lines moving quickly, often react with impatience towards the animals.

Federal law requires that mammals be stunned prior to slaughter (exempting kosher and halal). Common methods of stunning:

Captive bolt stunning :  A “pistol” is set against the animal’s head and a metal rod is thrust into the brain.Shooting a struggling animal is difficult, and the rod often misses its mark.

Electrical stunning :  Current produces a grand mal seizure; then the throat is cut. According to industry consultant Temple Grandin, PhD, “Insufficient amperage can cause an animal to be paralyzed without losing sensibility.”

For ritual slaughter, animals are fully conscious when their carotid arteries are cut. This is supposed to cause unconsciousness within seconds, but because of blood flow through the vertebral arteries in the back of the neck, some animals can remain conscious as they bleed for up to a minute. Additionally, Temple Grandin, PhD notes “Unfortunately, there are some plants which use cruel methods of restraint such as hanging live animals upside down.” This can cause broken bones as the heavy animal hangs by a chain attached to one leg.

An article in The Washington Post noted: “Hogs, unlike cattle, are dunked in tanks of hot water after they are stunned to soften the hides for skinning. As a result, a botched slaughter condemns some hogs to being scalded and drowned. Secret videotape from an Iowa pork plant shows hogs squealing and kicking as they are being lowered into the water.”

These turkeys are shackled by their feet, entering the area where they will be slaughtered (courtesy of Farm Sanctuary).

“You have just dined,
and however scrupulously
the slaughterhouse is concealed in the graceful distance of miles,
there is complicity.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson “Fate,” The Conduct
of Life, 1860

Pig being skinned

To induce paralysis in birds for ease of handling, electric stunning is normally used. However, it is not known whether stunning renders the birds unconscious; the shock may be an “intensely painful experience.” Each year, large numbers of chickens, turkeys, ducks, and geese reach the scalding tanks alive and are either boiled to death or drowned.

In February of 2007, a Mercy For Animals (MFA) undercover investigator took a job at one of the largest poultry slaughter plants in the country. There he found workers:

    -  Punching live animals for fun.
    - Ripping eggs out of the hens’ cloacae to throw at other workers.
    - Ripping the heads off of turkeys who had gotten their feet stuck in the transport truck cages.
    - Throwing turkeys.
    - Letting birds lie on the ground flapping in misery for hours at a time.

MFA’s investigation comes on the heels of a February 2005 People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals undercover investigation at a large Tyson plant in Alabama, where the investigator found:

• Workers ripping the heads off birds who had missed the throat-cutting machines.

• Birds frequently mutilated by throat-cutting machines that didn’t work properly; one bird had her skin torn entirely off her chest.

From October 2003 to May 2004, an undercover investigator working for PETA, took footage at a Pilgrim’s Pride chicken slaughterhouse in Moorefield, West Virginia. Workers were filmed violently and repeatedly throwing live chickens into a wall, picking chickens up by their legs and swinging their heads into the floor, and kicking and jump up and down on live chickens. This was documented in the New York Times (“KFC Supplier Accused of Animal Cruelty,” July 20, 2004), and the video can be seen on PETA’s dedicated website.

The USDA oversees the treatment of animals in meat plants through meat inspectors. Arthur Hughes, Vice Chairman of the National Council of Food Inspection Locals, a union of 6,000 federal meat inspectors, states: “Drastic increases in production speeds, lack of support from supervisors in plants, new inspection policies which significantly reduce our enforcement authority, and little or no access to the areas of the plants where animals are killed, have significantly hampered our ability to ensure compliance with humane regulations.”

Even when problems are reported by inspectors, the government often ignores them. For example, no action was taken against a Texas beef company despite 22 citations in 1998 for violations that included chopping the hooves off live cattle.

On May 24, 2000, King5.com new service in Seattle, WA, broke a story about undercover footage taken at a nearby IBP slaughterhouse. According to their report, “The video shows fallen cows being trampled and dragged, others are tortured with electric prods. One cow has fallen and workers stick an electric prod on its head, then place the prod down its mouth. Still other cows are hung on chains, fully conscious, blinking and kicking. The worker who shot the tape said one cow was already at a station where legs are removed. ‘It would be horrible if someone were to cut off your leg without anesthesia.’”

Workers hoisting cow

According to Steve Cockerham, a USDA inspector at Nebraska slaughterhouses, and former USDA veterinarian Lester Friedlander, some U.S. slaughterhouses routinely skin live cattle, immerse squealing pigs in scalding water, and abuse still-conscious animals in other ways to keep production lines moving quickly.

The men stated that the federal law requiring slaughterhouses to kill animals humanely has been increasingly ignored as meat plants grow bigger. Cockerham said that he often saw plant workers cut the feet, ears, and udders off cattle that were conscious on the production line after stun guns failed to work properly. “They were still blinking and moving. It’s a sickening thing to see,” he said.

In 2007 and 2008, a set of investigations (with video) came to light regarding a large, widely-praised slaughterhouse in California. The Des Moines Register pointed out: “The undercover videos were bad enough: packing-plant workers abusing sick or disabled cattle and dragging at least one of the cows to be slaughtered, a violation of federal food-safety standards. But consumer advocates say what’s also disturbing is what happened within days of that video being shot at a California slaughterhouse. Independent inspectors from two auditing firms visited the Westland/Hallmark Meat Co. plant and gave it glowing marks.”

Investigator Gail Eisnitz writes about widespread violations of the Humane Slaughter Act in her 1997 book Slaughterhouse. One of many such stories: “It was a plant where squealing hogs were left straddling the restrainer and dangling live by one leg when workers left the stick pit for their half-hour lunch breaks; where stunners were shocking hogs three and four times…where thousands of squealing hogs were immersed in the plant’s scalding tank alive.”

“Animals are God’s creatures, not human property, nor utilities, nor resources, nor commodities, but precious beings in God’s sight.”

Rev. Andrew Linzey
Oxford University
Animal Theology, 1995

 

“It takes 25 minutes to turn a live steer into steak at the modern slaughterhouse where Ramon Moreno works. For 20 years, his post was ‘second-legger,’ a job that entails cutting hocks off carcasses as they whirl past at a rate of 309 an hour. The cattle were supposed to be dead before they got to Moreno. But too often they weren’t.

“‘They blink. They make noises,’ he said softly. ‘The head moves, the eyes are wide and looking around.’

“Still Moreno would cut. On bad days, he says, dozens of animals reached his station clearly alive and conscious. Some would survive as far as the tail cutter, the belly ripper, the hide puller.

“‘They die,’ said Moreno, ‘piece by piece.’

“Under a 23-year-old federal law [which exempts the slaughter of birds], slaughtered cattle and hogs first must be ‘stunned’—rendered insensible to pain—with a blow to the head or an electric shock. But at overtaxed plants, the law is sometimes broken, with cruel consequences for animals as well as workers. Enforcement records, interviews, videos and worker affidavits describe repeated violations of the Humane Slaughter Act at dozens of slaughterhouses, ranging from the smallest, custom butcheries to modern, automated establishments such as the sprawling IBP Inc. plant here where Moreno works.

“‘In plants all over the United States, this happens on a daily basis,’ said Lester Friedlander, a veterinarian and formerly chief government inspector at a Pennsylvania hamburger plant.

“‘I’ve seen it happen. And I’ve talked to other veterinarians. They feel it’s out of control.’”

Source: Veganoutreach.org

There are kinder ways to farm

I rischi nel mangiare carne

Dottor George Clements – “Scienza & Salute”, giugno 1989

“Io non mangerò mai più carne finché il mondo esiste”. I Cor. 8:13.
"L'estrema avversione che alcuni adulti e molti bambini mostrano nei confronti della carne di ogni tipo, è attribuita da Fitch ad una tendenza atavica, cioè alla sopravvivenza dell'istinto primitivo dei nostri antenati preistorici che non mangiavano carne” - (J. H. Kellog, M.D., editore Buona Saluto).
"E' stata notata l'enorme quantità di morti in America dovuta al morbo di Bright. Non ho più dubbi che la dieta ricca di carne rovini i reni, specialmente considerando gli esperimenti dei dr. Newburgh, i quali provano che possiamo, con certezza matematica, produrre il morbo di Bright anche nei topi, mettendoli a dieta con molta carne” - (M. Hindhede, M.D., Commissario della Sanità in Danimarca),

La carne è stata a lungo sospettata di essere un cibo povero. Un'ampia esperienza sta provando che il sospetto è fondato. L'avvertimento di solito era: mangia meno carne. Ora è: non mangiare la carne.
Gli uomini un tempo credevano che la carne fosse necessaria per produrre sangue. Ora è noto che la frutta fresca, le bacche e le verdure forniscono il corpo di materiale migliore di quello che danno le migliori bistecche.

Il brodo di manzo è stato a lungo considerato un valido tonico e stimolante, quasi indispensabile per i malati deboli. Ora è noto che è vero il contrario. Secondo un eminente medico francese, il brodo di manzo è una «vera soluzione di veleni». Il dottor Austin Flint, dei Bellevue Hospital College, uno dei più importanti medici d'America, fece un'analisi chimica dei brodo di manzo, e scoprì che il risultato era praticamente lo stesso di un'analisi dell'urina.
E' inevitabile che sia così, perchè il brodo di manzo, il brodo di carne, il brodo di pollo, il bollito e gli estratti di carne di tutti i tipi sono dei veri e propri tessuti disintegrati, preparati artificialmente, proprio come l'urina, che è composta da tessuti disintegrati, prodotti dal metabolismo dei corpo. Il brodo di manzo, perciò, è un veleno che intossica. Non ha proprietà nutritive; il suo uso non è mai indicato; né ha la capacità di aiutare i malati deboli o i convalescenti.

Bouchard scoprì che aggiungendo la carne nel regime dietetico, la tossicità dell'urina aumentava del 50%, e se la dieta consisteva interamente di carne, la tossicità aumentava dei 400%. Sterling scoprì che mangiare carne aumentava il contenuto di acido urico dell’urina da tre a dieci volte. Alla luce di questo, è da ricordare che l'acido urico, in combinazione con altre tossine, è considerato da molti ricercatori il più attivo di tutte le sostanze che producono le malattie.

Un tempo si supponeva che la carne fosse particolarmente salutare nella cura della tisi. Qualche anno fa un tedesco entusiasta fondò un'istituzione col proposito di nutrire i tisici esclusivamente con la carne, usando principalmente carne cruda. L'iniziativa fallì in sei mesi.
La carne si decompone nel tratto digestivo; il veleno risultante viene assorbito e il sangue contaminato, con risultati disastrosi. Questa è la principale causa che predispone al cancro, alla tisi e ad altri tipi di anormalità.

Gli esami post mortem, fatti in centinaia di casi al Phipps Institute di Philadelphia, hanno dimostrato che l'86% di tutti i malati di tisi avevano anche i reni malati, e in uno stadio abbastanza avanzato. L'indebolimento dei reni è, infatti, fra la cause più comuni di morte nella tubercolosi polmonare. Ed è sempre la carne ad essere in genere responsabile dei morbo di Bright e di altre disfunzioni renali.
"Nella dieta di frutta, noci e verdure, i malati di cancro hanno nelle loro mani i mezzi per liberarsi largamente, se non interamente, dalla paura che accompagna questa terribile malattia. lo l'ho verificato molte volte nella mia esperienza, e nella cura di questa malattia mi si è aperta una porta ancora più ampia da quando ho conosciuto il valore di una dieta simile". (George Biack, M.D.).
“Il cibo animale, l'abuso del quale si fa ogni giorno più grande, non è un cibo in nessun senso, ma un veleno continuo". (Prof. Dr. Huchard).
“Se non fosse per la carne, noi dottori avremmo poco da fare. - (Dr. Allison, esperto in alimentazione).

Per più di un centinaio di anni, i medici ostinatamente sostennero che una dieta composta principalmente di carne, era essenziale per la cura vittoriosa dei diabete. Di questa assurda teoria Trall osserva: “Io non posso qui fare a meno di alludere ad un perfezionato regime dietetico che è stato recentemente proposto dall'Accademia francese di Medicina, e discusso nel giornali di medicina di questo paese, per la cura della malattia chiamata diabete. Questo miglioramento consiste nel nutrire il paziente con la carne di animali carnivori - gatti, cani, volpi, ecc.. E allo stesso scopo di vincere il pregiudizio che la mente o il palato dei paziente potrebbero avere contro l'alimentazione al sangue, si propone poi di condirla abbondantemente con brandy e spezie. Tali scoperte nella scienza medica hanno il potere di portarci indietro nel Medio Evo, piuttosto che condurci a dei risultati utili nel futuro". - (Il corretto cibo dell'uomo).

Ancora abbastanza recentemente era usuale per i medici nutrire i diabetici quasi esclusivamente con la carne. Questa è una ragione per cui questi malati non guariscono mai. I dottori "senza farmaci" hanno provato che, una dieta di carne peggiora la malattia, aumenta la presenza di zucchero nell'urina e, comunque, peggiora lo stato del paziente.

Una dieta di carne magra è stata a lungo considerata benefica nel casi di obesità. Ora è noto che in simili casi di anormalità c'è una tendenza a sviluppare il diabete, e questo aumenta mangiando la carne. Commentando i pericoli nel mangiare la carne magra, Hindhede disse: “Noi abbiamo provato anche a vivere di sola carne. Ma dopo esserci nutriti di carne magra, cotta o arrostita, tre volte al giorno, In soli tre giorni stavamo così male che nessuno di noi volle continuare. Quale fu la causa? Dunque, quando gli intestini sono pieni di carne magra, il risultato è la putrefazione, che si manifesta in diarrea e feci maleodoranti. Attraverso questo processo sono probabilmente prodotte delle tossine, che una volta assorbite, causano un avvelenamento. Una dieta di sola carne magra è velenose per l'uomo, non ci sono dubbi su questo".
Hindhede ha condannato anche le uova e il latte con queste parole: “ClO' CHE E' STATO DETTO SULLA CARNE E'VALIDO PER LE UOVA E IN PARTE PER IL LATTE”.

Il beri-beri, lo scorbuto, il rachitismo e la pellagra sono malattie da deficienza, e spesso risultano dal mangiare troppa carne. Tutti i tipi di carne mancano di molti elementi che il corpo deve avere per costruire dei tessuti sani. La carne è molto carente di vitamine e di sali di calce. D'altra parte, la frutta fresca le bacche e le verdure sono ricche sia di vitamine che di sali, e mangiandole si assumono tutte le vitamine e i sali di cui il corpo ha bisogno.
Qualche anno fa uno specialista dello stomaco fece trasalire il mondo della medicina affermando che "l'ulcera dello stomaco è una malattia di chi mangia la carne”. Il cancro dello stomaco e degli intestini ha origine dalla stessa causa - quando non è prodotto dalla vaccinazione o dalla inoculazione.
“Il 75% delle malattie più terribili di cui soffriamo, sono in pratica avvelenamenti causati da cibi non naturali. La natura dice, in un modo che non può essere frainteso, che l'uomo è un animale frugivoro e non carnivoro". - (Alexander Haig M.A.,F.R.C.P.).

Quei mangiatori di carne, che sono troppo deboli per abbandonarne l'abitudine, e quelli i cui dividendi dipendono dall'industria che inscatola la carne, sono sempre pronti a fare una grande pubblicità ad ogni informazione che sembra aiutare la loro causa.
Molte persone credono che per avere forza e vigore è necessario mangiare carne rossa. Sembrano dimenticare che i buoi e gli elefanti prendono la loro grande forza e il sangue dall'erba e dalle foglie, ricche di vitamine, di calcio, di ferro e di altri sali minerali. I deboli, i magri e gli anemici, invece di nutrirsi di fegato di vitello e di olio di fegato di merluzzo, dovrebbero trovare i cibi vitali nel regno vegetale, per la mancanza dei quali il loro sangue sta morendo di fame e il loro corpo si sta ammalando.

Le informazioni relative al rischi nel mangiare la carne, dovrebbero essere sufficienti a ridurre di molto il consumo della carne. Ma se i rischi si limitassero solo a quanto scritto sopra, l'argomento sarebbe di così poca importanza da ricevere poca attenzione da parte nostra.
E' stato recentemente dimostrato da Moore, nei laboratori di Fisiologia di Harvard, che una dieta di carne causa un'accelerazione dei battito cardiaco sorprendente per velocità e durata.
Dopo un pasto di carne, l'aumento dei battiti cardiaci va regolarmente dal 25 al 50% sopra il livello rispetto al digiuno, e persiste, in soggetti sperimentali, da 15 a 20 ore, raggiungendo un totale di molte migliaia di battiti in più.
Moore mostrò che un pasto di proteine causa un sovraccarico di lavoro per il cuore, che è paragonabile, in estensione, all'attività totale del cuore di due o tre ore; ciò ha portato Moore ad affermare che una dieta con molte proteine è incompatibile coi riposo cardiaco.

La carne, scendendo nello stomaco e nelle budella dell'uomo, è come se giacesse sotto il sole estivo al margine della strada, e ciò di certo causa danni maggiori di quanto sia mai stato detto o scoperto.
Uno dei prodotti della carne decomposta è l'urina, e non ha importanza se la carne si è decomposta nello stomaco, nella pentola o dal macellaio. I prodotti secondari della carne decomposta passano nel sangue dei consumatori di carne, e devono essere filtrati ed eliminati dai reni come uno scarto velenoso, che serve solo ad indebolire il corpo e a logorare i reni, portando al morbo di Bright e ad altre malattie renali.

La carne, scendendo nel tratto digestivo che è di una bellezza teatrale, dipinto con tutti i colori di una bambola di cera, forma uno dei veleni più mortali che i chimici abbiano mai conosciuto, e dà al respiro un odore nauseante che si tenta di correggere masticando caramelle e gomme profumato. Il dentista dica che il cattivo odore proviene dal denti malati, mostrando quanto abbia ancora da imparare.
Quando il sangue diventa così contaminato da questi veleni, la pelle viene in suo soccorso e, in un processo di emergenza, crea un'eruzione; i dottori possono definirla morbillo, varicella, eczema, e così via, e cercano di "curare la malattia” con altri veleni sottotorma di farmaci e sieri.
Non c'è da stupirsi se il grande Metchnikoff, dopo una vita di studi sull'argomento, abbia dichiarato che la putrefazione alimentare sia responsabile della morte prematura, che è causa di tutte le malattie, perchè questi pericolosi veleni passano dal canale alimentare nella linfa e nel sangue, e da questi sono condotti in tutto le parti dei corpo - il fegato, i polmoni, i reni, il cuore e il cervello.

L'origine di tutte le malattie giace nella putrefazione alimentare, disse Metchnikoff. Qual è il rimedio sicuro? La rimozione della causa, non l'uso di farmaci, sieri e bisturi.
Molti studi sperimentali hanno indicato che mangiare carne causa la nefrite cronica. Il professor Newburg, dell'università dei Michigan, ha dichiarato che una piccola porzione di proteine della carne, come il 20%, porta ad un logoramento dei reni.
Le esigenze dell'ultima guerra sono servito a dimostrare il valore di una dieta poco proteica. Maiali e bestiame furono uccisi in Europa con lo scopo di conservare le provviste di cibo, e le popolazioni si nutrirono per un certo periodo soprattutto di frutta e verdura. Il risultato fu una riduzione di un terzo della mortalità, oltre a una grande riduzione delle malattie. Alcune malattie come il diabete, l'obesità, la gotta, i disturbi digestivi, i problemi dei fegato e dei reni e altre malattie dei l'alimentazione sparirono quasi completamente.
La gente rovina la propria salute mangiando carne, poi paga i dottori per farsi curare i sintomi che provengono da questo abuso. Molti medici ignorano la causa che si nasconde dietro i sintomi di alcune malattie, perché anche loro mangiano liberamente la carne come molti dei loro pazienti, e soffrono e muoiono prematuramente per la stessa "malattia”.

Fonte: Disinformazione.it

This is What the Meat Industry Doesn’t Want You to See

Source: Peta

Mercy For Animals pro-vegetarian TV commercial.

If You Had a Choice

Compassion Over Killing MTV ad.

The Pig Picture

The Pig Picture highlights never-before-seen-HFA investigative footage. This powerful 18-minute video traces the development of commercial pig rearing in America - from the small-scale family farms of yesterday - to the corporate owned pig factories of today.

Part1

Part2

Source: Humane Farming Association

British Meat Ingrediants List

"...rat feces; cow urine; cow pus; tranquilizers; ground up cow heads ('puke heads' contaminated with hair, dirt, and ingest); chicken and cow manure (a 'beef  fattener' with e-coli contamination) ; 'rendered' cows and sheep (recycled animal parts, diseased 'downers' and road kill added to animal feed); euthanized animals from human societies, etc.; growth steroid hormones (fatteners); radioactive isotopes; antibiotics (disease controllers); pesticides; herbicides; insecticides; larvicides; lethal euthanasia drugs such as sodium penabarbitol; a host of diseases from the cow, including pneumonia, bovine aids and perhaps mad cow chemicals like phosphorous to mask putrefaction; various carcinogenic chemicals, including dioxin (one of most deadly known chemicals, also present in Agent Orange)..."

This pig was not properly stunned before her throat was cut. She struggled so violently that she slipped her shackles and fell into the blood pit below. The slaughterman laughed as he shackled her back up. She was disembowelled, cut into pieces and packaged for the supermarket shelf.

A recent Viva investigation revealed that tens of millions of animals killed each year in British abattoirs regain consciousness before they die. Our fellow creatures experience the terror of hanging upside down in shackles and staring into the blood pit below as their life-blood drains away.

PAIN FOR PROFIT

For a moment, imagine what it feels like to hung up and unable to move because one's body has been paralysed by a severe electric shock. Imagine next what it feels like to be butchered by having one's throat cut - while one is still fully conscious.

Pigs are gentle, sensitive, intelligent and highly social creatures. They are functionally equivalent - both in their intelligence and capacity to suffer - to human infants and toddlers. The British meat industry kills about 15 million pigs each year. The full horror of their gruesome deaths defies easy description.

Slaughter first involves 'stunning'. This is followed by throat-slitting. Throat-slitting is also called 'sticking'. The terrified animals are usually stunned electrically by placing tongs on either side of the neck behind their ears.

In many cases, the 'stunning' is inadequate. This is because the tongs are not held in place for long enough. In numerous other cases, the tongs are 'incorrectly' placed. Typically, the voltages used are insufficient. In consequence, many pigs regain consciousness during bleeding-out, or even before throat-slitting. Thus our victims die agonised and terrified deaths.

British Meat and BSE
 

One of the less charming traditions of the UK meat industry has been to force herbivores to cannibalise the remains of their butchered companions. The consequences have been gruesome for animals and people alike. By promoting enforced cannibalism, UK agribusiness and the meat trade have unleashed the human analogue of bovine spongiform encephalopathy on the population at large.  Prion-based diseases have long incubation periods. These may extend two decades or more. The likely toll of future human victims of Creutzfeldt-Jacob Disease (CJD), the human variant of BSE, is unknown.

Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (BSE) has been dubbed "Mad Cow Disease". This is because of the signs of extreme distress and disordered gait which its victims display before death. BSE is a neuro-degenerative disease of cattle. BSE is invariably fatal. Its immediate cause lies in mysterious infectious proteins called prions.  Prions behave as infectious agents. Yet they are 100 times smaller than viruses. Their mechanism of replication is still unclear. All the prion diseases - new-variant-CJD is only the most notorious - are associated with the accumulation in the brain of an abnormal and protease-resistant isoform of the prion protein, PrP.  The British outbreak of BSE struck down around 160,000 cows in 1980s and 1990s. Long before conclusive proof became available, strong circumstantial evidence pointed to the macabre cost-saving practice of mixing the remains of sheep - including brains and bones - into cows' feed as the cause of the deadly syndrome.  In collusion with the British meat industry, however, the Meat and Livestock Commission ('MLC') and the Government continued to deny the possibility of species-to-species inoculation posing a threat to humans. Official denials and smear-tactics against opponents persisted long after the potential danger of eating the remains of infected animals became known to researchers.

Source: britishmeat.com

Undercover Investigation Reveals Hormel Supplier's Abuse of Mother Pigs and Piglets

PETA.org - September 16, 2008

For more than three months, PETA went undercover at an Iowa pig factory farm, which supplies piglets who are raised and killed for Hormel products. PETA found rampant cruelty to animals committed by workers and supervisors. The farm changed ownership and management during PETA's investigation, but that made no difference to the animals who were born and confined there: Abuse and neglect were widespread during PETA's entire investigation.

The following are just some of the abuses that were documented:

* A supervisor shoved a cane into a sow's vagina, struck her on the back about 17 times, and then struck another sow.
* Multiple pigs were beaten with metal gate rods, and lacerations were found on more than 30 sows, which is probably evidence of more abuse.
* A worker hit a young pig in the face four times with the edge of a herding board, and investigators witnessed dozens of similar incidents involving this worker and 11 other workers.
* Two men, including a supervisor, were witnessed jabbing clothespins into pigs' eyes and faces. A supervisor also poked two animals in the eyes with his fingers.
* A supervisor kicked a young pig in the face, abdomen, and genitals to make her move and told PETA's investigator, "You gotta beat on the bitch. Make her cry."

The findings on this Iowa pig farm, however, were not limited to cruelty to animals. PETA also documented an apparent violation of the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act. Animals who were to be killed for human consumption were sprayed with a substance that contains gentian violet (a chemical that is linked to certain cancers) thereby making their flesh "adulterated" under federal law.

By purchasing pigs bred and born on this farm and then grown elsewhere before being slaughtered for Hormel products, Hormel is financially supporting an operation whose employees abuse animals.

Please contact Hormel using the link below and demand that the company follow PETA's nine-point policy to govern future pig-farming operations.

http://getactive.peta.org/campaign/iowa_pigfarm_abuse2



Update: October 22, 2008

An Iowa Sherriff has announced that 22 charges of livestock neglect and abuse have been filed against six current and former employees of the Hormel supplier that PETA recently investigated.

22 Charges Filed Based on PETA Investigation at Hormel Supplier

PETA investigation into an Iowa pig farm that breeds piglets destined for Hormel has resulted in 22—that's right, count them—22 criminal charges.

The Greene County Sheriff just announced in a news release that six individuals employed by the farm at the time of PETA's investigation now face a total of 22 counts of livestock neglect and abuse. Those charged include a former farm manager—who PETA understand still works on another pig factory farm—and a supervisor, as well as two individuals who still punch the clock at the Iowa factory farm as we speak.

A whopping 14 of the counts are aggravated misdemeanors—the stiffest possible charges under Iowa state law for crimes committed against farmed animals—carrying up to two years behind bars. To PETA's knowledge, this is unprecedented.

Charges based on PETA's undercover investigations are now pending against pig factory farmers in both Iowa—the nation's top pig-raising state—and North Carolina, which occupies the second rung on that dubious list!

This is a small victory for farmed animals, but we mustn't forget that Hormel, which financially supports this farm, has by all appearances yet to make any changes as a result of this investigation. It has refused to meet with PETA or even watch all of the footage, which PETA has repeatedly offered to show the company. Maybe now that the law has spoken up, Hormel will finally listen.


Sow #13319 sustained multiple cuts to her back, likely the result of being beaten and scraped with a gate rod while being moved from the gestation building to the farrowing building

A piglet born without eyes, shortly before his or her death


An employee sprayed paint—for over 30 seconds—into the nostrils of a nursing sow.


Piglets' tails were cut—and males castrated—without painkillers. This is a pile of pig tails and testicles on the floor.


A sow with an open sore on her nose from an apparent beating with a metal gate rod.


A mother pig and her piglets severely confined to a small farrowing crate during nursing.