CHICKEN'S DEATH RIDE

Chickens are slammed into small cages and trucked to the slaughterhouse through all weather extremes. Hundreds of millions suffer from broken wings and legs from rough handling, and millions die from the stress of the journey. At the slaughterhouse, their legs are snapped into shackles, their throats are cut, and they are immersed in scalding hot water to remove their feathers. Because they have no federal legal protection (birds are exempt from the Humane Methods of Slaughter Act) most are still conscious when their throats are cut open, and many are literally scalded in the feather-removal tanks after missing the throat cutter.

CHICKENS LOVE THEIR CHICKS ALIVE

Birds exploited for their eggs, called "laying hens" by the industry, are crammed together in wire cages where they don't have enough room to even spread their wings. The cages are stacked on top of each other, and the excrement from chickens in the higher cages constantly fall on those below. The birds have part of their sensitive beaks cut off so that they won't peck each other as the result of the frustration created by the unnatural confinenment. After their bodies are exhausted and their production drops, they are shipped to slaughter, generally to be turned into chicken soup or cat and dog food because their flesh is too bruised and battered to be used for much else.
Free range chickens produce better eggs and the chickens will thank you.
NOTE: Because the male chicks of egg-laying breeder hens are unable to lay eggs and are not bred to produce excessive flesh for the meat industry, they are killed. Every year, more than 100 million of these young birds are ground up alive or tossed into bags to suffocate.

CHICKENS PREFER LIVING

Broiler chickens are raised for their flesh and spend their entire lives in filthy sheds with thousands of other birds, where intense crowding and confinement lead to outbreaks of disease. They are bred and drugged to grow large so quickly that their legs and organs can't keep up, making heart attacks, organ failure, and crippling leg deformaties common. When they are only 6 or 7 weeks old, they are crammed into cages and trucked to slaughter.

WANNA GET VERY FAT?

It's a fact that ham, sausage and bacon strips will go right to your hips and tummies and say hello to your arteries. 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. Every time you eat animal products, you are also ingesting bacteria, antibiotics, dioxins, hormones, and a host of other toxins that can accumulate in your body and stay there for years and years.
Meat eaters are 9 times more likely to be obese than pure vegetarians or vegans, most of the time.

BACTERIA-LADEN BACON AND HAM

Extremely crowded conditions, poor ventilation, and filth in factory farms cause such rampant disease in pigs that 70% of them have pneumonia by the time they are sent to the slaughterhouse. In order to keep pigs alive in conditions that would ordinarily 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 overdose of antibiotics has led to the development of "Superbacteria," on antibiotic-resistant bacterial strains. The ham, bacon, and sausage that you are eating may make the drugs that your doctor prescibes the next time you get sick completely ineffective.
Bon appetite!

THE MANURE IS BLOWING IN THE WIND

A pig farm with 5000 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.
Take a deep breath meat-eaters.

Killing them WITHOUT kindness

A typical slaughterhouse kills up to 1100 pigs every hour, which makes it impossible for them to be given humane, painless deaths. The U.S. department of agriculture documated 14 humane slaughter violations at one procesing plant, where inspectors found hogs who "were walking and squealing after being stunned with a stun gun as many as 4 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.
Pork ribs anyone?

PIGS HAVE FEELINGS TOO

Most pigs in the u.s. today are raised in factory farms, where they will never run across sprawling pastures, bask in the sun, breathe fresh air or do anything that is natural to them. Crowded into warehouses with nothing to do and nowhere to go, they are kept at 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 one bulk.
Sausages anyone?

FARMING FAMILY VALUES

Factory farms are pure hell for pigs and their babies. Mother pigs spend most of their lives in tiny gestatiion crates, which are so small that the animals are unable to turn around or even lie 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 clipped off with pliers, and the males are castrated -- all without pain killlers. Bacon anyone?

PIGS PREFER MUD NOT CRUD

Pigs are exrtremely clever animals who form complex social networks and have excellent memories.
They are actually very clean animals. If they are given sufficient space, pigs are careful not to soil the areas where they sleep or eat. These animals can't sweat, that's why they bathe in water or mud to cool
off. But in factory farms, they are forced to live in their own feces and vomit and even 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.

TALKING COLD TURKEY

Ben franklin called turkeys "true American originals." He had
tremendous respect for their resourcefulness, agility and beauty.
Turkeys are intelligent animals who enjoy having their feathers
stroked. They will often sing quite loudly along with music.
Try it, next time you come across a turkey in your area. We
have a family of wild turkeys who have come to call our Oakland
hills, home. They own the roads and driveways and are very
content to settle down, and enjoy our company. No one will
abuse or interfere with them. They come and go and we miss
them when they are away.
In nature they can fly some 55 miles an hour, run 25 miles an
hour and live up to four years and beyond, if left to their own
resources.

However the story's very different for turkeys on factory farms.
They will be killed when they are only 4 or 5 months old, and
during their short lives, they will be denied even the simplest
pleasures, like running, building nests, and raising their young.

Thousands are crammed into filthy sheds and their beaks and
toes are burned off eith a hot blade. Many suffer debilitating
leg pain, often becoming crippled uder the weight of their
genetically manipulated and drugged bodies. When the time
comes for slaughter, they are thrown into transport trucks, and
when they arrive at the slaughterhouse, their throats are cut and
their feathers burned off, often while they are still conscious.

Turkeys and birds, like all animals are sensitive, intelligent, can
communicate, feel pain, love their young, and feal fear. They are
alive and want to remain alive. Xmas has come and gone and so
have 300 million of these as well, in the U.S OF A, land of the brave
and the free.

ALL ABOUT COWS

THERE ARE NO DUMB ANIMALS, JUST DUMN PEOPLE WHO MISTREAT THEM.
Let's talk about cows. They are social animals and prefer to spend their time together,
forming complex relationships, very much like dogs forming packs. All animals have
strong maternal bonds with their children, and cows on dairy farms and cattle ranches
are no exception. If you happen to get close to these bovine creatures, you may hear
them crying out for their calves for days on end after they are separated, taken away,
never to return.

In the US, more than 41 million of these sensitive animals suffer and die for the meat
and dairy industries every year. When still young, cows are branded with hot irons,
their testicles are ripped out of their scrotums (castration), horns are cut or burned
off -- no pain killers are used. When big enough, they are sent to massive, muddy
feedlots to be fattened for slaughter on factory dairy farms. There, they will be
repeatedly impregnated, separated from their calves until their bodies give out and
they are sent to die. Factory dairy farms are far removed from the rural setting, where
you will find Tom, Dick and Sarah rising at 5 a.m. to milk gentle bossy.

Cattle raised for beef may be born in one state, fattened in another and slaughtered
in yet another. They are then transported hundreds of miles in all weather extremes
to the slaughterhouse. On the way there, they are packed in like sardines and many die
before reaching their destination.

The survivors are shot in the head with a bolt gun, hung up by their legs, taken on to
the killinng floor, where their throats are cut and they are skinned. Some cows remain
fully conscious throughout the entire process -- according to a slaughterhouse worker,
in an interview with the Washington Post, "They die piece by piece." I saw and heard
the video and the memory will haunt me for the rest of my life.

Sorry, I am not through yet. Calves for veal are kept in stalls so small that they can't
turn around. Can you even begin to imagine such cruelty. Anyone for "Osso Buco"
or "Braised veal short ribs?" For those of you who revel in Steak, the "I'll have mine rare."
crowd is saying as their teeth sink in to the remains of a dead animal's flesh.

Just a couple of more things. Want to live better, longer? There are thousands of
hearty, healthy, delicious recipes on the internet. Just google in, Vegetarian or
Vegan recipes. Bon appetite! Your comments, good or bad are welcome.