A Corporate Calculation
Published May 24, 2009 @ 04:04PM PT
What is the price of bad PR over cruel treatment of laying hens to a fast food joint? What is the value of protesters outside restaurants or negative newspaper articles? And how does that compare to the cost of switching from eggs laid in battery cages to cage-free eggs? That is the calculation that nearly every fast food chain in the country is considering.
HSUS - the Humane Society of the United States - calls battery caged hens "the most abused animals in all agribusiness" and has managed to have battery cages banned in some states, most famously in California. They are currently working to have a law passed banning them in New York and Ohio, and threatening to take the question to the public in a ballot initiative in Ohio (the #2 state in the US for egg production next to Iowa) if a law does not pass.
Agribusiness, in the meantime, is going NUTS over this. Abso-freakin-lutely bonkers. If you want to read something REALLY FUNNY, check this out, where a Big Ag radio show asks a Baptist preacher what the Bible says about animal rights. They apparently found the one guy in the church who firmly believes in evolution, and he says: "If you believe in evolution, then we won... If dolphins don't like it they can grow opposing thumbs and farm us maybe a million years from now."
I'm personally a fan of ballot measures not only because they get good laws passed (like CA's prop 2 which bans veal crates, farrowing crates for sows, and battery cages for hens), but they also get these issues played up prominently in the media. While the message isn't a blatant call for consumers to go vegetarian or buy from their local farmers' markets, when they see how their food is produced they begin to ask how they can find food from animals treated more humanely. (One of my friends decided to go veg after seeing Sarah Palin's photo op in front of turkeys being killed for Thanksgiving, in fact.)
But back to the fast food joints... here's where they came down on the issue. Burger King, Hardee's, Carl's Jr, Quizno's, and Denny's will each buy roughly 5% of their eggs from cage free hens. That's pretty pathetic. If you believe that hens in battery cages are treated cruelly and should not be kept in cages, then you believe ALL the hens should not be treated cruelly - not just 5% of them. This is clearly just to get HSUS off their backs and to perhaps get some good headlines in the process. But it goes down hill from there. Wendy's is only buying 2% of its eggs from cage-free hens. And McDonald's? They'll "study" the issue for 2 years and then decide. I guess the value of bad PR from animal cruelty is not that great to them. They're hoping this issue gets swept under the rug and that HSUS will not dare speak out against the other 95% of what they are doing in fear of upsetting the current 5% agreements. LAME.
I dunno about you, but I think I'll send these restaurants some mail. Here are the links to do so:
- McDonalds
- Wendys
- Hardees
- Dennys
- Burger King: 305-378-3535 (call M-F, 9am-5pm EDT)
- Quiznos
- Carl's, Jr.
Photo of Egg McMuffin by admiller on Flickr.com
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Comments (38)
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Author
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Jill Richardson is a writer in southern California. She writes on the blog La Vida Locavore and her first book, Recipe for America, will be published in summer 2009.
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If a restaurant was going to get 5% of their eggs from cage-free hens, and if I believed that was a meaningful humane improvement (which I don't), how would I know if the egg I order is from one of those cage-free hens and not from one of the other 95%? Just commenting on their rationale.
Glad to know Agribusiness is going nuts. Now I'll check out the links.
Posted by Sue G. on 05/24/2009 @ 05:24PM PT
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There's no way of knowing. My hunch is that certain restaurants will get most/all of the cage-free eggs just based on where the cage-free eggs are purchased from and how they fit into the supply chain, which means that then other restaurants (most restaurants) would get 0 cage-free eggs. But in general, 1 in 20 lucky customers gets a cage-free egg.
Posted by Jill Richardson on 05/24/2009 @ 08:15PM PT
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Good post! Even better, good links to send some letters. Imagine if everyone who doesn't eat at McDonald's for moral reasons, would send them a letter telling them why. That would quadruple the impact of silently boycotting them. Vote with your voice (and your fork), no?
Vote with a mouth full of food!
Posted by Michael Paone on 05/24/2009 @ 09:35PM PT
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This is completely wrong. You're enjoying eating your snack without knowing where it comes from. I think this restaurants could still make a good food without abusing the animals. They could still use vegetable instead. I'm not vegetarian but I don't like the idea that the food I eat comes from an animal that was threaten wrongly.
I would like to request to the restaurants to create a new recipe of healthy and delicious food without harming and abusing the animals.
Posted by Marty Rodriguez on 05/25/2009 @ 02:05AM PT
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If you don't like the idea that the food you eat comes from an animal that was abused then you need to go vegan. Last I checked, murder is considered abuse.
Posted by Gypsy Wytch on 06/01/2009 @ 10:39PM PT
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There are restaurants that advertise food produced only from humanely treated animals, or not produced from animals at all. These restaurants have a small but loyal portion of the market. Meanwhile, billions of people are, in fact, "voting with full mouths" -- for the other side. It's hard enough to persuade people to lay off food that's bad for THEM, much less food that's produced in ways that harm animals.
Some years ago I encountered a PETA anti-fur protester who was wearing thigh-high leather boots. Apparently she didn't know where leather comes from. The noble cause of kindness to animals is going to require a LOT of education.
Posted by Doug Samuelson on 05/25/2009 @ 09:06AM PT
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Oh, haha.. I meant 'voting with your mouth full' to mean, voting with your fork + voting with your voice. In others words, patronizing good, humane, sustainable businesses, but also talking with your elected officials for better food policy. The assumption being, while it's good to give your money to good businesses, it's better to change the laws to give these businesses a fairer playing field. Of course, the best thing is doing both, for as you mentioned, it is the most consistent and complete.
Posted by Michael Paone on 05/25/2009 @ 09:16AM PT
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Are there PETA anti-fur activists who still wear leather? Perhaps. I wouldn't know. But the tired, snide accusations about animal advocates (incl those who distance themselves from PETA) wearing leather get really old--especially given that in virtually all cases, the people making the remarks have no reason to assume that the protestor or advocate is indeed wearing real leather. Boots and shoes that may resemble leather but that are not made from animals aren't difficult to come by.
Also, labels and advertisements promising "humane" treatment in actuality provide very little assurances regarding how the animals actually did live and die. What can be done to animals, during their lives and during their slaughter, while a "humane" label is still allowed to be slapped on their dead bodies is quite astonishing.
Posted by Stephanie Ernst on 05/25/2009 @ 12:06PM PT
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Nolo contendere to all your points, Stephanie. I'm just saying we're a long way from widespread knowledge and understanding on these issues, and you seem to share my assessment on that point.
My assessment of whether the boots were real leather came from the conversation -- if she had deliberately chosen faux leather, she could and, I think, would have said so. That other animal advocates have found it advisable to distance themselves from PETA speaks volumes.
For whatever it's worth, being called a murderer for eating chicken gets old, too. (You didn't do that, but we both know who does do that.)
What standards are part of humane slaughter, and how they are enforced, is a serious issue. Some attempts to make slaughter as allowed by US law more humane conflict with arguably even more humane requirements imposed by religious law -- Kashrut for Jews, Halal for Moslems. Then we have freedom of religion issues. Opposing all slaughter for food removes you (us, if I agreed with you) from the debate over what practices to allow while the vast majority of our fellow citizens refuse to stop eating meat.
"Politics is the art of the possible" -- I've forgotten who said it. We generally have to settle for what we can get.
Posted by Doug Samuelson on 05/25/2009 @ 06:09PM PT
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I'm quite glad that people are starting to think more about what cruelties are inflicted on the animals raised, confined, and killed so that humans can eat them and what comes from them, but I am consistently frustrated by the progressive community's acceptance of "cage-free" eggs as the ultimate, or even a substantial-in-the-meantime, solution. Whether restaurants use 5% cage-free eggs or 100% cage-free eggs, they're still contributing enormously to unspeakable cruelties--as are the people purchasing and eating the eggs and the foods containing the eggs. It's not true that such eggs come from hens who have not "be[en] treated cruelly." "Cage-free" eggs generally come from facilities where the hens are also crammed and abused and neglected, where they also never see daylight and suffer in unspeakable ways, where they also live miserable lives--from their hatching, after which the females are painfully debeaked and all the males are killed en masse in the cruelest of ways, to their horrible, anything-but-humane deaths, just like their battery-caged counterparts.
Posted by Stephanie Ernst on 05/25/2009 @ 12:00PM PT
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Yuk! I do not spend my $$$ in any of the above fast-food joints...
Posted by leatrice brantley on 05/25/2009 @ 07:44PM PT
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I'm thinking about sending them some letters, but honestly, I don't eat at any of these places, so I can't really say, "I'm going to STOP eating your food until you shape up and do things ethically," because I never eat there in the first place. I think I'll still do it, though, because as Michael pointed out above, it's better to be a loud, noisy boycotter and shout it from the rooftops than a silent one and not even be on the radar.
Posted by Michelle Bak on 05/26/2009 @ 11:01AM PT
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It wouldn't hurt to tell friends and family, too.
I wish I could remember something I heard at work on occasion -- to remind us of how important customer service is. But the impact of a complaint shared with friends about, say, a store, has a much greater effect on people likely to shop there, than the impact of positive experience/comment.
Posted by Sue G. on 05/26/2009 @ 06:55PM PT
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Update: I sent letters to McDonald's, Wendy's, and Hardee's, because those are ones that I've eaten at before.
McDonald's sent me an email saying that they care about the treatment of livestock (yeah, right!) and directed me to a section of their website addressing animal welfare. I clicked on it--the link was broken and their server gave me a 404 error with Ronald the Clown shrugging and saying that the page was not found. Oh, the irony of it all! I had a goog laugh.
Posted by Michelle Bak on 05/27/2009 @ 11:34AM PT
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*a good laugh
Posted by Michelle Bak on 05/27/2009 @ 11:45AM PT
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How many of you have ever lived on a farm? Any kind of farm: big one, medium sized or hobby farm? It sounds like zero. I do live on a farm, and no animals are abused here. I know other farmers, too, and we all treat our animals very well. Just a thought: get some first hand knowledge, and then you can talk.
Posted by Stephanie Povey on 05/31/2009 @ 01:59PM PT
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I know plenty of farms that dont mistreat their chickens. However - I'd have to get the stats on the egg industry but I recently heard about 95% of the eggs are from hens kept in battery cages. That's McDonalds, etcs, excuse for not buying more cage-free eggs, bc they lack supply. If you aren't doing that, great. I'd be thrilled to give your farm my business. As for broilers, about 98% of them are on factory farms - at least. That's according to a very recent USDA report I just read about the broiler industry.
Posted by Jill Richardson on 05/31/2009 @ 06:41PM PT
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I get so tired with these kinds of comments. Just because you live on a farm and are not torturing your animals doesn't mean it is not happening at alarming and unacceptable rates, it does not mean others cannot write about their objections to it and it does not mean that your sanctimonious comment closes the discussion. Please tell us how you are working to stop farm abuses that are well documented and prevalent across the globe instead of defending your own farm which no one here is attacking.
Posted by Kathryn Keebles on 05/31/2009 @ 02:44PM PT
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Dear K, Sorry that you are tired of these kinds of comments. It sounds to me that you have heard from others who likewise do not abuse animals.
Respectfully, just because you believe that something is happening at an 'alarming' rate, doesn't mean it is either true or false. A couple of well-known organizations use isolated cases as standard fare for their fund raising efforts, and they do an alarmingly good job of it. Furthermore, they make the case that ALL agribusiness is evil. Personally, I do not know of anyone that mistreats his animals. Does this mean that I believe that no abuses exist anywhere? No, I do not. I have been in the trenches doing animal rescue for 15 years.
Posted by Stephanie Povey on 05/31/2009 @ 04:06PM PT
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Well each farm and farmer has a different view of how to do things. Back in the days before big ag took over I grew up on a farm, and I thought Dad treated all of his animals rather well.
We are slowly getting back to the days where a small family farm can be feasible, with support from communities and forward thinking businesses. I keep hoping and praying that more people will be converted so that animal welfare is no longer an issue.
I also do not like PETA, because I don't appreciate the memory of my Father, who was a steward of the land, being attacked by someone who saw abuses once on a corpoRAT farm.
Posted by Shannon Simmons on 05/31/2009 @ 05:49PM PT
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"Please tell us how you are working to stop farm abuses"
First, by not engaging in them on my own farm. Second, by educating my customers about terms like "free-range" and "cage free" and what they really mean. Third, by sharing knowledge with others so that they can raise animals humanely themselves. Fourth, by supporting organizations like the Ohio Ecological Food & Farm Association that support humane agriculture.
Speaking out against animal abuse is a good thing. Doing it with broad, over-reaching statements that sweep the good together with the bad is irresponsible and just downright dishonest. The fact of the matter is that PETA doesn't want people to consume any animal products of any kind. They're uncompromising about this, so they're not going to give consumers a clear guide to distinguishing which animal products are created ethically from humanely-raised animals. It doesn't fit with their agenda. Instead, they select the worst horrors from the scariest industrial farms, and make broad-brush statements saying that these things are standard practice on all farms. They never make it a point to distinguish who they're talking about.
Frankly, saying "poultry farms overcrowd chickens and debeak them" is a bit like saying "white people lynch black people." Undeniably true in some instances, but a bald-faced lie in others. If you say that something is true, and state it in such a way as to suggest that it is always true in all instances, one single exception disproves the statement. If someone says that most farms mistreat animals, and you go door to door in farm country and find animals treated humanely, you know that person is lying.
As a farmer, hunter, trapper, fisherman, and former vegetarian who has carefully studied PETA's website and literature and found their allegations to be grossly out of line with my first-hand reality, I can tell you that PETA lies frequently, fervently, and deliberately. In doing so, they undermine the efforts of humane farmers by convincing the public that abuses are happening where they're not.
Posted by Wayne "Gaelan" Shingler on 10/25/2009 @ 06:32AM PT
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This is a topi near and dear to me. I eat meat andalways have - but after much research I have stopped supporting the cruelest of cruel places. KFC is a prime example.
Sure - people may say - oh they are just chickens, whats the big deal?
If it beathes, it is a living being - capable of feeling pain. Our society is a mass-production - quantity not quality. I know it is not posible to take one chicken at a time out to the chopping block but do we really need to scald living chickens that you thought were dead when you shackled them up to a conveyor belt, breaking their legs and then cutting their throats to bleed out. Oops - not dead yet, but let's scald them to remove all remnants. I stopped eating there almost 10 yrs ago and will never go back.
Posted by Kathy Bostwick on 05/31/2009 @ 02:52PM PT
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Are you looking for a pat on the back? You won't be getting one from me.
You admit you eat dead animals, so you're still contributing and financing the torture and murder of hundreds of animals. Deny it all you want, but if you eat eggs, consume dairy, and/or eat meat, you're just as bad as those KFC suppliers.
Posted by Gypsy Wytch on 06/03/2009 @ 03:17AM PT
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The trouble is that people want lots of food cheap, and big Ag is willing to give it to them, no matter the cost.
Which is why we need more food education in schools...
Something I will probably bug the crud out of my daughters school for when we get there.
Posted by Shannon Simmons on 05/31/2009 @ 05:52PM PT
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It is a little striking that everyone hereis afraid to say a positive word about PETA. PETA is the hands down leader in the area of preventing needless animal suffering because they have guts. They expose corrupt corporate farms who will do anything to maximize profits. It is great to contact all the offending companies as well as our gutless politicians. If they get enough calls/email they could support a given issue, but it needs to be a lot! Incidentally everyone who becomes a vegetarian saves about 100 animals from the slaughterhouse. Ultimately it is consumer demand that starts the process.
Posted by mark oddi on 05/31/2009 @ 11:47PM PT
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Peta kills thousands of pet dogs and cats and wildlife each year. Here are the stats and documentation:
PETA has an annual budget of more than 31 million dollars. Compare
that to the city of Los Angeles, which has a paltry $20,314,323
budget. (source http://www.lacity.org/cao/budgetsum/budgtsum.htm)
Let's see how PETA compares with LAAS. Figures for LA are 2008; PETA
numbers are from 2006. These figures are for LA dogs & cats only;
they also take in reptiles, horses, rabbits, poultry, etc. PETA
numbers are for dogs, cats and 1 chicken.
PETA took in 9,637 companion animals.
They returned 6,575 to the owners, leaving them with 3,062.
PETA transferred 46 to other agencies.
They adopted out 12.
They euthanized the rest: 3004. That's over 98% euth'd of the 3,062.
(These PETA figures do not count the animals that were illegally
euth'd by PETA employees that lead to animal cruelty charges.)
Los Angeles city took in 54,008 dogs & cats.
Minus Dead on arrival 1556 = 52,452.
Returned to owners 4,622; that leaves 47,830.
Adoptions to public & rescues = 20,994.
New Hope adoptions (old & special needs that are released to rescue)
were 5,297.
Others released to rescue were 914. Total adoptions = 27, 205
Escaped 63.
Stolen 6.
Died (not euth'd) 939.
Euthanized 19,617. That's 41% of the 47,830.
So Los Angeles city shelters (there are 5, I believe, that share these
funds) have 65% of the budget of PETA. They save 59% of their dogs
and cats (we haven't even added in the other animals that use this
budget), while PETA manages to save 2%. LA also takes in six times as
many dogs and cats as PETA does.
sources: http://www.laanimalservices.com/about_stats_dept_yearend.htm
and
http://www.virginia.gov/vdacs_ar/cgi-bin/Vdacs_search.cgi?link_select=facility&f\
orm=fac_select&fac_num=157&year=2006
I found some more recent info on PETA's stat's: This is for 2007.
In 2007, PETA took in 8362 companion animals.
6466 were returned to owners, leaving 1896.
35 were transferred to other agencies.
They adopted out 17 (that's 5 more than the previous year).
One died in the facility.
They euth'd 1815. That's a 96% euthanasia rate (a huge improvement
from their 98% euth rate for the previous year).
Now this is really interesting: their wildlife stats for 2007: Out
of 181 animals, 5 were picked up dead, and 5 were released to the
wild. 171 wild animals were euthanized. Of the living wild animals,
they killed 97%.
Am I the only one asking why?
source:
http://www.virginia.gov/vdacs_ar/cgi-bin/Vdacs_search.cgi?link_select=facility&f\
orm=fac_select&fac_num=157&year=2007
I had completely overlooked the wildlife stats for PETA in 2006. Here
they are:
Out of 264 wild animals, 15 were picked up dead.
One was relocated to the wild. 248 were euthanized. More than 99% of
the live wild animals were killed(it comes out to .99598 and change).
source:
http://www.virginia.gov/vdacs_ar/cgi-bin/Vdacs_search.cgi?link_select=facility&f\
orm=fac_select&fac_num=157&year=2006
Posted by Stephanie Povey on 06/01/2009 @ 04:09AM PT
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Stephanie,
This stuff has been spread around by a well-known front group organization that frequently lies so I doubt it's truthfulness. Let me contact someone at PETA about the info and find out if it's true or not from them. I've been meaning to get to the bottom of this for a while anyway. Here's info on that front group: http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Center_for_Consumer_Freedom
Posted by Jill Richardson on 06/01/2009 @ 04:22AM PT
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My impression has been that the CCF has not been using incorrect statistics necessarily but has been taking them out of context, for example. PETA's kill numbers are a controversy and a complaint within the animal rights community itself. One of the defenses, however, that Newkirk and PETA have put out though is that the animals they do end up killing are in such terrible shape by the time they get to PETA that the killing truly does qualify as euthansia. Is that true? I'm not really sure--I've read reports about specific dogs that others have known or believed to be healthy or within help that were still killed. Neither PETA nor HSUS is on board with the no kill movement, so that wouldn't be terribly surprising.
But still, regardless of how I personally feel about PETA's kill rate or some of PETA's tactics, I think it's disingenuous for people to compare their rate to that of actual shelters. Many of the animals who end up in PETA's care are in a different class and different conditions/situations than the animals who end up in shelters (the latter of which includes many healthy animals who get lost, are relinquished, etc.).
But the one aspect of these statistics that really bothers me, in terms of people just looking at a number and making a blind judgment, has to do with the wildlife statistic. You don't put an animal back out into the wild who won't survive there. You don't put an animal back into a situation where he or she stands little chance of surviving and good chance of dying a difficult or painful death just so that you can say you weren't the one to actually kill the animal. And what these statistics don't tell any of us is how badly off these animals were--putting them back into the wild if they can't be rehabililated back to 100% is like signing their death warrant anyway. Had many of these animals been hit by cars, and were they suffering terribly from broken bones and internal bleeding? Were they going to have to have limbs amputated--and thus be easy prey or struggle to survive--in order to survive? I don't know, but neither do you, Stephanie P, so just throwing around the statistic doesn't really mean anything.
Either way, Mark, it's just as problematic when people can't bring themselves to say a word against PETA as it is when people want to portray them as the world's greatest evil. The best-known national organizations aren't perfect, not by a long shot, and have made (and continue to make) some enormous backfiring mistakes, and remaining blindly devoted to them and assuming that they're always right rather than challenging them when perhaps they're not doesn't help animals.
Posted by Stephanie Ernst on 06/01/2009 @ 05:25AM PT
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My sources are the respective state & city governments.
Posted by Stephanie Povey on 06/01/2009 @ 04:36AM PT
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US Government, US-based corporations, US military, make wars based on lies but kill millions of civilians; invade foreign countries without justification; rob foreign countries of ther oil and other resources; exploit workers, like Wal-Mart is doing; support killers like the Duvaliers, the Somozas, Pinochet and a long list of dictators, and human rights violators like Pakistan and China..., and your are worried about caged-hen eggs!!! Just don't eat them, but please do something to stop war and robbery, to put an end to your "American Dream", a nightmare for the rest of the world!
Posted by Margarita M. Asencio-Ló... on 06/01/2009 @ 11:18AM PT
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You are 100% on the money. (9/11 inside job/false flag can be added to the list too). It is amazing we can't get many people to speak up about millions being killed and maimed in US Govt. planned wars/coups against democratic elected leaders/countries etc. They do speak up (and even shoot Dr's over killing a fertilized egg) or to deny homosexuals rights such as visiting a loved one in the hospital or marriage or even to stop promising disease research with stem cells. These same people who claim to be so moral rarely ever care for real people being slaughtered under false pretenses of perpetual illegal wars. You are correct in stating we shouldn't eat eggs from corporate caged hens. It is the demand for eggs, profit and a corrupt government that are causing the massive suffering on the corporate farms.
Posted by mark oddi on 06/01/2009 @ 09:49PM PT
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What needs to be investigated is not necessarily the fast food joints, but the GOVERNMENT, whose policies over the years led to factory farming. BOTH main parties are guilty! Read "The Untold Story of Milk", and see how corporations use the govt to quell opposition. There's something truly sick about Rockefellers getting money from the govt for "farming", just because they own so many acres.
It's disgusting to see how both parties are owned by the likes of Monsanto, Gargill, and their ilk. What really needs to happen is for corporate law to be changed (which I fear will never happen), so that corporations are NOT viewed as individuals, with all the rights of an individual, which is partly what gives them such power.
The large corporations are bent on controlling the world's food supply, with "farmers" (serfs) doing the work for them. Just look at all the measures taken to make it easier for corporations to take over (NAIS being one) and for small operations to be killed. All with the government's connivance.
Take WI's Gov Doyle, who is currently courting factory farms to come here and wreck our state. He inserted language into the budget re "ag enterprise zones", (code for CAFOs) and even would pay them $10/acre! These CAFOs are getting kicked out of CA, so they're looking for a more friendly state to come into and pollute! This is one reason I am supporting the nonpartisan effort to get rid of him via recall. (www.recalldoyle.com)
Re. PETA, they are responsible for a lot more harm than good. One example: They let loose a local mink farmer's animals, condemning them to a certain death by starvation (captive animals do not forage for themselves), and ruining his business. PETA most certainly DID put animals in a situation where they "had little (really, NO) chance of surviving". Just because they don't like his business, does NOT give them the right to harass or bankrupt him, or to send his animals to certain death.
The trouble with most people who have strong feelings about "animals' rights" is that they don't themselves own livestock, and thus have a Bambi image of animals. (Or maybe they have horses for pets, but that doesn't count, as again, there's that Bambi image.) They get more emotional about an animal than about those of their own species that are killed prenatally. C'mon, if lambs were being chopped up alive in the womb, and pulled out, there'd be an outcry! But it's OK to do to people.
I personally believe true science indicates that if everyone were vegan, the world would turn into a vast wasteland, because plants TAKE from the soil, and animals GIVE BACK, through their manure. (See articles at www.westonaprice.org). But how'd you vegans like it if I tormented YOU because I know you are making bad choices? See what I mean?
PS, if everyone just STOPPED using fast food joints, there'd be less of a problem. I stopped eating at them 4 years ago, and I don't miss them at all. For the rest of it, buy local as much as you can.
Posted by emily matthews on 06/01/2009 @ 02:48PM PT
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Emily, I like your attention to the public policies that create an adverse playing field for sustainable ag practices, but then I'm disappointed by your final suggestion that everyone just stop eating fast food. While I agree putting your money into businesses with good practices is preferable, I'm skeptical of the effects of consumer movements. I really doubt such a campaign would hold any weight. I would rather see these companies taking serious efforts towards making sustainable products, as stated in the blog post. I think we have to weigh the tangible economic and environmental impacts of our actions, and skipping the Big Mac and bragging about it to our friends probably doesn't make a big dent in the global food economy.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think organics themselves only account for about 5% of American food sales. Five percent of the market in about 30 years of work doesn't seem fast enough. I have lofty visions for food security and sustainability, and I think it's time we start paying attention, as you point out, to the big impact, and big money policies, such as subsidy and trade policies, that make this crooked game at all possible.
Posted by Michael Paone on 06/01/2009 @ 08:08PM PT
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If you're a fan of ballot measures, I guess you're a fan of Prop 8 passing?
Posted by Jon Lussier on 06/01/2009 @ 02:48PM PT
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In response to this article, there is really no such thing as "humane" consumption of eggs or any other animal product for that matter. With prop 2, rather than hens in small cages, they are now in one big cage. The conditions are not better for the animal. Animal welfare measures like these sometimes even work against the animals and more in favor of faster production. Let's face it, would you rather be electrocuted or gassed? Would you rather be enslaved or set free? The only way to rid of animal suffering is to not support anyone or anything that exploits animals. Go Vegan! < I did it. It's not that hard, and you'll feel a lot better in the end.
Posted by Erica Grossman on 06/01/2009 @ 08:40PM PT
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And Emily, you saying that if everyone went vegan, we would have a wasteland? Check your facts. It takes 7 lbs or corn or soy to produce 1 lb of pork. 70% of US grain crop is fed to animals that are destine to be slaughtered. Those crops could be feeding hungry people, but instead are fueling our dependency on animals as our slaves. If anything, our consumption of animals products will turn our world into a wasteland...not to mention deforestation to make room for these animals or methane from cows etc. It is the animal industries that cause more pollution than transportation. If you are concerned about sustainability, consuming a plant based diet off of local foods is the way to go.
Posted by Erica Grossman on 06/01/2009 @ 08:55PM PT
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I'd like to know why I see several people talking about PETA. This article has nothing to do with PETA. You are just trying to distract from the issue at hand. PETA is irrelevant here. The issue here is that people like the way eggs taste, but they don't want to look like the bad guys, so they'll shout loud and proud about how their eggs are "cage-free" so they can sleep better at night. It's all a crock.
Even cage-free eggs end with dead and abused chickens. The male chicks are ground up at birth because they won't make the egg farm any money. And the female chicks are condemned to an existence of servitude to greedy humans, turned into egg machines and their status as a sentient, sensitive, peaceful bird is thrown out the barn door during the 30 seconds per day that it's open.
Posted by Gypsy Wytch on 06/01/2009 @ 10:53PM PT
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Rock on Gypsy! You said it perfect, I have nothing to add.
To the incompetent tools here that would argue for cage-free, go vegan. It's not hard.
Posted by Sammi Chan on 06/02/2009 @ 12:34AM PT
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