WHAT ARE WE EATING?

THINK, OCCASIONALLY, OF THE SUFFERING OF WHICH YOU SPARE YOURSELF THE SIGHT. ~ ALBERT SCHWEITZER  

Above: A Thanksgiving 'feast' in America.

More than 200 million animals are killed for food around the world EVERY DAY – just on land.
That comes out to 72 billion land animals killed for food around the world EVERY YEAR.

Including wild caught and farmed fish, we get a daily total closer to 3 billion animals killed PER YEAR. 

NOTE: THESE STATISTICS DO NOT INCLUDE HORSES, CAMELS, DOGS, CATS, RABBITS, MONKEYS, PIGEONS, DOVES, EELS, OR MANY OTHER ANIMALS SOME NATIONS AND ETHNIC GROUPS CONSIDER STAPLE FOODS. 

[MY 'DISCLAIMER' FOR THIS BLOG ENTRY: I HAVE FISHED AND HUNTED ALL MY 70+ YEARS UP UNTIL THE PAST 5 YEARS.
I'M NO LONGER PHYSICALLY ABLE TO DO SO.

I HAVE CONSUMED MEAT ALL MY LIFE AND STILL RARELY DO.
RARELY, BECAUSE I AM WAGING WAR #5 AGAINST A MONSTER CALLED 'CANCER' AND I AM VERY, VERY CAREFUL WHAT I CONSUME.
IF IT'S KNOWN TO 'FEED' THE CANCER, OR IN ANY WAY HELP IT TO THRIVE AND SPREAD, I DO NOT EAT IT.

HOWEVER, I WAS REARED TO RESPECT AND VALUE ALL LIFE, TO BE GRATEFUL FOR EACH ANIMAL'S OR FISH'S OR BIRD'S SACRIFICE TO NOURISH MY OWN BODY.

THE WAYS IN WHICH MY GRANDPARENTS RAISED FOOD ANIMALS WAS MUCH AS ONE WOULD RAISE A PUPPY OR KITTEN TODAY. EACH ONE WAS NAMED AND WE WERE ALL SAD ON THE DAYS WE TOOK THE LIFE OF ANY OF THEM.

MEAT WAS ALSO COSTLY TO RAISE SO WE HAD LITTLE, BUT WHAT WE DID HAVE, WE WERE SINCERELY GRATEFUL TO AND FOR. WE CONSUMED OF NECESSITY AND NOTHING WAS INTENTIONALLY WASTED.

THAT SAID, THERE ARE ETHICAL WAYS AND UNETHICAL WAYS TO FEED A PLANET. 
FEEDLOTS AND MEGA-FARMS THAT RAISE AND PROCESS OUR FOOD ANIMALS ARE IN NO WAY ETHICAL, OR NECESSARY.   

WHEN THESE GIANT CORPORATIONS EDGED OUT SMALL FAMILY FARMS, WE LOST MUCH MORE THAN WE MAY KNOW.]   

THE 2 IMAGES ABOVE AND ONE DIRECTLY BELOW:
Satellite views of Coronado Feeders, Dalhart, Texas, 2013, with a capacity of 60,000 cattle.


What we’re seeing in this confronting satellite imagery is a system designed for maximizing the meat yield of a living animal in the minimum time frame possible; the cattle's body fluids and excrement, sent from pens into run-off channels, are mixed with chemicals intended to break them down, ending in ever-growing pools of waste.   

Big food companies are always trying to convince us that their products come from idyllic family run farms, although that rosy image couldn't be further from the truth.

A 2013-released batch of aerial photographs by British artist Mishka Henner show that factory farming is taking its toll on our planet.

In addition to producing nutrient-poor "food" rife with GMOs, these farms are literally carving swaths of dead soil through the American landscape. Henner's photos provide bird's eye proof of the destruction that follows when industrial beef farming moves into town.

Mishka dedicated over a year to researching the meat industry and the design and function of its feed yards. 
 

EACH DOT WITHIN A PEN IS A LIVING INHABITANT OF THAT FEEDLOT SYSTEM.

They are provided NO shelter from weather or sun in any season.
They have room to stand, or, in less crowded feedlots,some have room to lie down.Though under scrutiny from numerous environmental and welfare organizations, feedlots have flourished as a result of the exceptional lobbying skills of the American meat industry.

'Legally' restricting photographic access to agricultural sites in several states has also protected this big business from the negative repercussions of revealing what goes on behind the scenes.

FOOD ANIMALS ARE NOT RAISED AS THEY ONCE WERE. In the past it took years for a cow to reach its full mature weight, deemed ready to be sent to the slaughterhouse.

“Today, after decades of research 'perfecting' the structures and processes of feed yards, this time scale has been reduced to 18 months” explains the artist.

The introduction of growth hormones and antibiotics into the cattle's diet has also helped speed up the process.

BUT THOSE GROWTH HORMONES ARE BANNED IN MANY NATIONS, AS KNOWN OR PROBABLE CARCINOGENS. 
FOR A VERY EXTENSIVE LIST OF WHAT THE U.S. CONSIDERS "KNOWN AND PROBABLE AND REASONABLY ANTICIPATED TO BE CARCINOGENS, <GO HERE>. 

SHOOTING FEED ANIMALS FULL OF ANTIBIOTICS HAS ALSO BEEN PROVEN TO CREATE ANTIBIOTIC-RESISTANT STRAINS OF BACTERIA.
AS WE CONSUME THE MEAT OF SUCH ANIMALS, OUR OWN BODIES BECOME IMMUNE TO THE ANTIBIOTICS IN THEIR FLESH.

WHEN WE GET ILL, IT IS EVER HARDER TO COMBAT THE ILLNESS WITH THE SAME ANTIBIOTICS FED TO OR INJECTED INTO THE FOOD ANIMALS. 

LIKE HENNER, I STUMBLED ACROSS THESE PHOTOS COMPLETELY BY ACCIDENT. 
ALSO LIKE HENNER I WAS ONCE AGAIN STRUCK BY AN OVERWHELMING SORROW THAT WE NOW USE SO MANY ANIMALS EACH DAY TO FEED OURSELVES. 

GROWING UP, WE FELT FORTUNATE TO HAVE MEAT ON THE TABLE ONCE A WEEK. IT WAS RESERVED FOR SPECIAL OCCASIONS, FOR WHEN COMPANY WAS COMING, FOR WEEKEND FAMILY GET-TOGETHERS. 
I DON'T RECALL FEELING DEPRIVED, WAS NEVER ILL A DAY IN MY LIFE UNTIL I STOPPED LIVING WITH GRANDPARENTS AND WENT BACK TO LIFE FAR AWAY FROM APPALACHIA, WITH MEAT ON THE TABLE EVERY DAY.           

ABOUT THE IMAGES...

The images, discovered by Henner while researching satellite photographs of oil fields, look more like post-apocalyptic wastelands than acreage in America’s heartland.

““While I was working on that series I was looking intensely at the American landscape, and that’s when I came across these really strange-looking structures, like a big lagoon, or all these dots that look like microbes,” Henner told Fast Co. “We have factory farming in England, but we don’t have it on that scale. I was just absolutely blown away.”

“When I think of these pictures, I don’t just see gigantic farms, I see an attitude toward life and death that exists throughout contemporary culture. These images reflect a blueprint and a horror that lie at the heart of the way we live”.

The aerial shots of factory farming feedlots are open source satellite imagery, so Henner doesn’t have to worry about the legal risk of publishing them. In recent years, the commercial agriculture industry has sought to hide its disgraceful practices from the public’s view, and journalists found photographing feedlots have faced arrest and criminal charges under bogus “Ag Gag” laws. It’s not hard to see why they’d rather no one know what they’re up to.

“Massive waste lagoons, which waft up dangerous hydrogen sulfide fumes and can contaminate groundwater with nitrates and antibiotics, first resemble open, infected wounds,” explains Fast Co. The land on which the feedlots sit is totally barren, brown and dry.

Brightly colored waste from the poor animals housed there gives off an alien glow against the neutral backdrop of dying land.

The cows themselves look like ants from the aerial perspective, crowded together with no shade or comfort from the harsh conditions.

“To me, as somebody in the U.K., looking at something [like] the feedlots I was shocked on a very personal level,” Henner told Fast Co. “I think what the feedlots represent is a certain logic about how culture and society have evolved. On one level it’s absolutely terrifying, that this is what we’ve become. They’re not just feedlots. They’re how we are.”
~  Mishak Henner


IT'S A COMMON SIGHT FROM BORDER-TO-BORDER AND COAST-TO-COAST HERE. 

A FEEDLOT NEAR LUBBOCK, TX.


Aerial view of World’s largest cattle feedlot (120,000 head). Monfort beef, Colorado.

SOMETIMES, HAY IS SPREAD OVER THE DEEPENING PILES OF URINE AND MANURE AND THE COWS HAVE NO CHOICE BUT TO LIVE IN IT.
CHEAPER THAN CLEANING THE FILTHY PENS.
THE ABOVE ARE PART OF A HERD OF DAIRY CATTLE. 

[I WAS UNFORTUNATE TO HAVE SEEN THE DAILY WORKINGS OF A BIG DAIRY FARM FOR ALMOST A YEAR IN MY YOUTH.
IT WAS WHERE I LEARNED WHAT THE PHRASE "PULLING A CALF" MEANS.

IF A PREGNANT COW IS HAVING A DIFFICULT DELIVERY, SAY SUCH AS A BREACH BIRTH, OR THE CALF CAN'T BE "TURNED" IN UTERO, THE DAIRY FARMER REACHES INTO THE COW'S UTERUS THROUGH HER VAGINA, LOOPS A ROPE AROUND AS MANY OF THE CALF'S LEGS AS HE/SHE CAN GATHER, ATTACHES THE OTHER LOOPED END AROUND THE TRAILER HITCH ON A FARM TRUCK OR JEEP AND THEN USES THE JEEP TO PULL THE CALF OUT, WHICH RIPS THE COW'S BIRTH CANAL AND VAGINA TO SHREDS AND CAUSES HER TO MAKE ONE OF THE MOST PITIFUL SCREAMS I HAVE EVER HEARD. SHE BLEEDS PROFUSELY FOR DAYS, IF SHE LIVES THROUGH IT.

SUCH WAS DONE IF THE CALF WAS MORE VALUED THAN THE MOTHER COW, OR TO SAVE AT LEAST ONE OF THE ANIMALS WITHOUT PAYING FOR A VETERINARIAN TO ATTEND TO THE COW.

PROFIT IS THE ALWAYS THE MAIN CONSIDERATION ON BIG FARMS AND RANCHES.

I WITNESSED THIS A TOTAL OF 4 TIMES BEFORE I MANAGED TO GO ON WITH MY LIFE AND AVOID DAIRY FARMS.]

IT ISN'T JUST CATTLE WHO ARE PLACED IN FEEDLOTS AND HELD IN SQUALID CONDITIONS PRIOR TO BEING KILLED AND BUTCHERED.IT'S ALL OUR "DOMESTICALLY GROWN" FOOD ANIMALS. 


[IF YOU DON'T AGREE WITH THAT WORD "SQUALID", I WOULD ASK IF YOU'VE EVER SEEN THESE PLACES WITH YOUR OWN EYES.]


AMERICA DOESN'T RAISE AS MANY SHEEP AS OTHER NATIONS, BUT WE DO BUY A LOT OF LAMB. 

Australian sheep in holding pens in Qatar.   



There are far worse pig farms than the one shown above.

PIG FARMS IN AMERICA ARE REALLY SOMETHING I WISH ALL WHO CONSUME PORK HAD TO VISIT.

YES, I HAVE ENJOYED MANY A "BLT", COUNTRY HAM, ETC, BUT WITH AGE, RESEARCH AND LIFE EXPERIENCE, I DECIDED TO STOP THAT.
DO I STILL 'CRAVE' PORK?
ABSOLUTELY.
BUT I'D NEVER AGAIN BUY ANY PORK, NOT EVEN "LOCALLY AND HUMANELY RAISED AND SLAUGHTERED"...IF WE CAN CALL SLAUGHTER 'HUMANE', EVER. 
MY ONCOLOGISTS WOULD PROBABLY "UNLEASH HELL" ON ME IF EVER I ATE PORK AGAIN AND THEY FOUND OUT. 

I WOULD DESERVE IT.  



WORST OF THE WORSE?
HOW CHICKENS AND TURKEYS ARE USUALLY "RAISED" IN AMERICA SHOULD BE OUTLAWED. IT'S CRUELTY AT THE HIGHEST LEVEL AND IT'S UNHEALTHY FOR HUMANS WHO CONSUME THIS NASTIEST OF MEATS. 
[I STILL FEED MY TWO CANINE COMPANIONS ORGANICALLY, LOCALLY RAISED, TRULY FREE-RANGE CHICKEN ONCE A WEEK OR SO, BUT I NO LONGER EAT IT MYSELF UNLESS IT COMES FROM A FAMILY MEMBER'S OR CLOSE FRIEND'S 'YARD-RAISED' SMALL FLOCK.

I'VE SEEN THE 'INNER WORKINGS' OF THESE ENORMOUS CHICKEN FARMS AND PROCESSING PLANTS IN 5 STATES.
I DON'T SEE HOW THE BIRDS LIVE TO MATURITY.
THE CRUELTY I PERSONALLY WITNESSED IN 2 OF THOSE FARMS AND 3 'PROCESSING PLANTS' STILL HAUNT ME.
I SINCERELY WISH I COULD ERASE THOSE IMAGES FROM MY MIND.

I DO NOT REGRET WHAT I SAID OR DID UPON BEING WITNESS TO THAT INHUMANE, ABJECT, WANTON CRUELTY, ALTHOUGH TWICE IT INVOLVED YOUNG MALE FRIENDS OF MINE, WHO WERE FRIENDS NO LONGER AFTER WHAT I SAW.] 


HOW MUCH IS ENOUGH?
COULD WE DO WELL WITH LESS?
A rather startling infographic found online highlights how Americans consume an average of almost 200 pounds of meat, 31 pounds of cheese, 16 pounds of fish per year. 

In the 1950s, the meat and poultry consumed per person on average was 138 lbs a year, which means that meat consumption has increased by around 45 percent over the past 60 years. Cheese consumption in the 1950s was only around 7.7 lbs, while today, Americans consume around 30 lbs of cheese a year. 

It should come as no surprise to anyone that in the 1950s, only 9.7 percent of American adults were considered to be clinically obese, but today, the United States leads the world with an obesity rate of over 30 percent. Moreover, despite being the richest country in the world, Americans are the least healthy people among the world’s developed nations.

According to the National Institute of Health 80-90 percent of all degenerative diseases (arthritis, Alzheimer’s, cancer, heart disease, diabetes, etc.) are due to environment and lifestyle (like things we consume) and are PREVENTABLE.

If we want to reverse this trend, might a great place to start be to work on changing some of our eating habits? 

IT'S ALL A CHOICE THAT EACH PERSON MAKES.
WHAT'S FINE FOR ONE MAY NOT BE FOR ANOTHER.

NO NEED FOR CONDEMNATION OR GUILT-TRIPPING OTHERS WHO DON'T AGREE WITH US, RIGHT? 





THAT LEAVES FISH, SEAFOOD. 

Nearly 300 wild sea animals are killed every year to feed ONE American, but that doesn’t include the fishing industry’s bycatch.

What is bycatch? And why are we catching so much of it?
Bycatch is the total number of sea animals fishermen unintentionally catch in their nets and kill.
They are usually found tangled in large shrimp trawler nets and discarded dead or dying back into the ocean. If you add the bycatch to the total number of sea animals killed per person per year, you end up with a number closer to 500 sea animals killed per year to feed one person.
The commercial fishing industry does not report bycatch numbers.

Footage of swordfishing driftnets catching dolphins, stingrays, and sharks off the coast of California surfaced in 2018.
California banned those nets.

The big downside to fish farming: It requires large amounts of feed made from wild fish harvested from the sea.

"It can take up to five pounds of wild fish to produce one pound of salmon, and we eat a lot of salmon," said lead author Rosamond L. Naylor, a professor of environmental Earth system science at Stanford University.

This adds up to quite a lot of fish being used for fish food.

In 2006, about 22 million short tons (20 million metric tons) of wild fish were needed to produce 57 million short tons (51.7 million metric tons) of farmed fish.

There are also concerns about spreading disease from farmed to wild fish [in the case of offshore saltwater fish farms]. 

Also, farmed fish are kept in concentrations never seen in the wild (e.g. 50,000 fish in a 2-acre (8,100 m2) area.A 2008 meta-analysis of available data shows that salmon farming reduces the survival of associated wild salmon populations.

This relationship has been shown to hold for Atlantic, steelhead, pink, chum, and coho salmon.
The decrease in survival or abundance often exceeds 50%. 


NO REAL "HUMANE" SLAUGHTER  METHODS. 

Tanks saturated with carbon dioxide have been used to make fish unconscious.

Their gills are then cut with a knife so that the fish bleed out before they are further processed.

This is no longer considered a humane method of slaughter.
Methods that induce much less physiological stress are electrical or percussive stunning and this has led to the phasing out of the carbon dioxide slaughter method in Europe, BUT NOT ELSEWHERE.
FRESHWATER FISH FARMING    

Channel catfish (Ictalurus punctatus) supported a $450 million/yr aquaculture industry in 2007.
The US farm-raised catfish industry began in the early 1960s in Kansas, Oklahoma and Arkansas.

For a long time, aquaculture was the foster child of agriculture, but now it has come of age: output has more than tripled over the past 20 years, making it the world’s fastest-growing food producing sector.

With a production close to 80 million tons annually, fish farming provides the world with 17 percent of its animal protein.

The lion’s share of aquaculture production, some 90 percent, comes from developing countries, and while most fish farms are in Asia, aquaculture’s highest growth rates have of late been in Africa and South and Central America.


AND THEREIN LIES THE MAJOR PROBLEM...REGULATIONS IN THOSE AREAS DON'T COME CLOSE TO OUR STANDARDS FOR FOOD PRODUCTION.

The FDA inspects less than 1 percent of our imported seafood.

In fact, it was reported by EconomyInCrisis.org that Alabama, which has some of the most stringent seafood safety testing rules, regularly rejects between 50 and 60 percent of imported seafood!

FARM FISH FROM CHINA HAS BEEN BANNED HERE BEFORE AND IS CURRENTLY BANNED IN SEVERAL NATIONS AROUND THE GLOBE. 

According to the Office of Food Safety at the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), more than 80 percent of the seafood consumed in the United States is imported, mostly from China, Vietnam and the Philippines, and over 40 percent of all seafood is essentially farm-raised seafood.

Farming: such a wide range of species, each with its own demanding specific environmental and rearing conditions, poses many technical challenges.

Aquaculture is practiced in freshwater, brackish water and seawater.
What is allowable in foreign nations is just too unhealthy in many instances.

Even the bright pink salmon in the stores may be colored with synthetic pigments because some salmon is not naturally pink due to its altered natural diet.

Another concern is the increasing use of antibiotics in farm-raised fish. Because of the overcrowding of the fish in aqua farms, diseases spread rampantly, and the widespread use of antibiotics can, at the very least, contribute to the development of antibiotic-resistant bacteria.


SO, WHAT ARE WE TO DO FOR PROTEIN, FOR MEAT?

WE WHO WOULD TRULY LIKE A NICE RARE PRIME RIB, A FEW DOZEN RAW OYSTERS, SOME CEDAR-PLANKED SALMON, WHAT CAN WE DO, GIVEN ALL THE ABOVE?

FOR ME, BECAUSE OF THE REASONS I'VE STATED, I SIMPLY USE ALMOST NO MEAT AND GET MY PROTEIN FROM PLANTS, OR, RARELY, FROM WHAT THE HUNTERS AND FISHERMEN AND THOSE AMONG MY FAMILY AND FRIENDS WHO STILL RAISE THEIR OWN FOOD ANIMALS SHARE AT THEIR DINNERS AND GET-TOGETHERS.

I WISH WE COULD GO BACK TO THE TIME WHEN MOST FAMILIES RAISED THEIR OWN FOOD ANIMALS, WHEN WE USED LESS, WHEN WE KNEW WHAT EACH ANIMAL CONSUMED AND NO ONE USED CHEMICALS TO RAISE THEM.

A SCANT FEW HERE IN AMERICA STILL DO THAT.

I DO WISH I WAS AMONG THAT SMALL NUMBER.

BE SAFE, BE KNOWLEDGEABLE, BE WISE IN YOUR CHOICES, DEAR READERS.






//WW