Nov 07 2008
Have a vegan Thanksgiving Day
November 27th is Thanksgiving Day, a day of celebration of our life, health, and happiness. Sadly, there’s a very dark side to this otherwise beautiful date: the gargantuan slaughter of turkeys that accompanies the holiday. Nearly 300 million turkeys are killed each year in the U.S. The birds, who are native to this country, spend their entire lives crammed in large sheds with little room to move. Artificially inseminated and selectively bred to gain enormous amounts of weight, they suffer heart attacks, broken limbs, lameness, and death from their genetically-induced accelerated growth rate. Factory farm conditions are so harsh that the turkeys must be pumped full of antibiotics just to stay alive. Shortly after birth, they have their snoods and parts of their toes and beaks cut off with hot blades, without the use of anesthetic, to reduce damage from stress-induced aggression. They are then delivered by conveyer belt to a carousel where they get a power injection, usually of an antibiotic, whacked into the back of their necks.
For the rest of their lives they are forced to endure crowding, living in their own waste, and ravaging diseases. As many as 25,000 birds may be housed in a single shed. Their eyes and lungs are burned by toxic fumes emanating from their excrement. Conditions are so severe that about 9% of turkeys raised for food (or over 26 million) don’t survive long enough to make it to the slaughterhouse. After 16 weeks of misery, they are hung on a conveyer belt, their throats are cut, and they are dumped - sometimes still fully conscious - into scalding water to strip their feathers.
Do you want all this suffering to be the main menu on a day of gratitude? If you are one of the many compassionate people who see no sense in linking celebration and cruelty, try out vegetarian substitutes on Thanksgiving Day. Check out the Gentle Thanksgiving website for recipes and lots more information. And use the opportunity to reflect on your year-round food as well. The gruesome farming conditions described above are true of every other type of animal farming. Going vegan is the most effective way to stop the massacre.
