Every November, there rolls around a major national tradition, a monumental display of indulgence that discards the most common, foundational principles of law and morality. No, I'm not talking about Election Day.
Every year as the cold sets in (at least up here in NYC), there rolls around a major national holiday in which we are given an opportunity to stand for true humility, grace, and charity, and by and large we fail miserably. No, I'm not talking about Xmas.
I'm talking about "Thanksgiving," when, every year since 1947, two out of millions are so forgivingly pardoned for the apparent crime of existing.
Please read on.
(I assure you the longish quote ahead is concise and informative. You can read the whole text here.)
More than 266 million turkeys are slaughtered for food every year in the U.S.; nearly 80 million of them are eaten on Thanksgiving, Christmas, and Easter.(8) Before ending up as holiday centerpieces, these gentle birds spend five to six months in factory farms, where thousands of turkeys are packed into dark sheds with no more than 3.5 square feet of space per bird.(9) To keep the extremely crowded birds from scratching and pecking each other to death, workers cut off portions of the birds’ toes and upper beaks with hot blades and desnood the males (the snood is the flap of skin that runs from the beak to the chest).(10) No painkillers are used during these procedures.
Genetic manipulation and antibiotics enable farmers to produce heavily muscled birds who can weigh 35 pounds in as little as five months, and “their internal organs are noticeably crammed together in the little bit of space remaining for the body cavity,” according to The Washington Post.(11) An industry magazine said, “[T]urkey breeders have created birds with huge, unnatural, outsized breasts, since white breast meat is where the money is.”(12) Another turkey breeder complained that birds “are bred to grow fast just to live to 16 weeks [and then] they die,” usually from organ failure. Some turkeys suffer from broken legs because their bones are not able to support their weight.(13) A 12-year study of turkey farmers in Iowa, one of the nation’s top turkey-producing states, revealed that leg problems and aneurysms were among the top three health problems in turkey flocks.(14) Factory-farmed turkeys are so large that they cannot even engage in normal reproductive behaviors, so all turkeys raised for food are conceived by artificial insemination.(15)
Millions of turkeys don’t even make it past their first few weeks before succumbing to “starve-out,” a stress-induced condition that causes young birds to simply stop eating.(16) Catching and transportation are particularly stressful processes for birds, yet they are repeatedly moved during their short lives—from the hatchery to the brooding area to the growing area and finally to the slaughterhouse.(17)
At the slaughterhouse, turkeys are hung upside-down by their weak and crippled legs before their heads are dragged through an electrified “stunning tank,” which immobilizes the animals but does not kill them. Many birds dodge the tank and, therefore, are still conscious when their throats are slit. If the knife fails to properly slit the birds’ throats, they are scalded to death in scalding-hot defeathering tanks.
Every November, there is a day on which we are supposed to humbly reflect about the good in our lives, and many of us do this in earnest. But we do a poor job of it when we subject tens of millions of fellow animals to unimaginable torture for the sake of tradition and taste bud. As self-described reality-minded progressives, we can do better.