Fall 2002, Vol. 11, No. 3 New organic guidelines: Are humane stipulations to be trusted? Ł page 6 Commentary from the editor: TIME is not always on our side Ł page 2 Sound solution: Ultra bombardment of hog urine and feces Ł page 11 Photo essay: VivaVegie reaching the public, helping vegetarians Ł pages 9, 15 Marketing meat: Even meat producers can’t agree on this game Ł page 13 The VivaVine is a publication of the VivaVegie Society, New York City’s premier vegetarian-outreach organization. BY MIYUN PARK Inside Factory Farming BY MIYUN PARK could barely breathe. The air was heavy with ammonia and dust seep- I ing through my surgical mask. The overpowering smell of sickness and filth made my eyes water. I was inside an egg farm with other Chronically killing to eradicate Compassion Over Killing (COK) investi- wasting disease in deer and elk gators. The fumes assaulted me with un- page 10 bearable intensity. Imagine being one of the 800,000 hens housed there, without reprieve. Never having space to stretch. Never seeing sunlight. Never eating or taking a step without pain. Never know- ing a moment of freedom. Like the dogs and cats we pamper, the animals we call food are conscious indi- viduals who experience fear and joy, pain and sadness. Yet they are treated so abusively that similar treatment of companion animals could be prosecuted in every state. Factory farming: profit first According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, more than 10 billion land animals are slaughtered for food annu- ally. While animal agribusiness wants us Illustration by Christine Russo to envision frolicking animals in bucolic pastures, more than 99 percent of Candle Cafe benefit farmed animals are confined to cages and stalls in huge factory farms, where for the VivaVegie Society the goal is to raise the maximum num- DEC.10 See the back page for details. ber of animals with minimal time, space, Continued on page 3 COMMENTARY: BAD PRESS FOR VEGETARIANISM? Time out: What TIME didn’t tell us last July about eating meat BY GLEN BOISSEAU BECKER human consumption but not always And oh, yes: One inescapable byprod- properly isolated) mixed with the uct of the meat industry, with its empha- Five reasons to eat meat: 1) It tastes ground-up remains of farm animals, un- sis on breeding as many animals as pos- good, 2) It makes you feel good, 3) wanted pets, and roadkill, plus “bakery sible, is an inconceivable amount of waste,” drugs, hormones, steroids, and a sewage. In many places, this results in It’s a great American tradition, 4) It large percentage of manure. Thanks to enormous “lagoons” of putrid nitroge- supports the nation’s farmers, and 5) the mad-cow scare, it is no longer legal nous waste, which become a dire hazard Your parents did it. Oh, sorry ... those to feed cow remains to other cows, but to the soil, the air, and the water supply. are five reasons to smoke cigarettes. rendered chickens’ corpses are still fed to cows and vice versa. ather than mentioning any of his was the promising beginning Dairy cows, chemically stimulated to these catastrophic issues—or of the nine-page TIME cover produce great quantities of milk, wind up Rfully exploring the severity of T story for July 15, 2002, “Should with monstrously large and heavy ud- meat’s long-term danger to human We All Be Vegetarians?” It was one of ders, which often become infected. health—the TIME article pursued tan- many recent media articles discussing Rather than living for 20 or 25 years, they gents like the argument that even using a vegetarianism’s increasing visibility. And are sold for slaughter when their milk tractor to plow a grain field is likely to being written primarily by an editor production begins to taper, usu- kill rodents and birds. The author hardly who had just given the lifestyle a try, ally at the age of 4. seems to realize that in it aimed to present a balanced Even “organic” dairy present-day conditions, view, with a rather cautious em- cows are ultimately that amount of (inadver- phasis on health issues. Indeed, sold for their meat. tent) killing is vastly readers from both vegetable and Chickens on egg farms compounded by our in- meat camps may have found the are brutally debeaked. Egg efficient system of feed- presentation a bit too sympathetic to- production is stimulated by ing the grain to larger ward the opposition for comfort. forced molting, which means depriving animals before killing them in turn. To But how is meat produced? By treat- them of all food and light for up to two propose letting cattle simply graze is all ing his subject primarily as a ques- very well, but what is the reality? tion of nutrition and secondly as a so- The author almost entirely Grazing land is all too often created cial and philosophical fad, Richard overlooked the underlying story by mowing down tropical rainforests Corliss almost entirely overlooked and other irreplaceable ecosystems. the underlying story that gives ur- that gives urgency to all other TIME’s comments on veganism gency to all the other aspects. Few aspects: the horrid realities of were especially provoking—includ- Americans can begin to imagine the ing a short, rather snide chapter in horrid realities underlying the pro- meat and dairy production. the magazine’s online edition. To ve- duction of nearly all meat, eggs, and gans, we read, honey represents the milk in America today. weeks at a time. Unwanted male chicks oppression of bees, and a silk tie ex- In factory farms—as described else- are often killed by crushing. ploits the worker worms. The lack of where in this issue—vast numbers of ani- comprehension is obvious. In fact, hon- mals spend their lives crammed into ther atrocities range from the eybees (whose subtle communication tightly packed yards or sunless crates forcible overfeeding of geese systems still baffle scientists) will fight and stalls. (Picture stepping into the most O (for foie gras) to the lifelong re- to the death to defend their hives. And crowded subway train you could conjure straining of calves raised on an anemic the only way to produce genuine silk is up in a nightmare—and then being liquid diet (for veal). to kill large quantities of silkworms be- trapped there for the rest of your life.) After being prodded, kicked, or fore they can hatch from their cocoons. Pigs and chickens invariably are raised dragged, the larger farm animals are ulti- Consuming such products is just not in cages, stacked so the animals are bom- mately transported long distances in necessary. barded by the droppings of others above packed trucks—without heat, cooling, Predictably, the article played up the them. (Now imagine being surrounded by or water—until they reach a slaughter- potential deficiencies of a vegan diet and filth, insects, and prematurely dying house. There, amid flies, blood, and ma- downplayed the health risks associated members of your own species.) nure, the terrified animals are butchered with eggs and dairy products. World- Cows and other animals—vegetarian in an “assembly line” moving so quickly wide, it should be noted, most adult hu- by nature—are fed a highly unnatural that many of them are hoisted and cut mans cannot even digest cows’ milk. diet of cheaply available ingredients, apart while still conscious. Severe in- One of the article’s central problems typically including genetically engi- juries to the slaughterhouse workers are was its failure to interview some of the neered grain (considered unsafe for also common. Continued on page 12 The VivaVine • Fall 2002 • 2 COVER STORY, CONTINUED Continued from page 1 To maximize milk yields, dairy farmers cost, and effort for the greatest profit. pump cows full of drugs and artificially Disease is commonplace, and the vast inseminate them so frequently that they majority of animals are denied their are in near-constant cycles of pregnancy. most basic desires, including fresh air Female calves join the dairy line; males and room to move. are sold to become veal or beef. COK in- While many countries have banned vestigators have documented calves at battery cages for their cruelty, U.S. egg auction, too young to walk, their umbili- producers still cram up to ten hens into cal cords still attached as they were dragged off. The myth of free ranges While many picture “free-range” farms as places where pigs relax in mud baths, chickens nest on their eggs, and cows graze as their calves play nearby, the Photograph by Pamela Rice reality is very different. The USDA defines “free- The USDA defines “free-range” loosely range” and “free-roaming” (a huge henhouse may have one small loosely (a huge henhouse, for instance, may have door leading to a tiny cement yard), one small door leading to and it has no inspection system. a tiny cement yard), and it has no inspection system. cause they’re considered food, billions As Charles Olentine, edi- of animals are legally abused from birth a space the size of a file drawer. Accord- tor of Egg Industry, wrote in the October to death. ing to Poultry Digest, an industry publi- 2002 issue: “Just because it says free- With every bite we take, we can say no cation, a hen needs 290 square inches range does not mean that it is welfare- to animal cruelty. By choosing vegan op- merely to flap her wings, yet the indus- friendly.” tions, we choose compassion over killing. try norm is 50 square inches.