3 Different Approaches Towards Farmed Animal Protection

- Vegetarian Movement: Speaks out for the benefits of meat-free eating and helps people switch over.
- Animal Rights Movement: Inspires people to question the ethics of animals.
- Animal Welfare Movement: Anyone can be involved in removing some of the cruelty that happens in animal agriculture.

- Dismantlement Movement: a movement still in its infancy. Compares it to a mechanic taking apart an engine one piece at a time 'thoughtfully, calmly'.  Food industry has already handed the movements its greatest fear.. the laws being passed to fine or arrest anyone who comes into a CAFO showing what goes on inside. Even making it a felony in some states. What are they hiding? This movement wants to INFORM - blow the CAFO cover.

Species-Specific Welfare Provisions/ EU Slaughter Legislation

Bottom of p321 (Also see Danny K, Dionne)

**EU- better animal welfare policy

species-specific directives are changing the way factory farms are being ran in Europe. It is reducing the number of animals that are being handled, inspected and cared for daily. Eg: Pigs are given more space (less confinement) and reduced painful procedures (like tail docking, castration) Chickens have 30% more space per bird than US. Banned beak clipping and burning in Norway*. UK bans the deprivation of food, water and light for the chickens. Also, have effectively banned veal crates.


EU Slaughter Legislation - 2008 proposed a regulation that recognizes physical comfort & prevents injury, disease, pain, aggression, lack of food and water, etc. for animals. Makes operators more responsible.  Also regulates killing methods by whoever is handling or slaughtering animals has a certificate of  competence.

MLA CITATION for ENG 103

In the article, the authors write "As temperatures rise and water supplies dry up, farmers and herders are fighting to gain and control diminishing arable land and water" (Koneswaran and Nierenberg 580). The overproduction of animals have are becoming a catalyst to ongoing conflict and now hunger for life on this planet. It is impacting our food supply, water, and air quality.


Koneswaran, Gowri & Nierenberg, Danielle. "Global Farm Animal Production and Global Warming: Impacting and Mitigating Climate Change." Environmental Health Perspectives 116.5  (2008) : 578-582. Print.

Blog 5: The CAFO system

In this course, we have learned that the CAFOs systematically control animal life and also human life by exploiting their workers and setting the price for the consumers. It is an unorganized system because it is selfish of the animals' welfare, the workers and the consumer for gain of profit. It organizes only the way the money goes and that is in the direction of the CAFO owners. As a nation of consumers, we need to take this more seriously because the way they are controlling our organization of life matters. It is affecting the system of life's natural order. The people behind the CAFOs  are controlling they way animals are being raised, confining them to live in tight spaces all their life with no relationship to their kind, feeding them what they're not supposed to eat, and injecting them with hormones and antibiotics so they grow faster in a small amount of time. This isn't natural! The workers' attitude and behavior changes in these factory farms because they are surrounded by blood, bacteria and in heavy equipment that still puts them in dangerous situations with the same routine work. Their jobs are one of the lowest paying jobs yet put their physical well being and health at risk every day they come in. Consumers take risks with their health every time they have a meal that has come from a CAFO. CAFOs are unsanitary environments to the animals and so is the food they're being fed. If not cooked properly, we can intake deadly diseases like E.coli that come from the animals. The overproduction of all the CAFOs have brought upon other issues like the endangering of our ecosystem. Large manure waste constantly overflows from poultry farms to hog farms and reaches our waters that then become dead zones for miles! The life in these rivers are being harmed because of the greed of these same CAFO owners that are hit with petty fines every time this happens. Sooner or later, this system will crash and it will effect everyone worse than it is now unless we make changes.

Connecetion & Keywords for Assignment #3 - Evelyn & Lili

Between us, we found the keywords 'toxic' and 'husbandry'. Toxic is a connection to the life of both humans, animals, and the enviroment. The overproduction of meat is causing manure to run off into water supplies. This is killing our fresh water, and all life that is dependant of the water. This can connect back to husbandry because the old ways of farming did not overproduce animals or pollute as much as CAFOs do today. All of these pollution factors lower the quality of life for the creatures that rely on fresh water.

Blog Four: From Farm to Fridge

In the short video "From Farm to Fridge", it's incredibly inhumane the way that they slaughter the animals that become the food that we eat on daily basis. The video is frankly disturbing as they do ask you to be 18 and over and warn the viewer of the graphic images that are shown. Behind closed doors, the animals in these factory farms hatcheries and slaughterhouses suffer from birth to the end of their sad lives just so the average consumer that follows the American diet can be satisfied.
Chickens and turkeys live in dirty sheds and denied their most basic ways of living like fresh air and movement. They are crowded by the thousands and hurt chickens get their necks broken while conscious. Others are plucked to death, treated roughly in their last minutes of living and then they are boiled alive hanging by their fragile legs have their necks sliced. For our eggs, the poor chicks are useless to these corporations and killed within hours of being born. It's horrible to see them thrown into a grinding machine alive or dumped into garbage bags left to smother and suffocate. While male chicks' lives are short lived, the female chicks have it worse by being confined in extremely small wire cages where they will spend most of their lives. The video shows the female chicks having their beaks seared off; beaks full of nerve endings. I can't even begin to imagine the unbearable pain they go through.
Then, there's the milk we drink. The majority of our dairy comes from cows that live in the most filthiest diseased conditions in factory farms. A lot of cows get sick or are injured and are left to die. The term that are used for these cows are called 'downers'. They brand the cows, cut their tails, slit their throats with no anesthetics and you can see the cow going frantic. It's very hard to watch.
Our meat and pork have just as much a cruel lifestyle as the other animals. Factory cattle live in the same disgusting conditions as cows. Mother sows are also confined during their four month pregnancy. They, too are also restricted of their natural needs. The piglets, oh my god. You can see the piglet being handled by a worker as if it was an object of no emotions while you clearly here it squealing as his testicles are ripped out and his tail is cut off. I am honestly turned off by any kind of pork meat after this video.
This video helps the project for the group work in LIB110 because the information in it is exactly what we are trying to share with the workers and the consumer. There are alternative choices for your everyday meals. We can survive without meat but do we have the willpower? Speaking of it helps but visually watching the slaughtering of the true cost of our cheap meat brings those words to life. Having knowledge of where your food really comes from can make a sufficient enough impact to make changes in your diet. That is the purpose of our group project and being one less that doesn't know what is truly going on in the food system is a start. It is a start to change that will come soon but most importantly in your lifestyle.

Blog 3

Previously this week in class, we read a few chapters off the book "The End of Over Eating", written by David A. Kessler.  The author explains the eating habits that have changed over the last couple of decades and what has caused a dramatic weight gain in our world today. The simple reason being we are overeating. Not only are we overeating past our caloric needs but exactly like the title of Chapter 3 in Kessler's book, sugar, fat, and salt make us eat more sugar, fast, and salt.  Far worse, a combination of these ingredients makes the food "hyperpalatable". The body system that is supposed to mantain our energy balance now is faulty due to the easy access and preference we have to all the variety of foods that are high in sugar and fat.

For example, Kessler states, "Sugar and fat are reinforcing, and cues, quantity, concentration and variety all increase that reinforcement value" (34, Kessler).   The definiton for reinforce in the text is basically what keeps us coming back for more sweet and fatty foods. Our palettes get used to these contents intesifying the taste and signals sent to the reward system in our brain. Cues are the location, setting, where we'd find these foods most likely triggering our want for it more. The fact that there are so many competitve fast food chains, and advertisement on what is cheap and high in these ingredients does not help. That is why in America, it is very easy to reinforce the desire to continue over eating sugar and fat.

There is however a bliss point to each individual. A bliss point is the point in which we get the greatest pleasure from sugar, fat, and salt. People do suffer from low intakes of these main ingredients in our diet. Too much intake has a similar effect but instead makes the meal or drink less palatable. Either way you go, it is fatal food. It is undeniable this country has gone through big changes literally since the 1980's. The lack of self control for what we eat has overpowered this country and one has become quite settled being the average American.