Animals: The feathered and the furry

Recently some friends posted a picture of an abused dog on Facebook.  In my opinion, animal abuse is horrible.  To me, it seems bizarre to needlessly, purposely inflict trauma and pain upon a living creature.  I think that most people probably agree with that.  This always stirs in me a question: Then why are so many people not disturbed by how the animals that provide them food are treated?  The same people furrowing their brows about a dog in pain may easily have eaten eggs from chickens that were debeaked or beef from a cow skinned alive during slaughter.  There is a disconnect in my mind, so I wanted to present some information to hopefully help bridge the gap.  First, here are some pictures:

From Alliance for Natural Health USA.

Here are some of your cage-free laying hens.  From Powered by Produce.

Chickens aren't meant to live like this, and it stresses them out.  To keep them
from attacking each other, they debeak them.  From  Powered by Produce.

It's not just chickens...
Picture from eutrophication&amphypoxia.

Cows too...
Picture from Kitchen Stewardship

After living a stressful life, these animals don't always even get to enter death peacefully.  In a book that I read (I apologize, I don't remember which one although it was likely Fast Food Nation or Food Inc.), I learned that animals are sometimes skinned alive and, if things don't go quite right, they can even be skinned while conscious.  Talk about torturous.  This is also incredibly dangerous for the worker skinning the animal for obvious emotional reasons but also because the heavy, flailing animals can hurt the human.

How do you avoid all of this?  That's a great question.  While "organic", "free range", and "cage free" labels may sound like the animals producing your eggs, dairy and meat lived happy lives, that's not necessarily so.  I would look up the farm, talk to the store that you are buying the products from, and/or buy directly from a farmer that you trust.  For more on eggs, here is a good source (there is a great table on Pages 14 and 15 that show you how tricky certifications can be!).  It is helpful to look up certifications so that you know what each one guarantees.

It is likely that a good source of animal products will be more expensive, so you might find that you need to cut back on these products to stay within your food budget.  I've mentioned before that Matthew and I eat an almost exclusively vegetarian diet, and this is why.  For us, meat was the easiest animal product to cut back on because there are a bunch of amazing vegetarian recipes out there!  You can eat a bean and cheese burrito, enchiladas, various soups, vegetarian chili, lasagna, etc.  A lot of the meals that you eat can be turned into vegetarian meals.  If you consider eating more vegetarian foods or vegan foods, just make sure that you look up some information about how to make sure you are getting the nutrients you need.  It's totally doable though, and a vegetarian/vegan diet can lend to a super healthy life as long as you are grabbing whole foods instead of processed stuff.  If you need any more motivation:  I gained a bit of weight near the end of my undergrad career, but I have lost fifteen to twenty pounds in the last year and a half to two years.  I'm smaller than I was in high school, and I feel good, too.  I also tend to move a lot (partially because I avoid our car like the plague, but that's a different story), but I'm pretty sure that diet plays a large part in my weight and health.

Any thoughts about why people are not concerned about animal welfare when it comes to animals providing our food?  Do you think people don't know about it?  Are we just so used to seeing animals crammed together that it seems normal now instead of cruel?  I'd love to hear your thoughts.