I sure hope this doesn't start a big war, but I was wondering how many of you are vegan?
I recently got a request for a vegan cake, and did some research. What I learned has made me sick to my stomach, and I have been a meat eater my whole life. But right now I'm physically sick to my stomach. The treatment of chickens, in particular, including how the egg hatcheries kill all the male chicks when they hatch, and usually by grinding them up alive, if I'm to believe what I've read.
Ugh, I'm so disgusted and absolutely horrified. But I don't know what to do now that I have this business that is all about the eggs and butter, you know? And does it do any good to convert to vegan if my family still wants to stay carnivorous? We'd still be buying meat, eggs, and dairy.
Now my brain is all scrambled up and I need a friggin' drink.
One thing to ponder is how much of it is propaganda designed to make you feel the way you do right now and how much is true.
I live in a rural area and know people who have worked in poultry farms, own dairy farms or are involved in raising animals for meat and none of them are disgusted enough by what they see to make them go vegan.
I've watched cows get butchered too and that isn't as bad as some people would make it out too, my FIL raises cattle for beef.
There is another side that often isn't looked at by people who don't believe in killing animals for meat, if you don't allow hunting the animals will get sick because the population gets too high. Game and fish just moved some elk into our area in the last year or so to protect them from that, the area they came from was getting too thick.
I say go ahead and try vegan for a while and see if it's right for your. It couldn't hurt. You need to remember, however, that under the same premise you would need to eliminate any leather products and some vitamins that contain animal protiens and gelatins. You would also need to scour your cosmetics cabinets and look at the ingredients in your eyeshadows, base and powders. It's not just that cosmetics and hair products are tested (were tested) on animals, but that they also include animal protiens as ingredients. It's tricky.
I have a friend who is vegan but I can honestly say that it is not a lifestyle that is right for me.
Vegan is not just a food choice but a lifestyle.What you use on a daily basis and how it affects the eco system. You have many options when it comes to meat and dairy. Look for Completely free to roam chickens and cows. Buy eggs from the farmers market et.
Now you cannot do this all for you baking but it is a start.
I know some of the stuff I've read is made to provoke the reaction I'm having. But I can't seem to find any material to read that shows the other side. Not that I can see a good side to grinding up male baby chickens alive, but....I guess I don't want to be reactionary, but oh, that is so sickening.
And I'm not opposed to hunting. It's the slaughterhouses....how they chute the animals down to the kill floor, and they wait in line knowing what's coming, scared and messing themselves.
It seems less cruel to kill one animal and use every part of it than to kill thousands for the purpose of convenience or profit.
Oh, geez, I sound like a nutcase. Maybe I should calm down a little then do some more research. We do have a farm around here, maybe I should talk to one of the farmers.....
OOooh!! I heard Wild Ots is a good one!!
Basically specialty markets like these will carry free range, free to roam meats. This means that they are allowed to feed all day every day. Not all free range is all day all week. The goverment only requires twenty minutes, so it is key to look for free roam all day everyday.
I buy Organic milk or Soy milk also. Hormone free all the time.
I truly know how you feel but in our world today it is hard to be all vegan. You basically cannot eat out. the shoes you wear the sheep that made the sweater and so on!
I have seen a lot of the horrible images. You can eat meat and not be cruel. I live outside of the city and we have farms near us. We are about 30,000 in my city. Anyway there are farmers willing to sell cows by the quarter and such. It just takes a bit of leg work!
I agree with the ladies above. We could never be vegan, but we try to buy our meat from sources that aren't so cruel. We try to buy as many organic, free range, grass fed things as we can. We don't have any good markets close to us, but we live close to the country, so we can buy some things directly from the farm.
Like others said, too, those pictures are taken to make you feel bad. Yeah, there are some places that are just horrible, especially the chickens. But, remember, they wouldn't take pictures of happy chiclkens - that wouldn't get the point across.
Do what feels right to you. I think it would be very hard for you to be vegan if your family didn't feel the same way. Like somebody else said, it isn't just the obvious animal products that you'd have to cut out. We have some vegan friends, and their daughter tries to make mine feel guilty about marshmallows & gummy bears, because they both have gelatin.
Did you know that they even sell vegan powdered sugar? About half the sugar in the world (from what I read online) is made using bone char as a filter.
I've never heard of the grinding up of male chicks when they are alive and I've done a lot of research on meat and fish. I'm not saying it's not possible but I'm doubtful that that statement is true. Many agencies wouldn't allow it. The treatment of chickens is gross though, they are mistreated. I buy amish-organic-free range chicken and eggs for this reason. Not only health aspect of the organic but also because of the way they treat their animals when raising them. Just means a healthier product. The main companies that mis-treat their animals are the big ones, that I won't list here. Not all meat companies of beef or dairy are bad though either. There is a dairy farm (can't remember the name) that their cows are treated better than most people. They even have this special bedding for the cows that are more like a water bed and they get massages. Just look on the packaging for any clues and do some reseach on the companies.
I'm in no way vegan. I was a vegitarian for 15 years until I had my first bite of steak and I have not looked back since. Something like turning vegan is a huge comitment and a way of life.
Well, I'm starting to calm down now....a couple bottles of Guiness will do that for me.
Grinding up the male chicks isn't the only way they kill them....according to these articles, some of them are simply thrown into garbage bags and left to suffocate. Another place in Israel, I think it was developed a killing machine to electrocute them "humanely".
You know, I know it's not a sin to eat meat, and I know you have to kill the animal to eat it. And I never had a problem with killing an animal to feed your family, as long as none of it goes to waste. But I don't understand why you'd kill half of all chickens hatched, whatever method you use. At least if you raise them to be roosters for food, there's a purpose to their extermination. Killing them at birth is such a WASTE. Hell, I'd eat a rooster. It's better than killing the chick because you don't feel like raising it.
Time for another Guiness.
I have met a few vegans I would like to see ground up alive...then again I have also met a few meat eaters I would like to see ground up too.
I LOVE MEAT!
And perhaps I am a bad person, and by no means do I find pointless harm to anything ok, but to me there are so many worse things going on in this world, but thats just me.
~Alicia
Oh, I know there are worse things going on, like genocide, etc. It just bugs me that people can be so cruel. And that I was so ignorant.
I mean, what kind of person can just crush a baby chicken to death? I understand killing the family pig and eating him because that's where you get your nutrition. But killing boy chicks for no real reason....what does that say about people? And debeaking a bird because it pecks when it's bored and frustrated, which it's doing because you have it confined in a tiny cage all day every day, with no break? And force molting is something else, too. That just seems like cruelty for the sake of cruelty.
Don't get me wrong, I like meat, too!! I just found out about this stuff in the last 24 hours, and I'm apalled. I guess I should stop going on about it before I start a fight. I would hate to have a thread I started locked.
Thanks for listening to my panicky rant, everyone. I think I'm going to be doing a lot of shopping at Wild Oats now.
The more you look into things the more you'll start hating everything. It's not just meat, you'd be appalled at the way things happen in all kinds of markets. It's up to you what to believe and how you choose to live. For example, you may think free range chicken automatically means better, but many free range farms are worse than caged ones because the chickens are way overcrowded. They're just overcrowded in a dirty, poopy "yard" instead of a cage. If those kinds of things bother you, the best solution is to find local farms that you can visit and see how they treat the animals. Keep in mind too, that while some practices of raising animals is not the best, we've come a long way in terms of raising and slaughtering animals. If you think what happens today is bad, just research how things used to be done!
You should really start looking into how the meat and other produce that you buy is produced and slaughtered. It's important to be an informed consumer as the only way food production will change is if people start opening their eyes to how it is produced and making ethical purchasing choices.
I recommend reading 'The Meat Book' by Hugh fearnley Whittingstall - its a British book but is very open about how meat is produced as well as showing you how to make ethical choices.
I only buy meat directly from organic farmers who slaughter their animals on site. We keep our own chickens for eggs and eat them when they're too old to lay - about two years or so old. I only buy produce made with free range eggs because the treatment of battery farmed chickens disgusts me.
Please use your shock to change the way you purchase food, don't become numb to it. It would mean a massive lifetsyle change - eating out for example is tricky and I tend to eat vegetarian when out as you can't be sure where the meat has come from. It means no more fast food, particularly KFC who are notoriously cruel.
Good luck
I, too have see the videos of the chicks being ground up and thrown in plastic bags to suffocate. They show them gasping for breath. It is heartbreaking. I am not a vegetarian or a vegan, but don't eat much meat. I hate to get behind the trucks transporting pigs to market where they are packed in so tightly they can't even lie down. Sickening. I do try not to buy anything leather, and use cosmetics that are not animal tested. I also contribute to several different animal programs and write letters to congresspersons about cruelty. Even in hunting where they skin the little polar bears alive and hunt wolves in the snow so they don't have a chance. That's all folks 
Wow...this is definitely new information to me. My 3 yr old cried when a opossum got one of the chickens the other night (there's only about 20 in a super large cage w/a 'pond') and they are only used for eggs.....heck, most are named....so sad....b/c I love chicken...but will think twice b4 I order it again (I say order b/c I don't cook - LOL!)
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