I don’t think that it is inherently wrong to eat meat. Humanity has spent thousands of years domesticating animals for use as food. Physically, people are designed to eat meat along with the bajillion other things we are designed, as omnivores, to eat. I do think that it is wrong, categorically and unquestionably wrong, to torture an animal before eating it.

This is not a happy post. It’s an upsetting post. There is no knitting. But it’s a post I’ve been thinking about for a long time about an issue that is important to me. I’ll get some of Ellie’s Christmas video edited for tomorrow to take the edge off. Here we go.

Most Americans don’t know where their chicken nuggets come from. When we think of chickens, we think of chickens pecking away in the dirt until someone wrings their necks, plucks them and makes chicken and dumplings. Cows graze in a pastoral meadow until they get bonked on the head (quietly and from behind where they won’t see it coming) for hamburger. Pigs root in the mud, get fat on slops and make friends with spiders until they magically transform into bacon.

Most Americans haven’t seen or even heard of a factory farm. In these mechanized wonders, animals are treated as commodities rather than living creatures so that institutionalized cruelty can provide Americans with cheap meat. I’ve provided links throughout this post if you choose to know more, but feel free to just trust me when I say it’s bad. Very bad. So bad that even if you don’t think that animals are especially sentient, just knowing the filth and squalor and damage to the environment that produces your chicken sandwich will be enough to make you skip it today.

Food animals are not just mistreated in life, but also in death. The US Humane Slaughter Laws are only as good as their enforcement (and don’t apply to poultry) and the USDA has proven over and over again that they can’t be trusted. Remember that downed dairy cattle in the school lunch meat thing? Or more recently, the appalling cruelty to veal calves (which was ignored by the USDA inspector who was present at the time*) and pigs (not to mention the pregnant sows jammed in gestation crates where they can’t even turn around). The cruelties to poultry are too numerable to list. A quick Google search will turn up many many many more incidents of abuse and cruelty in factory farms and slaughter houses that have nothing to do with the production of food.

In 2009, the Miracle household stopped eating meat (and gelatin, lard, etc.) unless I was confident that it was treated like an animal while it still was one. We order local, we buy Certified Humane, we read labels, we do our homework on brands before purchasing. Since we live in the rural south, this pretty much means that we are vegetarians outside our home. And in our home, we eat meat about once a week. In 2010, we will also reduce the amount of non-organic dairy we use. This is going to be harder than just not eating meat because of availability (and our devotion to cheese of all kinds). Organic certification has an animal welfare component and is more strictly overseen. We already use organic milk and eggs, so we’ll start 2010 with butter (organic butter costs twice as much, so we have to reduce our consumption by half). I’ll be trying new recipes and revamping old favorites. I think I’ll start sharing when I come across something delicious.

All this to say, this country has a problem with animal cruelty: puppy mills, abandoned, neglected and abused pets, abuse of feral cats, faux fur that isn’t faux, dog fighting, hog fighting, cock fighting, unnecessary and unnecessarily inhumane animal testing and even something as cute as a chicken nugget. I am through being a part of it.

If you feel the same, the Meatless Monday movement is a great place to start reducing suffering and make people more aware of where their food comes from. Try a classic Peanut Butter and Jelly for lunch instead of a turkey sandwich a couple times a week. Reduce your consumption. Reduce suffering. Let the industry know that this is not OK.

*As far as I can tell, that guy still has his job. The USDA won’t answer my emails, the HSUS has no further information. There is VIDEO EVIDENCE that the guy endangered our food supply, and the only thing anyone will will say is that the “matter is under investigation.” At the risk of sounding like a conspiracy nut: that is how our government is looking out for you.