Week 10 - KFC Canada gives in to PETA's demands after 5 years

KFC Canada is the only KFC to give into PETAs demands to stop the cruel slaughtering of their chickens. Its been over 5 years since the beginning of PETAs protest against the fast food giant KFC. I mean KFC is a huge chain -- it's popular not only in the US but in Europe and even in South Africa when I went this past spring break.

PETAs protests and boycott of KFC was to stop the worst abuses of their chickens such as "scalding birds to death, slitting their throats while they're still conscious, and drugging and breeding them to grow so large that they cripple beneath their own weight."

PETA has gotten KFC Canada, which is owned by a different company than the KFC restaurants in other countries, to make a number of changes as outlined in their new animal welfare plan. Below you will find the changes KFC is making to drastically improve the lives of their chickens:

• Phase in purchases of 100 percent of its chickens from suppliers that use controlled-atmosphere killing (CAK)—the least cruel form of poultry slaughter ever developed. KFC Canada is the first major restaurant chain to commit to phasing in the exclusive purchasing of chicken meat from CAK slaughterhouses.
• Add a vegan faux-chicken item to the menu of all 461 Priszm-owned KFC restaurants (more than half of all the KFCs in Canada).
• Improve its animal welfare audit criteria to reduce the number of broken bones and other injuries suffered by birds.
• Urge its suppliers to adopt better practices, including improved lighting, lower stocking density and ammonia levels, and a phaseout of growth-promoting drugs and breeding practices that painfully cripple chickens.
• Form an animal welfare advisory panel to monitor the changes and recommend further advancements.

KUDOS to KFC Canada for being a pioneer and leading the way for other KFCs and fast food chains to adopt an animal welfare plan.

As an FYI: PETA is still boycotting other KFC fast-food chains around the world until they make similar changes.

Week 9 - HBO's "Running for Their Lives"

Above you will find part one of HBO's powerful documentary on horse slaughtering called "Running for their Lives." This documentary follows the "stable to table in 7 days" journey of a once champion race horse named No Day Off. Stable to table in 7 days describes the heartless slaughtering of race horses who don't win.

Horses who are not winners or used to be but are now losing are sold by their owners to what the video refers to as "meat men" for a mere few hundred bucks. These horses are sold by their owners because 1) they "aren't running good no more," 2) to cut costs from the owners -- why? because paying to maintain them and paying for veterinarians costs the owners a lot of money. While the owners do not make much money off of selling the horses to the meat man (its really nothing since the horses are sold for $300, $400, and at max $500 dollars) the horse slaughtering industry still manages to purchase over 100,000 horses for slaughter.

To top it off, the American Horse Slaughter Prevention Act, which passed last year in the House but has yet to be passed in the Senate, seems to have a huge loop hole in it. This loophole even adds more to the suffering of these horses. This US law bans horses from being slaughtered in the US -- it does nothing to really stop the outsourcing of this slaughtering to neighboring countries such as Mexico and Canada. What makes these horses suffering even worse is 1) the amount of traveling these horses have to go through to be taken to the slaughterhouse and 2) there are relatively zero restrictions in Mexico and Canada on how these animals can be slaughtered when they are taken there.

Using your dollars to stop supporting companies that support rodeos, horse races and the horse slaughtering industry is one of the most effective ways to change these peoples behavior. Also write your local Congressman and Senator and let them know you have seen this video and that you are outraged that this is happening in America!

DISCLAIMER -- this video is graphic showing the slaughtering process where horses are processed and herded like cattle, "stunned" with a bolt gun and/or bled to death hanging by their feet.

Week 8 - European Union urged to review animal testing

There are over 11 million animals that are killed annually in the European Union because of animal testing. I tried to research the amount of animals killed in the US because of research purposes but I wasn't successful. It turns out that because there are so many animals in laboratories and records are not kept for all of these animals being used, estimates of the number of animals tortured and killed in US laboratories very widely. If it is 11 million in the EU, however, imagine how much it is in the US! Nonetheless the number of animals killed in the EU was surprising to me and really led me think about how necessary the use of animals is for research.Either way I applaud Jane Goodall, the world expert on primates, for urging the EU to look at alternatives for animal testing. The full story can be found here. While the EU is already leading the US on it's policy towards curbing animal cruelty, Goodall has pushed the EU to adopt more stringent policies towards eradicating animal testing. Among her suggestions Goodall suggested that Nobel Peace prizes for scientific breakthroughs be given to experiments that avoided using animal testing. Furthermore Goodall pushed for more work to be done on "new ways of testing and experimenting that will not involve the use of live, sentient beings."

Week 7 - Oprah goes Vegan....

...well, not forever. Actually she's only going VEGAN for 21 days in order to "cleanse" herself.
Last night I was talking to my sister about trying to cut down on my meat consumption and even maybe going vegetarian. We talked a little bit before she said hey -- I think Oprah is actually going vegan for a while. I was a little surprised, but more curious so I watched the episode on TIVO.

Inspired by self-help expert Kathy Freston's book Quantum Wellness Oprah and her production staff are adopting the vegan lifestyle and cutting caffeine, sugar, alcohol, gluten from their lives. the show shed light on the vegan lifestyle and what it means to be Vegan. I would have liked to see more emphasis on the reasons why those who are vegan decide to do BUT the simple fact that veganism is even featured on Oprah makes me happy. This woman is a powerhouse plain and simple. Millions of women watch her show everyday -- overall Oprah has an insane and dedicated fan base. SO thank you Oprah for exposing millions of people to the vegan lifestyle.

However, on her show Oprah has a gourmet chef cooking her the vegan meals she will be eating for 21 days. But lets get real here... not everyone has a gourmet chef they can hire to make their vegan lives easier. Honestly I find it hard to cut regular meat out of my life, let alone all animal products. So while its nice that Oprah introduced veganism to the millions of viewers watching her show, she should have done more to focus on how the everyday Joe can go vegan.

Week 6 - Top Ten Reasons to go Veg During World Vegitarian Week

World Vegetarian Week is this week -- so in honor of that I decided to do some research on going Veg and here is what I found. While I wont share you the top ten reasons to go vegetarian I do want to share with you my favorite ones:

#1 -- Helping animals also helps the poor
We feed animals over 760 million tons of grain to our farm animals -- that's SOOO much food that can be feeding the billions of people in the world who go hungry every day. Want to put a big dent in global poverty? Think about going VEG!

#3 -- Eating meat is bad for the environment!
The UN recently reported that eating meat is "one of the … most significant contributors to the most serious environmental problems, at every scale from local to global.” The UN cites an example where eating meat causes 40% more greenhouse gas emissions than all the cars, trucks, and planes in the world combined.

#7 -- Cancer
Dr. T. Colin Campbell, one of the world’s foremost epidemiological scientists and director of the largest and most comprehensive large study ever undertaken of the relationship between diet and the risk of developing disease, states that: "No chemical carcinogen is nearly so important in causing human cancer as animal protein.” That's kinda scary.While I still find it really hard to cut meat out of my life I have pledged to cut my consumption of meat to one serving a day. Baby steps right?

To catch all top ten according to PETA visit this link.

Week 5 - I love chicken but I want to eat NORMAL chickens...

OK so out of all of the different animals to eat chicken is by far the one I eat the most. I love chicken. I have it at least 5-6 times a week.... multiply that times 52 and that means over 300 servings of chicken per year. I am pretty sure other people share the same love for chicken as I do -- that's why it is no surprise that 90% of the all the animals slaughtered are chickens. That's a lot of chicken.

So you can understand why I am so absolutely disgusted by techniques used by factory farmers to grow and plump up chickens that eventually end up on my dinner plate.

The broiler chicken industry, which is comprised of only 60 companies, produces over 6 billion chickens a year for slaughter -- that is one chicken for every single person -- CRAZY. These chickens are selectively bread and genetically altered in order to create fatter thighs and breasts. The effects of this are chickens that are so heavy they cannot support their weight, making it hard for them to stand -- let alone walk! These birds are bred to grow at an astonishingly unhealthy rate.

Lets put it this way, if we were raised the same way these chickens are raised we would be over 300lbs by the time we are 3 yrs old. 300 lbs!!!!! That is absolutely disgusting.

1) I think that subjecting these chickens to these growth hormones is inhumane.

2) Why would you want to eat a chicken that has been subjected to such hormones and such messed up treatment? It definitely cannot be good for your health to eat these chickens.

MORAL OF THE STORY -- if you eat chickens make sure they are organic and free range chickens. Not only is it good on your conscious, it is good for your health!

Week 4 - Wyoming Becomes the 50th State to Make Dog-Fighting a Felony

A good day for dogs everywhere...

This is a monumental occasion for all animal rights activist. Finally all 50 states have declared dog fighting, a criminal activity which involves more than 250,00 dogs each year and over 140,000 participants, a felony. Wyoming is the last state to make this activity a felony. Especially with Michael Vicks highly publicized arrest for his involvement for dog fighting Wyomings new law couldn't have come at a better time. This sends the message that dog fighting is not OK -- not OK in the country, not OK in big cities, and now finally it is NOT OK throughout the entire nation.

With over 140,000 human participants dog fighting is no small problem. This issue needs to be taken seriously and I feel that having a felony charge associated with this crime sends that message. The Humane Society of America declares this a new era for man's best friend... which makes me and my dog Calvin very happy :)!

Week 3 - Oprah's Show on Puppy Mills

So I have a dog and this is probably one of the most heart wrenching and emotional things I have seen in regards to animal cruelty. I have been subject to watching some really messed up stuff in regards to animal cruelty but because I saw this happening to a dog I couldn't believe it. It's just like when you told us the story of abuse to a dog and then later told us it was a pig. Just because I have a person connection with the animal makes the horrible treatment towards the animal 10xs worse.

Lisa Ling was the investigative journalist for Oprah and she went into a number of puppy mills with a hidden camera. According to the Humane Society of the United States there are as many of 10,000 puppy mills all across the United States. These puppy mills breed thorough breds by the dozens -- sometimes even hundred. They treat them like they were some sort of produce. Some of these dogs don't even get to see the outsides of their cages. Some are kept in their cages for up to 8 years and then shot and killed because the breeder no longer has any use for it.

One of the men that Lisa Ling was with said that he picked up a dog that did not know how to walk to his car. The dog was picked up from a puppy mill whose owner was going to shoot him unless the man came to pick the dog up within 45 minutes. The man says these breeders most often want to get rid of older females and younger males. Breeders only need one or two male dogs to breed with every 20 fertile females, so young female dogs are valuable in puppy mills.

For these breeders the dogs don't mean anything. They aren't their friends, they aren't considered family, as most dog owners consider their dogs, they are merely a piece of merchandise for the breeder. Many of these dogs don't even have a name -- it's really heartbreaking.

Week 2 - Being a meat eater without the guilt...

OK so since learning about animal cruelty I've had a moral dilemma when it came to eating meat. I hate the way that animals are treated in the factory/mass production style farming. You'd really have to be heartless not to at least think twice about eating meat after you see a few video clips and/or read about the cruelty to the mass majority of those animals.

Either way, while feeling very bad about the treatment of animals and thinking that I should do something about it, I continued to eat meat.

Hypocritical?

Yes - very much so.

What if, however, you could still eat meat and not feel bad about it? I mean what if the animals that you ate were treated humanely?

What if they lived the life an animal should live before you ate them?

At that point I would eat the animal.

Why?

Because the animal lived a good life and without the farmer raising the animal to eventually become killed for food the animal would have never existed at all.

Week 1 - Paul McCartney Goes Vegetarian

“If anyone wants to save the planet, all they have to do is just stop eating meat. That’s the single most important thing you could do. It’s staggering when you think about it. Vegetarianism takes care of so many things in one shot: ecology, famine, cruelty.”

-- Paul McCartney

On Earth Day this year, Sir Paul McCartney urged people to not only go green, but to eat greener as well. McCartney highlighted the fact that going vegetarian is not only an ethical choice that sends a message against animal cruelty, but going vegetarian can also curb the effects of global warming and world wide hunger. He went on to mention the health benefits of a vegetarian diet as well. Looking more closely into his quotes it becomes clear that McCartney is right about the incredible effects vegetarians can have on hunger and the environment. To see the differences that McCartney is talking about everyone would have to go veg. Problem with that is people feel like their individual actions do not effect the greater good -- I hope that the ending hunger and saving the environment shpeal will be enough for everyone to quit thinking that their actions don't make a difference. We've seen this happen with recycling campaigns, reducing water and energy usage campaigns, and other similar public service announcements.

To read the article on McCartney click here.