Ten Reasons to Skip Turkey This Thanksgiving

7/24/2019 Ten Reasons to Skip Turkey This Thanksgiving

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Many times I'm told I should stop protecting animals and start protecting people. I'm deeply

concerned about the poor/the children/the elderly/the sick and those persecuted because of race, color and

creed. Their suffering is my suffering, but at least they can talk for their own defense; animals cannot!"#.

$ichard #alore, %merican %uthor and %nimal %cti&ist

Around this time of the year, many, many individual turkeys,

around 40 million individuals a year, suffer and die, just on the time around

thanksgiving. It is a terrible time for them. There is no mercy, nor any

compassion, given to these innocent creatures. They are simply treated like

commodities and have their lives, emotions, minds, and bodies, completely

and utterly broken under the brutality, callousness, and indifference of human

beings. I have decided to write this article to help give them a voice. I know

that If I were about to die, I would want someone to speak out for me, and try

to make a difference for me.


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rom the beginnings of their lives in

indifferent and pitiless hatcheries, waiting to

be sent to their miserable lives in factory

farms.


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This is a machine where the chicks are callously and painfully being debeaked. This is done

without anesthetic, or any kind of pain reliever. !ater on, their toes are also removed in a way that

is e"ually painful and without any kind of relief from suffering, including bleeding, chipping, or

fractures. The fact that they are having their natural bodies being deformed and mutilated in the

first place, especially at such a young and tender age, is already corrupt enough.


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To their time as adolescent turkeys wasted

languishing in cruel and overcrowded farms.

#ebeaking is a common act of violence and mutilation forced upon many farmed

birds, but especially turkeys and chickens. This merciless practice of is enforced upon them because

otherwise, the stress of the cramped, filthy, noisy, and overcrowded conditions of the filthy farms

they$re living in would otherwise kill all of them. Turkeys, as well as chickens and other farmed

birds, decide their social status based upon a pecking order, so softly pecking at one another, forhealthy turkeys and chickens, would be a normal social behavior. %ut because there are too many

birds to make any kind of society or community, and the stress of the environment is overwhelming,

turkeys, chickens, and other birds, peck at each other incessantly, obsessively and constantly, and

thus are debeaked and detoed to prevent them from killing each other and bruising and injuring

each other. &owever, the primary

concern to those raising them is usually the degradation of the held "uality of the products their

bodies will be deformed and mutilated into after reaching the slaughterhouses, and not their

suffering and death. There is no e'cuse for this kind of brutality in the first place, so the simple

answer would be to never force them to live or breathe in these horrid conditions to begin with. I

see this treatment as a testament to the fact that we humans have an incredibly shallow and vapid

understanding of other animals. There would be no way to inflict these abominations and atrocitiesupon them unless we thought of them as being absolutely meaningless and without any purpose,

dignity, or beauty.


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A genetically created white turkey, suffering in a filthy andabominable farm. Turkeys in this farm like In the above image are stuck living in inches upon

inches of their own waste, and have no way out of their suffering and misery in these terrible places.

There is a high risk of disease from the filth, feces, mold, and other disgusting things in their

environments. %ecause they are crammed together, they are also under threat of catching diseases

from other turkeys. (any of these turkeys may have to be fed antibiotics to keep them from


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suffering from diseases.

This is not an isolated case, nor something rare in the

industry) this cruelty has been going on for decades. To meet the enormous demand for the animal$s

flesh and body parts like legs, wings, thighs, and necks, as many as 40 million individual turkeys

every year are bred, and in a single shed on the average modern farm, there may be hundreds of

thousands of turkeys. It is not just a handful running around a barn, which is far too small and

unrealistic for the massive amounts that are brought into e'istence, all for the sole purpose of being

subjected to a mercilessly enforced death. It is also not realistic to e'pect any small amount of birds

to satiate the desires of around over *00 million Americans.

As many as *00 million turkeys are killed in total every year.

The number of turkeys is not the only problem. These turkeys are bred to grow five times faster

than would be natural or normal for any turkey, or any living being to grow. In particular, the

breasts of turkeys grow grotes"uely overweight before their young bodies are ready to handle it.

(any turkeys, during this terrible time of their lives,

may actually just cease to be able to walk, or drop dead before they are even able to be transported

to their deaths. The health and respiratory problems, the issues with their bones and tissues

carrying their weight, in addition to the already filthy, loveless, stressful, overcrowded and terrible

living environments they are in is often enough to kill them by itself. +o matter what scale of thefarm, there are far to many turkeys to ever be raised in any comfortable manner. ven if they could

be raised comfortably, it wouldn$t even matter.

At the end, they would just be killed, denying

them their right and desire to live a happy, natural, and normal life. -illing and enforcing death is

the most e'treme act of violence, and the right to live is a simple desire of all life. -illing a turkey,

just as killing any kind of animal, is something which is by it$s very definition, nature, and essence

unmerciful, brutal, and cruel. They would also e'perience the e'act same transportation and killing

techni"ues as birds from any type of farm would.


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To being packed up and treated like commodities on

trucks. +o animals in particular are protected when it comes to transportation.Turkeys and chickens are treated absolutely the worst, along with other farmed birds, as birds in

general are not even given attempted protection by the law. These animals are thought of as units or

commodities by the industry. They have numbers put onto their ears and bodies, are crammed into

tiny crates, are separated from their mothers, siblings, and young, and are raised and fed in the

first place purely to be killed and turned into products. They are transported in any weather, hot,

cold, snowing, raining, through hail, and on any kind of road, whether it is bumpy or smooth,

because there is simply no concern for their wellbeing beyond what their bodies may provide when

turned into products.

There is no room for love, compassion, or any real, genuine respect, or

consideration In all of that mess, and there is no way for them to have peace as long as they arebeing farmed. The sort of raising that takes place with them, and the fact that they are called

/livestock which is an e'tremely objectifying term, is testament enough to this. I don$t think they

are even considered living beings. &ow do you truly love, cherish, and respect a being, and know

that they have a life that is precious to them, when that being is referred to and thought of as

someone$s property or a product1

To think that there would be any active attempt to save or relieve

the suffering of turkeys, chickens, or any farmed animals, which would be highly inconvenient to


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the industry, is very na2ve. Their only real freedom is in an absolute right to have, at the very least,

their lives, to have their young, or to have their mothers, and other individuals they care about, and

their freedom from humankind$s e'ploitation.

To being

painfully, repetitively, and mercilessly killed in

slaughterhouses and abattoirs, turkeys are never treated

with dignity or respect they deserve, or ever given the right

to live in peace or without humanenforced torment or

e'ploitation for a single moment of their lives.

A group of turkeys, swinging upside down and undoubtedly terrified from the noise andsmell of blood and fear around them, in an assembly line. (ost turkeys today are killed when they are only 30

to 40 days old. They are still basically babies, without a mother or anyone to care for them, being brutally


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destroyed and killed over something petty and arbitrary that they do not even understand. Imagine if you

were screaming for your life in a place where no one could hear you and that was legal.

5hat only makes this worse is the fact that turkeys and other birds, especially

chickens, are not in any way, at all protected by law from cruelty in slaughter. Any amount of abuse, cruelty,

inaccuracy, clumsiness, or apathy from the workers can regularly spell immense injury and torment, even

more than they were already being forced to e'perience. arming is animal cruelty, abuse, and torment

by it$s very nature. Any kind of forced suffering, death, or torment upon an animal can bedescribed as such, regardless of what purpose it$s for or why anyone wants it to happen.

&ere are ten very good

reasons to spare a turkey$s life this

thanksgiving, and to choose a harmless and

compassionate alternative instead.

Ten

6easons to 7kip 7erving Turkey this

Thanksgiving

By Lori Zito on This Dish is Veg

Lori's Top Ten Reasons to Skip the Turkey this Year

. 8ou are what you eat. 5hen you choose to eat foods that nourish your body

A+# soul 9not ones that contain the energy of suffering and cruelty they

endured: you will feel e'traordinary.

2. You will have more room on your plate or all the other goo! stu.

". You #an have an e$tra glass o wine without alling into the turkey%in!u#e!

slum&er.

. (t might stimulate some V)RY interesting #onversation at your !inner ta&le.


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;. 8ou will set an e'ample that may create a ripple effect and save hundreds of

animals< lives.

*. You won't have to #hoose &etween the +light or !ark meat+... that's a really gross

,uestion when you think a&out it anyway-

=. 8ou will give your body a reprieve from gobs of cholesterol, saturated fats,

and hormones. Turkey is +>T a health food. Turkey is loaded with fat and

cholesterol, and it has ?ero fiber. Turkey is also fre"uently tainted with

salmonella and campylobacter bacteria.

. Less #alories at !inner leaves more #alories or !essert-

@. #ining sans animals ensures that the food on your plate wasn


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The death toll of

holidays like thanksgiving, and the eating of animals brutalized

esh, dried blood, the growth hormones and chemicals embedded

in their esh, and dead fat in general does not only come upon

turkeys and other animals however. It also falls upon theenvironment and mankind, like an unseen haze of death and

suering. The death toll of these animals, and the number In

total, in ust !merica by itself, "# billion animals are killed every

year so that their esh can be served in grocery stores,

restaurants, public eateries, fast food places, and homes all over

the country, all to satiate the appetite that around $## million

!mericans have for their esh. This death toll not only speaks of

unspeakable amounts of animal suering, abuse, and neglect,

gone unheard and unnoticed, but also of a great amount ofwreaked upon the earth and upon mankind.

The

collective amount of food in the form of grain, and water eaten

and drunken by turkeys and other farmed birds and animals in

general, takes an enormous strain on the crop soil, and on the

water supply of not only !merica, but also other nations.

%uch of

the feed and grain, as well as the water that these animals drink,is sourced from other countries, many of them being poorer than

!merica. These grains and this water could easily go into satiating

the hunger and &uenching the thirst of countless human beings

whom are starving and living without clean water all throughout

the world, including those in our own country. This is not the only

thing however. Imagine if "# billion people lived in tiny, crowded

spaces all over the country, and had no sewer systems. They

would produce a whole lot of waste, with no kind of intelligent or

e'cient means to get rid of that waste.This is the reality of

having "# billion conscious, living, breathing, and feeling beings

kept as commodities, brought into e(istence and life merely for

the human)devised purpose of being killed and cut and mutilated

into small pieces of themselves which are then called products.


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The waste of animals is often disposed of in careless and

threatening ways, such as being released into the air, dumped

into waterways, and heaped into the soil. This has resulted in the

death and suering of many wild animals, as well as a great

amount of discomfort and severe health detriment of those incommunities around factory farms, or otherwise known as

intensive farms, where most of these animals are raised.

Turkeys

enoying thanksgiving dinner at *arm +anctuary. This is their right to live, and live

well, being respected. eing free to live natural, normal, happy and healthy lives is

the right of all living beings. -uman or animal, it does not matter. These beautiful

turkeys have everything in the world to be thankful for, which this sanctuary has

helped to prepare and give them life, love, happiness, and freedom. /o one should

ever be deprived of these things. !ll beings deserve to have them.

The esh industry, and animal farming industries in general,

are not only causing untold, uncountable suering, death,torment, and misery to animals, but also great harm to the

environment and people all throughout the world. 0eople who

dont have anything to eat, and who are losing their food to feed

the farmed animals of wealthier or more powerful nations, and

those who are living in locations or areas around intensive farms,


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and suer great problems to their health, &uality of life, and well)

being from the stench, chemicals, and pollution. esides all of this

however, please do consider yourself. 1ust as the list says, turkeys

and other modern factory farmed animals are inected and fed

with everything from growth hormones to keep them from beingtoo small for market weight, antibiotics to make sure they dont

die of disease from their 2lthy living conditions, and kept in

horribly small crates, or crowded, noisy, dark sheds, 2lling their

esh with the chemicals of misery, torment, fear, and horror.

0lease understand that your choices in what you choose to eat,

has a great on the individual beings you choose to eat, a terrible

aect on the environment, on other people, and on things on

earth as a whole, including yourself.

3ets work towards healing and respecting animals, the earth,

other people, and ourselves through our food choices. 4e can do

better5! 6egan Thanksgiving ook

7Twas the /ight efore

Thanksgiving By Dav Pikey This book is

all about a group of children, who discover that after playing with eight funny,

e(uberant turkeys on a farm, that the turkeys were going to be saved for

thanksgiving. +hocked and scared for the turkeys lives, they later adopt these

turkeys, and have a wonderful vegetarian thanksgiving dinner.

Ten Reasons to Skip Turkey This Thanksgiving

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