The Smart Parent's Guide to Raising Vegan Kids by Eric C. Lindstrom

Author:Eric C. Lindstrom
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781510733473
Publisher: Skyhorse Publishing
Published: 2018-06-11T16:00:00+00:00

I was tweeting the other day—vegans are known to tweet up to five times a day due to the amount of fiber (optics) in our diet—and I came across this headline: “Dolphin Safe Does Not Mean Tuna Safe,” and it made me think about how often consumers are often duped when shopping for food. They are somehow led to believe that their choices in what they purchase and consume is okay based entirely on marketing terms.

In this case, who is looking out for the tuna? Or, the other 250,000 species of marine life that are captured and killed for food? And while the dolphin may be “safe” from this one company (they aren’t), they are hardly safe from the other human horrors they face every day in their waters, not the least of which is pollution (which is associated with the meat and dairy industries).

“Free-range” and “grass-fed” are two other examples of catchy marketing slogans to make omnivores feel better about what they’re buying. In whatever ways the animal is treated in advance of being caged, tortured, and killed makes little difference to the animal. Of course, animals can’t read (although some chimpanzees can use typewriters and understand sign language). For the meat eater, these words might make a difference, but it’s not much of a consolation to the chickens, pigs, turkeys, and cows they are referring to.

“Cage Free” indicates that birds are raised without cages, but it does not describe other living conditions. Cage-free eggs could have come from birds raised indoors, in overcrowded conditions, and without access to daylight, let alone pasture. The USDA has not developed any standards for this label, and it, along with other yuppy marketing terms, is misleading to the consumer. If someone witnessed the treatment and conditions a “cage free” hen is legally allowed to endure, I don’t think they’d buy eggs anymore.

Basically, if the carton says “cage,” those hens aren’t free.

“Animal Welfare Approved” means the animals have access to the outdoors and are able to engage in natural behaviors. No cages or crates may be used to confine the animals, and growth hormones and subtherapeutic antibiotics are not allowed. Some surgical mutilations, such as beak-mutilation of egg-laying hens, are prohibited, but others, such as castration without anesthesia, are permitted. Not sure if you’ve ever seen videos of how farmers castrate baby pigs, but this act alone is enough for me to say I am vegan for life.

There is a belief that “hormone-free” milk is much better for you than any other kind of milk . . . you know, the kind that contains casein, the cancer-escalating phosphoproteins. It isn’t. There is a reason milk marketing doesn’t mention casein. No one would ever buy milk again (which would be quite a relief to those hormone-free, grass-fed, raped-by-a-farmer dairy cows). By the way, all milk has hormones.

Probably the most troubling of these labels is the one so many boutique butcheries brag about in their marketing: “Humanely Slaughtered.” There is nothing humane, ever, about killing someone who doesn’t want to be killed.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.