Farm to Fridge

Many of us don’t know how our food is being grown. The books CAFO Reader by Daniel Imhoff and Slaughterhouse by Gail A. Eisnitz are telling us a painful and shocking story behind our food processing. In this blog I will discuss about “Farm to Fridge” by Mercy for animals, our modern farms and slaughterhouses confine thousands of animals such as chickens, turkeys, pigs, and cows in small spaces under unbearable and horrifying conditions. They are denied from fresh air, sun light, and exercises. Workers of these slaughterhouses/farms kill animals ruthlessly, crudely, etc. I have seen in this video that our domestic animals, such as chickens, turkeys, cows, and pigs are the most abused animals as well as the most neglected animals by the workers. 

           I’ll start with chickens and turkeys, the video shows how male baby chicks do not even live for more than a day, as they are dropped into a grinder right after their birth, killing them. There’s even more, male baby chicks are also killed by being put in a plastic bag which suffocates them by the workers.  The female baby chicks have it even worse; their beaks are chopped off forcefully with a laser and put them in a tiny wire cages. Same things happens with the piglets. When pigs are sick or have an illness they are slammed to the ground head on killing them instantly or killing them by carbon dioxide. There are more, Cows are unfairly treated because their tail, nerve, and bones are cut off without any painkillers similar to what happens to female baby chicks. In addition, Baby cubs are forcefully taken away from their mother, never meeting each other again. According to the Slaughterhouse,” skinning cattle while they were still alive”. This means how the helpless animals are tortured and dismembered alive. "It is also really dangerous for the skinners and the rest of us” (Gail A pages 29).Gail says while live cattle’s skinning some of workers are injured because at that time cattle violently fighting and struggling to survive. That’s not all, there are many other animals are living in overcrowded and filthy conditions, as well as being confined to cages that are as big as them. Is this a food that we consume everyday?