The Dumbest Thing I Believed In To Date: Humane Meat
I saw what "humane meat" was firsthand with my own eyes and realized I made a gigantic error, morally and intellectually.
Like most humans, one of my favorite things to eat growing up was cheeseburgers made from cow carcasses. Peering at the absurdly long lines at fast food drive thrus wherever I go, I can see I’m not the only human in the world who loves burgers. I probably ate hundreds and hundreds of these dead body patties before I finally stopped for good one night after I ate my last animal burger on my break at my grocery store job . Burgers are still one of my favorite things to eat, but it’s been nearly one-third of my life since I ate a burger that contained ingredients from slaughterhouses. The last animal burger I ever ate came from Whole Foods Market. In other words, the last burger I ever ate came from a place that supplied “food" made from animals who were treated far better and more responsibly than the norm, or so I had thought.
I don’t miss anything at all about the animal-based burgers I used to eat; I don’t miss eating patties that contained the mixed remains of up to one thousand different cows, I don’t miss the constipation, I don’t miss the blindness to what I was participating in, and I don’t miss supporting something that runs so extremely counter to my personal values and morals. I can say without a doubt that the top best tasting burgers I’ve had in my life haven’t even been any burgers that contained animal flesh, but some of the burgers that were made strictly from plants. To this day, my favorite burger joint is a plant-based restaurant called Meta Burger in Denver, Colorado, please try it if you’re ever in the area and are one of those humans who can actually go a meal without consuming death (I know, such a sacrifice).
Had I been educated as a child on what my food options were or had I been raised by parents who gave a damn about life forms that the norm is to discriminate against and utterly disregard, maybe I would have never even known the taste of these wildly popular death patties, which would have been just fine. All I was taught about cows as a child was that they make a “moo” sound and that they “give” us milk and beef.
Nobody taught me the glorious fact that humans exterminated all free-living natural cows and only allowed the cows who we genetically altered to produce superfluous flesh and milk (and who we could easily control) to keep living (well to be able to live for us, not for themselves and their family). Cows make far more sounds than just the basic “moo.” Nobody had taught me about the haunting bellowing sounds mother cows make after their babies are abducted from them on dairy farms or at livestock auctions, all so that their calf nourishment can be unnaturally redirected for ourselves to consume instead.
I hadn’t even been taught the basic fact that cows need to get pregnant and have a baby in order to make milk and that like human mammals, cows also carry their young inside of them for 9 months and have strong attachments to their babies, as well as to other cows too. Kids like me were not taught about the screams the cows make in the slaughterhouse during their last life chapter of exploitation, the grand finale of being used and abused for their ability to produce basic biological components like flesh and milk, things that we have no need for in the first place but have been programmed to become obsessed with to the point that we can’t imagine life without them. It’s also extremely common for cows to have their skin pulled, ears cut off, and limbs torn off while they’re bleeding out, but still alive and conscious. And how about how pregnant cows are commonly sent to slaughterhouses, the extra weight due to their developing baby earns their exploiters more money. Who cares though, isn’t it the taste of the end product that matters most of all? Oh yeah, and shouldn’t we get a pass since nature is brutal anyway?
When I was in my early 20s I was probably eating more burgers than any other point in my lifetime, partially because I enjoyed how easy they were to cook and because a short scene in a fictional movie called “Happiness” tricked me into believing that burgers were a health food. One day I randomly stumbled upon some zoo photographs online that took me by surprise. I think the intention of the photographer was to take visually appealing photos of the animals and to boost his portfolio, but nothing beyond that. The photos of elephants and all of the other animals who were confined to restrictive manmade and man-sanctioned environments we call ‘enclosures’ had a profound impact on me. The eyes and postures of the animals in each photo provided a window into how they felt, their eyes spoke volumes to me in a way that was almost overwhelming to swallow and digest. It doesn’t take a genius to recognize loneliness, depression, stress, boredom, sadness, disgust, and defeat in the facial expressions of others. I knew that my mind was not playing tricks on me. It made sense, we are animals too, and if we were placed in the same highly unnatural and artificial situations these other earthlings are placed in we’d inevitably be doomed to experience at least some of these same highly unpleasant emotions, again and again until we die.
In the past when I personally visited zoos as a kid I was too oblivious to notice all the misery and distress that was staring me right in the face. Like the majority of zoo visitors, I just wanted to be entertained and have something to do. But for once, as I looked over these zoomed in photos of the faces of zoo animals, I realized the lives of other beings should be taken seriously, simply because their lives and feelings are as real as our own, and if we believe we should be taken seriously then what is it about other beings that exempts their existence from having similar moral value?
For the first time in my life I saw members of other species as unique individuals with personhood, preferences, and priorities of their own. I didn’t grow up with any animals in my family, but maybe I would have come to this realization much sooner had I been lucky enough to have a companion growing up. Being born into a body that looked different than mine and speaking a language that sounded different than mine was not even close to a reasonable excuse not to care or to treat someone unfairly. Just like I didn’t choose where, when, or what I’d be born as, neither did any of the other animals we share this planet with.
Since the moment when I came across the zoo photos that had a profound impact on me I’ve visited many zoos, not as a fan or a supporter, but as an observer, a documenter, and someone who actually cares about the plight of the prisoners. I’ve seen that the priority for many zoo victims is to escape to a better existence. I’ve watched many zoo animals try to escape their enclosure again and again, to escape their wretched reality, their dream to urgently overcome the reality we’ve created for them outweighs the futility of perpetual unsuccessful escape attempts that lead to nowhere.
As I’ve visited zoos as an adult I’ve heard a lot of visitors, kids and adults alike, comment on the sad state of affairs before their eyes. The unmistakable stress and sadness of the zoo animals are the two most common things I’ve overheard people remark about. I once heard a young boy next to me say to his parents that the animal in the cage was “pacing around like a prisoner.” They weren’t pacing around like a prisoner, they were pacing around because they were a prisoner. The biggest criminal offense in the world is being born a species different than the human species. Even other primates don’t get a free pass.
Years before this, when I was a teenager, I randomly stumbled upon a PETA expose of chickens who were bred into existence, fattened, and killed for KFC. This was the first time I had ever seen an animal abuse investigation. The video was narrated by Pamela Anderson, a longtime supporter of People For The Ethical Treatment of Animals. I’m not going to lie, I stumbled upon this video because I had looked up Pamela Anderson to see if I could find some eye candy for myself to enjoy, but instead I found a disgusting and horrific video of humans treating birds like garbage. Immediately after watching the video I was determined to never consume fast food ever again. My thought process was that these chickens were tortured and brutally killed for their bodies to end up being sold at KFC, so all other farmed animals are probably treated in similarly inhumane ways if their destiny is to be consumed by fast food customers. I was so naive that it didn’t even occur to me that chickens and other animals who are sold at grocery stores and [slow food] restaurants could be treated similarly or in the same exact way.
For years I stuck to my guns and didn’t ingest any fast food. My conscience was at ease with any animals I ate since they were coming from regular restaurants and grocery stores, not the evil fast food establishments. It would be years until I’d learn the obvious, the fact that farmed animals are forced into the same fate and endure the same standard industry practices from birth to death if they are for eventual sale to humans, regardless of how much the flesh of their body costs or how quickly their body can be served to customers who enjoy the taste and ritual of eating death.
In my first year of college I gave into eating fast food, abandoning my previous commitment of not stooping that low. All of my closest friends were eating fast food all the time and at some point I just said fuck it and jumped in. I went from eating no fast food for years to eating Popeyes, Checkers, Sonic, Burger King, Wendy’s, Arby’s, and Taco Bell fairly regularly. I gained a lot of weight and I lost a lot of self-esteem. A couple years later something would get me to change and go back to my previous commitment to not eating the poison served at fast food restaurants ever again (except vegan fast food restaurants that I’m happy to patronize).
One night I did an internet search for “fucked up documentaries.” Let me be clear, I don’t enjoy the fact that so many fucked up things take place in this world, but I like to be in the know. A list my search result produced mentioned a documentary called “Earthlings.” I watched this documentary, which showed what atrocities animals must endure for humans to use them for food, clothing, science, entertainment, and sports. After watching this film I once again said no more to fast food and I arbitrarily said no more to hot dogs. Unfortunately the documentary didn’t cover what animals endure at smaller “humane” farms that didn’t resemble factories, leaving a clearing for this alternative way of animal “farming” as a potential relief from supporting what disgusted me and so many other viewers of this film. One solution I thought of after viewing this film was that I should make more purchases at Whole Foods Market where they sell things like grass-fed beef and cage-free eggs.
If my desire was to align my actions with what I thought my morals and values were then I would have stopped eating animals altogether, but instead I spent the next couple years playing mind games, even as I continued to learn more, which in turn made me feel more guilt when I ate meals that contained animal parts. I won’t bore you with all of the other random changes I made, but after meeting a few real life vegans and consistently learning more about animal exploitation and nutrition, I finally decided to begin my lifestyle that opted out of animal exploitation and murder to the greatest extent practicable and possible.
After finally ditching all animal products I felt so pathetic and stupid for waiting so long to do something so basic. What felt like such a giant and unachievable step to make was nothing more than a simple detour. Given what I knew and what I had continued to participate in, I could barely live with myself and who I was. But now I finally had a chance to do better. I wanted to inspire others to become educated, make the basic decency changes I had made, and to help them get to the finish line without getting trapped in mind games along the way like I had done. So activism time it was.
I was working two daytime jobs and then I made activism my third job, despite it not earning me any income. I found a powerful eleven minute video by Mercy For Animals called “Farm To Fridge” that showed undercover investigation footage of standard industry practices that the most common farmed animals who humans consume have to endure. I went out to the local college campus and stood there with a sign that said something like “Get Paid $10 To Watch A 10 Minute Video.” This was a partial lie because it was actually an eleven minute video, but nearly $1 a minute was still a very generous deal and I thought that if I was honest about the video being one more minute longer than ten minutes that a lot of people would decide against this educational, potentially life-changing, opportunity.
Lucky for me, a lot of people who watched the video told me to keep the money. People would ask me what organization I was working for and when I told them this was something I was doing on my own with my own money, some people would tell me to keep it. Like myself when I learned about the realities of what humans do to other animals, a lot of people I was interacting with showed major resistance to change, and some displayed no desire for change whatsoever. I would tell some people that if they were going to continue to eat animals, if they at least purchased from places like Whole Foods Market and farmers markets, they’d be supporting businesses that treated animals better than the norm. But how could I know this? After all, Whole Foods provided no real transparency about the living and killing conditions of the animals they sell and sellers at farmers markets from small farms didn’t have anything to provide either except for buzzwords like humanely raised, happy, free range, organic, sustainable, and local.
Since I worked at the headquarters of Whole Foods Market as a cashier, I would regularly see people who worked the high paying jobs upstairs come down to grab food and drinks, these were the main people behind the scenes at Whole Foods who called all the big shots. One day I was ringing up the main Whole Foods Market “meat buyer” and I asked her if I could visit some of the farms that Whole Foods sources from. She gave me a look of stern disapproval that screamed “ARE YOU CRAZY?”
While I continued to work at Whole Foods Market, undercover investigations of some of the farms they sourced from came out and clearly showed that buying from Whole Foods Market was no better than buying from anywhere else. While still working at Whole Foods I recall there being an undercover PETA investigation of a pig farm that supplied to Whole Foods, a Direct Action Everywhere (DXE) investigation into an egg farm that supplied to Whole Foods, and when the documentary film “Speciesism: The Movie” came out, the filmmaker Mark Devries exposed a turkey farm that supplied to Whole Foods, which looked absolutely no different than a Butterball turkey farm. The imagery showed that you were basically supporting the same level of animal abuse whether you decided to shop at Walmart or Whole Foods. Even the co-founder of DXE, Wayne Hsiung, got arrested at a Whole Foods Market simply for going up to their flesh counter and asking if they source from factory farms. Basically the humane claims at Whole Foods were nothing more than a gigantic scam; nothing more than effective, yet baseless, marketing. I’m usually not a gullible person, but props to Whole Foods for getting me good.
Now what about small scale farms that sell directly to their customers and not to big corporations like Whole Foods? The official meat buyer at Whole Foods rejected my request to see any farms that supplied to them, but there was still so much room elsewhere to see what all this talk about humane meat and so forth was all about.
I knew I could get onto a small nearby Texas farm that had big humane claims because they had openings for volunteers. I went to this farm one day and volunteered doing gardening work. All I could see was one species of animals they had (pigs) and how those pigs lived for the limited hours I was at the farm. Unlike the pigs who were living in CAFOs (concentrated animal feeding operations), these pigs had more space, they could feel dirt under their feet, they could see the sunshine, they could express some natural behaviors, they ate a decent diet, and they had more opportunities to develop bonds with those who they were living with. But just because something is better than something much worse doesn’t automatically make it humane or acceptable. The pigs were still on a fairly small plot of land and they were surrounded by an electrified fence that closed them off to a whole world of richer experiences and deeper life fulfillment. Had these pigs previously existed in a CAFO this would be a major upgrade, but this was still a harshly restrictive living environment that didn’t come close to the freedom that all animals desire and deserve.
Shortly after volunteering at this farm, I found out that they were going to have an upcoming class that taught people how to humanely kill and dismember pigs. I had never heard of such a class. The class was in December and it was called “Harvest Your Own Holiday Hog.” “Harvest” is a euphemism for kill or murder, just like how “meat” is a euphemism for flesh, dead body, corpse, and carcass. Not only did I want to experience this class, but I wanted to save one of the pigs from getting killed, and get them to a sanctuary instead where they’d be treated with basic dignity, respect, and kindness; an actual humane existence. I signed up for the class and then asked them if it would be okay if I killed my pig privately at another location closer to Christmas time. They bought my story and accepted my request.
The morning of the pig slaughter class I got the nervous shits. This was going to be the first time I would ever witness a live murder and on top of that I’d have to simultaneously pretend that I was perfectly fine with what was taking place around me. But hey, I’d finally get to see what these humane meat claims are all about. The class involved two animal sadists (no, I won’t call them “farmers”) and then about 10 or so participants (sadists in training). In the beginning, the lead animal sadist talked to us about how terribly pigs are treated under the factory farming system and how horrible their deaths are at large corporate slaughterhouses. The point of this is to make people feel good about what they are about to participate in and later on ingest.
The lead animal sadist talked about how much he loves these pigs (who he was about to kill) and declared that he hates to kill them “because they are just like dogs.” That’s actually what he said. I think we all understand full well how it’s unnecessary to kill dogs. Why is this so difficult to understand for pigs and other animals? He mentioned that the pigs were six months old. Six months is a very small fraction of a typical pig lifespan, yet it’s the same exact age pigs are killed at in the factory farming industry. This isn’t just reserved to pigs, all farmed animals are typically killed at a very small fraction of their natural lifespan. Animals used for human consumption are very often killed at the same age whether they are from a small or large animal exploitation operation.
After much talking it was time to go kill some pigs who we were told were going to taste delicious. The method of killing was a gunshot, or so I thought. We all stood around, watched, and waited as one of the animal sadists pointed his gun at the pig. The bullet landed, but it didn’t bring the pig to death. The pig started running around and screaming.
The two animal sadists caught up to the pig and wrestled him down. One of them proceeded to cut his throat with a knife. After having his throat slit, the pig was still moving around. He looked up with this expression of “WHY?” - as to suggest why would you do this to me?
The pigs who were killed this day were killed in full view of the other pigs who were going to be killed at a later date. There’s nothing that says kindness, compassion, and mercy more than killing individuals right in front of their peers.
Some people say that “humane” farming is even worse because these animals may develop trust for the humans. It’s even more brutal if they manage to develop a bond towards humans, then the sense of betrayal when they realize they’re being killed is going to be an inexplicably tragic ending to their life. It’s not the same exact scenario, but if you live with an animal at home and you two share a bond, imagine the look on their face and what they’d feel if all of a sudden one night instead of bringing them their dinner you brought them a gun with a bullet or slit their throat with a knife?
After witnessing the death of the first pig and then another one we walked over to another area of the farm where the pigs would be dismembered and later wrapped up for people to take home. On the walk over to this area I was walking behind a couple people and I couldn’t believe what I overheard. The woman in front of me, speaking to the person next to her, expressed that she was glad to be connected to her food and know that they died humanely. If you want to question if something is humane or not, ask yourself how you’d feel if it was done to you or someone you genuinely care about. I doubt many people would think it’s kind, compassionate, or merciful to put themselves, their cat, dog, or grandma down with a shot to the face and then a knife to the throat.
A couple hours later a rural looking older man who pretended to be my uncle arrived with a pickup truck and a trailer. I had told the animal sadists that my plan was to kill the pig I was taking at my uncle’s farm, closer to the holiday. We loaded the pig up and he was on his way to his new forever home. I named this pig Lotto, as if he won the lottery. He is still alive today living alongside many other pigs safely and in peace at a sanctuary in Texas doing what he wants on his own terms. He’ll never be harmed by any humans, he’ll always get the care he needs, he’ll get to live a normal lifespan, he’ll never touch an electrified fence, and he’ll never have to see anyone who he cares about be killed in front of him. Now that’s humane if you ask me.
The following year I decided to go to another one of these humane slaughter classes, but this time centered around a different species, in a different state, and for another antiquated holiday. This class took place in November at a farm in Washington. The class claimed to teach participants how to humanely slaughter turkeys for Thanksgiving. This time it was going to have to involve me attending, but not saving any lives unfortunately.
Like the previous class I attended, the animal sadist leading this class talked about how much greater the life and death of these turkeys was than turkeys who are fattened in the CAFOs, or factory farms, and killed at the big corporate killing factories. For someone like me who had their eyes open to the nonsense narratives that circled the whole of animal agriculture, this was just another round of word salad I’d have to listen to and mentally roll my eyes over.
Unlike the pig murder class where the professional animal sadists did the killing, for this class the animal sadist would demonstrate the killing method on a few turkeys and then each participant would kill a turkey themselves. The killing method in this case was sitting on top of the turkey, slitting their throat, and then holding them down for a while until they finally passed away for good. Just like the last class, I was not a participant, rather I was a documenter. And just like the last class, the turkeys involuntarily waiting in line to be killed were placed in full view of the turkeys who were being killed in front of them. Convenience will always be top priority for most humans, not kindness or consideration like we pretend.
How anyone could consider any of this humane was beyond me, but now in hindsight it’s totally understandable. Most humans want to think of themselves as good people and people rarely hold themselves accountable for doing extremely hurtful things to others. What distinguishes humans more than anything else from other animal species, in my opinion at least, is our ability to create and disseminate belief systems, beliefs that make us feel more comfortable with who we are, what we’ve done, what we support, and the world we are living in. I have no delusions that humans will ever stop tormenting, exploiting, experimenting on, and eating other animals - I would need to develop some preposterous belief system to think otherwise.
Humans have stooped so low into deluding themselves that they’ve come to believe that the more connected they are to the murder of someone (other than a human) the the more humane they consider the act of killing to be. People think that if an animal was killed near where they live then that makes it humane. I’ve witnessed countless people at these classes and other situations thanking dead and dying animals for “their sacrifice,” nothing more than word vomit to appease the conscience of the human who relinquished basic decency to steal the life of someone who didn’t want to or need to die, someone who they’d have the same potential to bond with as the stubbornly few animals we reserve the companion animal categorization for.
At this turkey class I witnessed multiple turkeys getting their throats slit with the knife again and again and again (and more agains), what I would consider a botched killing, but others who have deluded themselves to infinity would still consider humane and respectful. One of the most depressing things I’ve witnessed is the lack of sadness people feel at murder sites like this. When someone we care about dies we can’t help but feel sadness, and it’s even worse if it’s someone we love. Whenever I’ve been around people killing animals it’s no different than being around people gathered at a petting zoo. If we want someone to be treated humanely we must care about them first. We don’t continue on without a shred of sadness when someone we care about dies.
A while after this humane turkey killing class I attended another one on the opposite side of the country, this time in Virginia. There were two teenage boys attending the class who had their heart in the right place. The boys talked about how recently they killed some chickens for the first time, but that the killing was very botched, it was so long, drawn out, and painful for the chickens that they wanted to learn from a professional how to kill birds swiftly. Little did they know, they would witness something even worse than the unforgivable pain and misery they caused those poor chickens who they killed not too long ago.
In the beginning of this class the lead animal sadist assured us that turkeys were very stupid and would die instantly with his method of killing. I’m not sure how much of the class agreed with his claim that turkeys are stupid, he didn’t even offer a single example that illustrated this insulting claim. Turkeys are generally killed at about 4-6 months old and I can tell you for sure that turkeys at that age are far more intelligent than humans at that same age. In fact, it’s the same with all of the animals we kill for our gluttony, convenience, and conformity. Chickens grown for their flesh are typically killed at 42 days old and their intelligence is far greater than humans of the same age, same with the pigs who we kill at six months old, egg-laying chickens who we kill at a year and a half old, and cows raised for beef and dairy who are typically killed at 2-4 years old. If you can justify killing animals for their perceived lack of intelligence level then what excludes killing humans of the same age and maybe even calling them “livestock” too?
I saw something at this class I never thought I’d see before, especially because I thought this didn’t even exist. There were several turkeys who took around ten minutes or so to fully bleed out, lose consciousness, and die - which is already insane, but there was one turkey who I estimated took 40 minutes or longer to finally lose consciousness and die. Can you imagine bleeding to death for that long, all while the people around you are going about their day?
The turkeys were hung upside down from a tree branch by a rope tied around their legs. They had their throat slit, but some turkeys had their throat slit multiple times as they took awhile to die. The two teenagers who I mentioned earlier were clearly disturbed by this one particular turkey who took around 40 minutes or so to die. Nobody, including myself, could stand to look at this turkey for all of that time, but every so often I’d turn around from the dismembering table and look over at the turkey. It was absolutely clear that they were still alive and conscious as the blood continued to drain and drain and drain from them.
The way their eyes were moving around, the way they showed distress, and the way they fought for one normal breath demonstrated they were still just as alive as all the humans participating in the class. At one point the animal sadist told us that the turkeys were too stupid to feel pain and after maybe 15 minutes or so from when this turkey originally had their neck slit the animal sadist told us they must have been dead, but just looked alive. Good ol’ human denial, nothing like it. Of all the animal abuse I’ve ever witnessed, I wanted to document this turkey taking forever to die more than almost anything because it was so unbelievable and it was such damning evidence against this humane meat belief that’s so widely accepted. I couldn’t document all that much of it or it would have given away my cover.
The animals at the previous killing classes were bred into existence specifically because of the usefulness of the flesh that their body would produce. What about the animals who are bred into existence because of what their body can excrete, such as eggs and milk? When animals are used for this purpose they are typically killed and transformed into flesh when the production of these bodily features declines.
Female chickens lay eggs just like all other bird species. A chicken is supposed to lay 10-15 eggs annually, but due to eugenics, or selective breeding programs that they’ve been forced through for so long, hens now lay roughly 296 eggs per year. Whether a chicken is being used for their eggs on a large or small exploitation operation, they are typically killed at the very young age of 18 months old. At this point in time their egg production goes down and it makes more economic sense to replace them with another chicken from a hatchery
In Oregon they offered another humane slaughter class, this time focused on “retired” 18-month-young hens who weren’t the same wonderful egg layers they used to be. The animal sadist who was leading this class bought the hens from a stranger on Craigslist. Despite the fact that this man had no idea what their life was like before this particular day, he assured the class participants that they lived a good life and would now be killed humanely.
The instructor warned the class participants that when it was time to butcher their chicken that they might get lucky and find a still intact egg in their dead chicken’s body. He let everyone know the egg could be used to make a delicious meal. The class wasn’t just about how to kill chickens who were at the egg-laying decline stage, but also for killing chickens who were sick or injured. Typically in a humane setting when someone is sick or injured their guardian will help them get better, but for chickens the solution was to just kill them.
Each individual said something about themselves, why they were taking the class, and one of them stated that they signed up because they recently had some chickens get injured by another animal and they wanted to know what to do in the future when any of their chickens get hurt. After some talking, the lead animal sadist proceeded to kill a bird and then it was time for everyone else besides me to kill a chicken too.
The killing on small farms can sometimes be so much worse than what the animals endure in mega slaughterhouses. Once again, I saw someone struggle to kill their chicken in a timely fashion, and the poor hen had to endure at least a good 15 or more cuts before being able to bleed out enough to pass away. At one small farm I’ve been to where the woman was killing chickens who had been used for their eggs, she admitted to me that she’s boiled chickens alive by accident, mistaking their still alive body for a dead one before putting them into the scalding tank. I didn’t hold back my shock, which grew even larger when she disclosed to me that every small farmer she knows has done the same exact thing.
A little while after everyone’s chickens were killed and plucked it was time to gather around a couple tables and dismember their tiny bodies, which most of our species view as nothing more than egg depositing machines. The girl who took the longest time to kill her chicken got rewarded for her hard work, she found a lucky egg inside of her chicken that she could take home and eat too.
There was one really positive thing that happened on this day. Because this class took place on a residential street in Portland, OR not too far from the road, it was very easy for something like this to be protested. A couple peaceful protestors did indeed show up and they asked if they could save some chickens. The woman who had the farm that put the class on let the protestors take two chickens in a box and off the hens went to retire out of exploitation to their new sanctuary home. Distraught over having to deal with protestors, the woman announced this would be the last class of this kind she’d ever put on.
I’ve personally investigated more of these so-called humane farms and classes than probably anyone else ever has. I’ve watched maybe about as many animals be murdered as animals that I ate before I finally gave up my horrific habits of ingesting unspeakable misery. Humane meat, dairy, and eggs is a myth and there never has been and there never will be a form of humane exploitation or humane killing of young healthy animals who prefer to live.
One of the many reasons for which I’m antinatalist is because humans, generally speaking, are horrible to other life forms and I would never be okay with perpetuating a species that has such disregard for the planet that sustains it and the other living beings that call the same planet home. Humans will always continue to mask the horrendous things they do with language, narratives, beliefs, excuses, and barely indistinguishable alternatives such as “humane farms.” If we are as intelligent as we profess and have the type of moral agency that we claim, then we should be able to do way better. Perfection and zero harm will never be an attainable goal, but doing better should be attainable.
One of the beauties of sanctuaries, like where Lotto the pig went, is they show us how much better life could be for us and for other species. At sanctuaries animals coexist with each other. For example, despite pigs being omnivores, they are still sometimes kept in the same areas as chickens, turkeys, and other animals who are much smaller than them and who they could easily destroy, but don’t. I’ve been to tons of sanctuaries and spent lots of time in the same area where cats, dogs, and chickens are mixed together, yet I don’t hear a single scream or see a drop of blood anywhere.
Humans feed cats and dogs the worst of the worst food, the same species humans eat, yet the labels say “Not For Human Consumption.” If you place live versions of these same animals that we feed to cats and dogs in the same settings as cats and dogs you’d probably be shocked to see how many of them would actually bond; same thing is true for humans. We could see animals with a refreshed attitude that doesn’t involve what they can provide for us or how much lesser they are than us.
If we are going to emulate other animals why don’t we strive to emulate beautiful aspects like coexisting, respect, friendship, and bodily autonomy? We could be so much better than our programming, but humans choose to cling to limited worldviews, figuring they can get much more satisfaction from animals who are dead rather than alive.
I prefer a world where there’s more people helping life that’s already here and in need, which includes every animal in existence who is in any situation of exploitation, neglect, abuse, injury, or any other need. I’m sick of living in a world where people are more upset about being misgendered or their favorite sports team losing a game or their neighbor not taking an experimental medical product than they are with what’s going on in slaughterhouses and on these so-called humane farms that reduce living beings to unfeeling machines that need to be put to death for our wants. Despite exposing myself to hardcore animal abuse consistently for so many years in a row, I struggle to amplify their voices as loudly as I used to be able to because I know that most humans just do not care, and that’s one reason why I think the human species is so overrated. How can we be so great when it’s such a struggle to get the average human to exercise basic decency towards others who are just as real as them?
Please visit, donate, or volunteer at a sanctuary if you haven’t yet. These are places where animals are actually treated humanely and aren’t used for anything at all such as palate pleasure, profit, or anything else. Please save an animal who faces neglect, abuse, or premature death if you can. I promise it’s far more satisfying than eating animals. Start a microsanctuary if you have the will and the means because unfortunately so many animals can never be saved since there aren’t enough places for them to go to. Donate to Agriculture Fairness Alliance as they are doing incredible work to try to transform our rigged and destructive food policy to make it more plant friendly, human friendly, animal friendly, and planet friendly.
As badly as I had wanted there to be “humane meat” I’m glad I now know the truth that such a phenomenon doesn’t exist and never will as long as sentient individuals are involved. Please be a decent human and don’t buy into utter nonsense (literally and figuratively) that needlessly puts other animals into harm’s way. Humane entails kindness, compassion, and mercy, which I’d argue we can afford to honor other beings with, no matter how different they are from ourselves and no matter how much we enjoy the taste of what their body can produce.
Animal rights activists used to commonly say "if only slaughterhouses had glass walls, people would be vegetarian," but this account shows that many people are unfazed to the point of enjoying killing other creatures and making/watching them suffer and die. They can participate in turning a beautiful being with eyes watching everything into a pile of bloody pieces and faces disfigured with agony. They can blot out their eyes with joy. Thank you for sharing your story so poignantly and for sharing the story of these birds and mammals tortured to death by people I truly believe relished every minute.
I do not believe most people are like these sadistic DIY killers, but I do believe most people are complacent compared with how much they like their animal-based meals including their desire to fit in with their cultural surroundings. If this photo-story does not move a person to say No More of This Monstrousness for Me, that person is probably - I don't know what to call it - but something bad. Glad you show at the end how human life can and should be and may become. We have to persevere on behalf of all the turkeys and chickens and cows and pigs featured in this account, and for all those who must helplessly follow them down humanity's dark road, unless or until we change our direction.
Wow. The photos are absolutely heartbreaking and along with the words it highlights what an absolutely brutal world we live in. It blows my mind how so many adults still don't have the knowledge that cows are forcibly impregnated and have their babies stolen so humans can take the milk. The lack of transparency is unjust but as your stories exemplify, even when there IS transparency, many humans don't care. Thank you for your work, it's work many couldn't do but is incredibly important.