Absolute Zero

This is pretty disgusting stuff.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/12/op...h-this.html?hp#

Almost hard to believe. This doesn't even get into the practice of destroying and throwing the male chicks in the trash since they will not become hens. I am sure you can find the same types of things regarding the treatment of dairy cows. I haven't seen Farm, Inc. as I just can't stomach this stuff.

So what is the deal? Are the industry lobbyists too powerful that the government doesn't even try to reign this crap in? Or do most people just not give a crap? Or both?

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krepitch

It's all of those things. The amount of cruelty is astonishing, but most people refuse to even think about it because it's easier that way.

By the way, those chicks are thrown into worse things than "the trash."

I'm glad the Times is covering this...I'll have to read the article tonight.

Absolute Zero

Found this in the comments:

Cruelty is inherent in all aspects of factory farming. Chicks are debeaked to prevent them pecking at each other. Without the use of anesthesia, a blade cuts off the end of their beak, leaving painful, gaping wounds. To produce the greatest number of eggs, hens are exposed to countless hours and cycles of artificial light in order to confuse their natural cycle.

Male chicks born to egg laying hens are expendable as they obviously cannot lay eggs. Annually, 200 million male chicks are immediately taken from their mother and thrown live into either a rotting flesh dumpster, where they smother to death, or live into a grinding machine where they become chicken pot pie, chicken soup, fertilizer and food for other farm animals.

These practices are all sanctioned by government and industry appointed veterinarians. Additionally, chickens are not protected by the Humane Slaughter Act, which in itself, hypocritically does not ensure protection for the billions under its umbrella.

All factory farmed animals are treated as machinery. They participate in no natural behaviors. They have no life.

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krepitch

Yeah, there are so many horrible aspects to our food production system, it's infuriating.

Plus, when you think about the damage factory farming does to the animals, to the environment, and to the consumers, it's hard to imagine that we tolerate it. And yet we do.

Chris_Sanders

The solution is to only buy free range hormone free eggs and milk.

Pay the extra money if you care. Don't rely on the government to care for you.

The dollar is what talks and it says "factory animals are good".

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krepitch

"Free range" means virtually nothing. The USDA says "producers must demonstrate to the Agency that the poultry has been allowed access to the outside." That's it. It's entirely up to the producers to define what it means and a lot of them say that if there's a little window in the giant facility, that is access to the outside.

"Free range" claims on eggs are entirely unregulated. It's just a label companies put on their products to make people feel less guilty.

My personal solution is not to eat animal products at all.

Absolute Zero

I became a vegetarian--with an exception for fish--about a year ago. Recently gave up regular milk for the most part due mostly to all the hormones and chemicals they shoot the cows up with, which of course ends up in our bodies.

Now learning about the chicken treatment, it is pretty bad. I love eggs though. I am just wondering if there are any humane small backyard type farms in my area. We'll see.

But the milk thing is an entire travesty in and of itself. Without getting into the treatment of the cows, I believe that the FDA and the medical community must be on some form of "the take" to allow us to drink this hormone chemical laiden crap. I understand they won't even allow US milk in the UK due to all the problems with it.

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Chris_Sanders

By free range I mean cage free.

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Chris_Sanders

This is my eggs of choice:

http://www.egglandsbest.com/egglands...d-organic.aspx

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krepitch

Gotcha. Those battery cage systems are downright cruel.

Here's mine.

krepitch

to your vegetarianism.

There are certainly a lot of issues with cow's milk. Fortunately, a lot of stores have pretty good selections now of plant-based milks, which are just as good or better than cow's milk.

Absolute Zero

How can you tell whether or not they are killing all the male chickens?

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Chris_Sanders

No idea.

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Absolute Zero

Here's the deal I was talking about on the milk, FDA looking the other way, etc.:

Milk: America’s Health Problem
jump to links

Why is American Milk Banned in Europe?

• American dairy milk is genetically-modified unless it’s labeled “NO rBGH”
• Genetically-engineered bovine growth hormone (rBGH) in milk increases cancer risks.

American dairy farmers inject rBGH to dairy cows to increase milk production.
European nations and Canada have banned rBGH to protect citizens from IGF-1 hazards.
Monsanto Co., the manufacturer of rBGH, has influenced U. S. product safety laws permitting the sale of unlabeled rBGH milk. (Monsanto would lose billions of dollars if rBGH were banned in America.)
Q. Is there any milk not contaminated with rBGH and IGF-1?
A. Yes. Milk that is clearly labeled “NO rBGH” is free of rBGH and does not contain excess levels of IGF-1.
Q. What about cheeses?
A. American-made cheeses are contaminated with rBGH and excess levels of IGF-1 unless they’re labeled “NO rBGH”. Imported European cheeses are safe since Europe has banned rBGH.
Follow the links below for details:

Dangers of IGF-1 in Milk include Breast, Colon and Prostate Cancers

Cancer Risks from IGF-1. Monsanto’s Hormonal Milk…

Breast Cancer Risks from rBGH (Press Conference)

Colon and Breast Cancer Risks from rBGH (Press Conference)

Prostate Cancer Risks from IGF-1 press release

FDA allows rBGH to endanger Milk

United Nations ban on rBGH, Monsanto’s Genetically Modified Milk…

Scientific Article on rBGH (1990) “Potential Public Health Hazards of Biosynthetic Milk Hormones”

Scientific Article on IGF-1 (1996) “Unlabeled Milk from Cows Treated with Biosynthetic Growth Hormones”
IGF-1 and Milk: Q&A

Q. What is IGF-1?
A. Insulin-like Growth Factor 1 (IGF-1)is a normal growth factor. Excess levels have been increasingly linked by modern research to human cancer development and growth.

Q. How does IGF-1 get into milk?
A. In 1994, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved the use of the recombinant Bovine Growth Hormone (rBGH). According to rBGH manufacturers, injections of rBGH causes cows to produce up to 20 percent more milk. The growth hormone also stimulates the liver to increase IGF-1 levels in the milk of those cows. Recently, Eli Lilly & Co., a manufacturer of rBGH, reported a ten-fold increase in IGF-1 levels in milk of cows receiving the hormone. IGF-1 is the same in humans and cows, and is not destroyed by pasteurization. In fact, the pasteurization process actually increases IGF-1 levels in milk.

Q. How does rBGH milk containing IGF-1, affect, humans?
A. After the rBGH milk is consumed, IGF-1 is not destroyed by human digestion. Instead, IGF-1 is readily absorbed across the intestinal wall. Additional research has shown that it can be absorbed into the bloodstream where it can effect other hormones.

Q. Is IGF-1 likely to increase the risk of specific kinds of cancer?
A. It is highly likely that IGF-1 promotes transformation of normal breast cells to breast cancers. In addition, IGF-1 maintains the malignancy of human breast cancer cells, including their invasiveness and ability to spread to distant organs. (Increased levels of IGF-1 have similarly been associated with colon and prostate cancers.) The prenatal and infant breast is particularly susceptible to hormonal influences. Such imprinting by IGF-1 may increase future breast cancer risks, and may also increase the sensitivity of the breast to subsequent unrelated risks such as mammography and the carcinogenic and estrogen-like effects of pesticide residues in food, particularly in pre-menopausal women.

Q. Are cows adversely affected by elevated IGF-1 levels?
A. Cows injected with rBGH show heavy localization of IGF-1 in breast (udder) epithelial cells. This does not occur in untreated cows. Cows are also affected in other ways by rBGH, through increased rates of mastitis, an udder infection. Industry data show up to an 80 percent incidence of mastitis in hormone-treated cattle, resulting in the contamination of milk with significant levels of pus. Mastitis requires the use of antibiotics to treat, which leaves residues to pass on through the milk for human consumption.

Q. What does the FDA say about IGF-1?
A. The FDA has trivialized evidence for increased levels in rBGH milk and insist that any such increases in IGF-1 are not dangerous, and do not pose a health risk. However, a 1990 study by Monsanto, the leading maker of rBGH, explicitly revealed statistically significant evidence of growth promoting effects. Feeding relatively low doses of IGF-1 to mature rats for only two weeks resulted in statistically significant and biologically highly significant systemic effects: increased body weight; increased liver weight; increased bone length; and decreased epiphyseal width. The FDA has failed to investigate the effects of long-term feeding of IGF-1 and treated milk on growth. Furthermore, the FDA has been hostile to the labeling of rBGH milk. The agency has prohibited dairy producers and retailers from labeling their milk as "hormone-free," The FDA states that such labeling could be "false or misleading" under federal law. Monsanto is suing several milk producers for using the label.

Q. What have other scientists said about IGF-1?
A. Concerns about increased levels of IGF-1 in milk from cows treated with rBGH are not new. In 1990, the National Institutes of Health Consensus panel on rBGH expressed concerns about adverse health effects of IGF-1 in rBGH milk, calling for further study on health impacts, particularly infants. In 1991, the Council on Scientific Affairs of the American Medical Association stated:" Further studies will be required to determine whether the ingestion of higher than normal concentrations of bovine insulin-like growth factor is safe for children, adolescents and adults." Unfortunately, these studies were never done,
HERE ARE THREE THINGS THAT YOU CAN DO:

1. Do not buy milk from cows treated with rBGH. Unless the milk-label states “NO rBGH”, you can assume the milk is contaminated. rBGH has become so widely used by dairy farmers. Most health food stores sell rBGH-free milk.

2. Contact your local supermarket and find out if they have a policy regarding rBGH and milk. Make clear that you would like rBGH-free milk.

3. Write to the FDA and express your concern that they are restricting the labeling of rBGH-free milk.


References:

Epstein, S. S. Potential public health hazards of biosynthetic milk
hormones. International Journal of Health Services, 20:73-84, 1990.
Epstein, S. S. Unlabeled milk from cows treated with biosynthetic
growth hormones: A case of regulatory abdication. International Journal of Health Services, 26(1):173-185, 1996.
http://www.preventcancer.com/consumers/general/milk.htm

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Absolute Zero

So basically, Monsanto and big ag industry has such a grip on our government that, not only does it allow the most disgusting treatment of animals beyond belief to produce our food, but they even have the government looking the other way on the way their drugging up of the animals adversely impacts the health of the consumers of these products, ie. us regular people and our families.

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