You eat babies

To commemorate my 25th year of being a vegan, I have decided to share some stories from various investigations I have done of factory farms, auctions, and slaughterhouses. Though these investigations were conducted with the organization I started and ran, Viva!USA, they are a powerful part of my life and hopefully will help many understand why veganism is a key part to Food Empowerment Project’s goal of a more just food system.

I debated on the title for this blog and, well, you can let me know what you think. It does make me flash back to my early vegan days when I was in high school – a time when, I acknowledge, I could have done a better job of encouraging people to listen to what I had to say.

But at the same time, the above title is the truth.

People in the US who consume chickens are, well, eating babies.*

Chickens slaughtered for food are chicks, really. They are less than two months old when they are killed. These absolutely gentle and fragile birds are mere babies.

It has always been easy to find farms where chickens are being raised for “meat.” There are so many of them. It is heartbreaking.

The first farm I investigated was in Georgia. It was a Tyson facility. When I opened the door to the shed, I was hit with a wave of humidity and the intense smell of ammonia. It burned my nose and my chest. My lungs burned for a couple of days.

You see, chickens are killed after seven weeks. And workers do not go in and clean the sheds every time they send these chicks to slaughter; they just put more in. So the ammonia buildup is tremendous.

I eventually sought to do investigations of Foster Farms, which are mostly in California. If the name doesn’t sound familiar, the ads probably are: they tend to feature two puppet chickens who talk about wanting to be “Foster Farm” chickens. Yup, just as bad as the “Happy Cow” commercials.

Inside the sheds (like all chicken farms), something seems very strange. After a while you realize it is the chickens themselves: their bodies seem abnormally large compared to their heads and their tiny little chirps.

And that’s just it. They are babies. They are bred to grow very large, very fast. Not only can’t their voices keep up, but neither can their legs.  And eventually, the lungs and hearts of these birds can’t keep up either; many die before they are even sent to slaughter.

Leaving one of the sheds, it was my legs that gave way. Watching these babies struggling to stand wasn’t even the main thing that made me fall down. And I do mean fall down … when leaving one of the sheds, I collapsed. I was overwhelmed. Overwhelmed with the number of birds. The reality of how many are killed. I could take 100 and would anyone even notice?

With every investigation I did, my goal was to create a campaign -- something to focus on. And with chickens, I was overwhelmed with the magnitude of the lives being taken.

Every farm had dozens of sheds, and each shed had approximately 20,000 chickens inside.

At the time, 23 million chickens were slaughtered every day for food. Today it is just under 24 million.

With a number so large, how do I make every individual matter? How do I get people to understand a bird who most have absolutely no personal association with. Not like cows who many pass along the highway. Not like ducks who they see on the ponds. Not like pigs who are the focus of movies. How do we get people to see that chickens too are feeling, precious beings?

This is something I still struggle with.

I hope the more we can get people to learn about chickens as individuals, the more they will empathize with them. Like how both hens and roosters will protect chicks, whether or not they are their offspring; how roosters will let off different warning calls to protect flocks; how chickens mourn, get happy, angry and, yes, have emotions. As with all animals, just getting to know them is key. But why must we get to know their personalities before we have empathy for them?

Oh, to get people to hold one of these absolutely gentle birds, their bones so fragile, and realize that we have the power to protect them! That we need to defend the most vulnerable – like babies. They don’t need much from us to take care of them. They simply need us to stop eating them.

*Most animals raised and killed for food are killed when they are young.

Some Pig

To commemorate my 25th year of being a vegan, I have decided to share some stories from various investigations I have done of factory farms, auctions, and slaughterhouses. Though these investigations were conducted with the organization I started and ran, Viva!USA, they are a powerful part of my life and hopefully will help many understand why veganism is a key part to Food Empowerment Project’s goal of a more just food system.

Charlotte’s Web is one of those books that made a lasting impact on me. This book not only made me think twice about animals who are killed, but gave me a longtime appreciation for spiders. What is most pertinent about this book today is that the whole point was Wilbur wanted to live – it wasn’t about his living conditions, it was simply about his desire to stay alive. And it also showed us strong and compassionate females. 

My first investigation of a pig farm was down in Southern Georgia (I was living in Atlanta at the time). Here on a very small pig farm, I saw firsthand mother pigs in gestation crates and farrowing crates. The haunting images of pigs in crates so small they could not turn around was no longer on video or in a photo – I was face to face with the reality.

The mamma pigs (remember, they are pregnant when they are in the gestation crates) banging their noses on the bars – over and over. Some of the larger pigs lay on their sides, struggling to move. These pigs were probably further along in their pregnancies. 

Their boredom and their frustration were not something that anyone could question. Day after day these pigs had nothing but bars to bite on, and they hit their noses against the doors. They stood on cement slatted flooring. Nothing to do all day and night.

Though I have never been pregnant, such an experience is not necessary to understand how uncomfortable these mothers were and how much they desperately needed to be comfortable.

From there, we were able to walk into a building where the mammas were in the farrowing crates. Pigs are moved from gestation crates to the farrowing crates before they give birth. 

Here in these crates, where again they cannot turn around or move, they give birth to their babies. And here, I saw anguish in their eyes. 

These crates are still legal almost everywhere.

The first time I ever saw footage of a mother pig, in a more natural environment, making a nest for her babies, it brought me to tears realizing the frustration they must feel in farrowing crates. All of the desire of these mothers to create a comfortable and warm place to have her babies—not to mention a desire for natural movements — is prevented.

Some farmers claim if they did not put the pigs in these crates, they would crush their babies. Can you imagine? How ludicrous is that? That would mean that pigs would have died out a LONG time ago. If a species constantly killed their young, I would imagine they would have gone extinct or would have evolved differently. But I guess the farmers want a pat on the back for saving the pigs, right?

Outrageous. But these types of unbelievable myths continue to thrive.

Charts on the farm wall indicated how many piglets lived and how many died. Clearly, their solution to nature wasn’t exactly working either. But the lives of these animals were just numbers.

I traveled to North Carolina (the second-largest pig-killing state in the US) to investigate more farms. My goal of course was to show how the living conditions of these animals don’t vary by the size or location of the farms.

In one area, I found what is called the “nursery,” which is where the piglets are kept before they get to the “fattening” area. This “nursery” was full of cobwebs (clearly not because Charlotte was trying to save their lives) and although the piglets were unbearably cute, there were some who were dead. The dead among the living – a regular scene on industrialized animal factories.

Shed after shed, I saw pigs in smaller pens within large sheds. Here I videotaped a pig with a leg injury – his leg so swollen he had trouble lying down. I watched helplessly as a pig with a huge, black ulceration died – right in front of me. Nearby I saw the putrefied corpse of a pig; what I thought was a plastic bag behind her turned out to be a small, thin pig who was left in the middle of the alley, without food or water.

Treating living beings as commodities is not just something that we as advocates say, it is reality.

I could cite studies and reports examining how intelligent pigs are, but I shouldn’t have to. I could dispel the myths about pigs being “dirty,” but I shouldn’t have to. Pigs, like all animals, deserve to live out their lives free of exploitation and suffering at our hands, and that should be enough to get all of us to stop eating them and go vegan.

Wilbur asked Charlotte, “Why did you do all this for me? I don't deserve it. I've never done anything for you.” “You have been my friend,” replied Charlotte. “That in itself is a tremendous thing.”

I hope one day we can truly be friends to all animals.

Bolivarian Food Revolution

I know I am not alone when I express my extreme sadness over the death of President Hugo Chavez of Venezuela. I have been reading about his illness for a while and was hopeful that he could pull through. 

I know that the revolution is never one person – it is the people. So I know that, unless outside influences try to destroy it, the Bolivarian revolution he started will continue.

I had the honor to hear President Chavez speak when I went to Caracas. I was there to speak at the 2006 World Social Forum. This is actually where the concept of Food Empowerment Project first came to me.

Chavez spoke with great passion about what was happening to Mother Earth and urged us to protect her. He talked about how humans treated her and her creatures with such disregard and how we must act.

I sat in awe of a president of a country who would take time to meet and speak with a group of activists – not donors, not even potential voters – about our shared dreams and hopes for a better world.

I was lucky to see some of the changes he was beginning to institute. I was able to tour an area that was once an oil refinery and see what they had turned it into: one cooperative that made t-shirts and another that made shoes, a free clinic (equipped with a dentist office and other health services), and an organic garden.

The organic garden was maintained by senior citizens. The food was grown to feed the workers and anything left over was sold to a local market. This is similar to what Food Empowerment Project would love to see – people growing their own food and feeding their own community. 

We were able to look down at the ramshackle homes and see the small green roof tops that indicated where Cuban doctors lived, who work for free under the oil-for-doctors program. The doctors live upstairs and their clinics are downstairs. We saw many green roofs because they wanted to make sure there were enough doctors for each neighborhood.

In another area of Caracas, space was created for a garden at the crossroads between two highways. Maybe not the most ideal situation from a toxic perspective, but you can see the creative ideas being generated. The area was previously full of trash and it took about 14 truckloads to remove the garbage. 

The government transformed that space into a garden maintained by homeless people.

I know that no leader is perfect, so I write this to share what I saw and heard.

Venezuela, like other Latin American countries, uses food as a tool for positive change – to empower the people.

And yet, I can’t help but feel many times in the US that food is treated like a weapon. From Monsanto to Coca-cola to the lack of access to healthy foods in communities of color and low-income communities, food is a battleground and a marker of privilege rather than a right.

Instead of handing out ideas, tools, and land to make our communities healthy, we seem to prioritize corporate claims to own our water, our seeds.

When we act here against those who seek to put profit over people, greed over healthy communities, we must never forget we are acting in solidarity with people around the globe who also want a better life. We’re bound together in this struggle and desperately need creative models to feed ourselves, empower the people, and end the exploitation of the most vulnerable.

Photo of organic garden in Caracas, Venezuela 2006.

Healthy food as self – defense

“We thought if we gave the people food, they might want clothing. If we gave them clothing, they might want housing. If we gave them housing, they might want land, and if they had land, they might want some abstract thing called freedom.” —Elaine Brown, 1992

Last year, my husband and I attended an event with some of the leading food justice advocates in the Bay Area, including one of the founding members of the Black Panther Party (BPP), David Hilliard. The event took place in Vallejo and encouraged people to get involved with food justice in the community. 

After the event, I contacted David as I wanted to share with him the work Food Empowerment Project had done on access issues in Santa Clara County, and I was interested in learning more about the food programs organized by the BPP in the 1960s and ‘70s.

During this meeting, David asked if we would work with him and the Intercommunal Institute for Research and Social Change (IIRSC - a project of the Huey P. Newton Foundation, which he is the director of) on access issues in Vallejo.

Since then we have been busy doing research on Vallejo and updating our tools with the volunteer help of our intern from Stanford, Emily Alsentzer, and sociologist Dr. Carol Glasser.

David and I have also had some enriching conversations about activism and what the BPP stood for, and so much of it is truly relevant today.

But what has also come out of this is a better understanding of the BPP and Huey P. Newton. I have been incredibly lucky to sit with David and watch old TV interviews of Huey as well as listen to interviews of him.  His integrity was something I feel so many leaders lack today. In one of the interviews he is asked his opinion of someone (whom the interviewer knew he was not fond of), and Huey stated that he was not going to say anything publically against this person as he had not said anything publically against him.

And for those of you who know me and how I feel about similar issues in the animals rights movement, I particularly liked this statement by him: “Too many so-called leaders of the movement have been made into celebrities and their revolutionary fervor destroyed by the mass media… The task is to transform society; only the people can do that – not heroes, not celebrities, not stars.”

And as incredible as it is to hear the interviews and be blown away by this articulate, holistic and humble man’s insights, it is tough to realize that, in some ways, very little has changed. 

What the BPP is mostly known for today is arming themselves for self-protection.

And yet, rarely discussed is their full Ten Point Program approach to self defense “in terms of political empowerment, encompassing protection against joblessness and the circumstances that excluded blacks from equal employment opportunities, against predatory business practices intended to exploit the needs of the poor; against homelessness and inferior housing conditions; against educational systems that denigrate and miscast the histories of oppressed peoples; against a prejudiced judiciary that convicts African Americans and other people of color by all-white juries; and finally, against the lawlessness of law enforcement agencies that harass, abuse and murder black with impunity.”

I would argue (if I even needed to) that all of the issues listed above are still, unfortunately, real concerns facing communities of color in the US.

In his introduction to The Huey P. Newton Reader, David goes on to say, “Still, it was the police patrols and not our work on behalf of jobs and housing that won the Black Panthers immediate notoriety.”

And yet, some of the lasting impact of the Black Panther Party is their work on food issues.

In January 1969, the Panthers would cook and serve breakfast to poor inner city youth in the area – it started in Oakland and they were eventually set up in cities across the country.  The program fed thousands of kids across the US.

According to the Panthers, "Children cannot reach their full academic potential if they have empty stomachs."

Hmm….it seems they knew a long time ago what researchers are still working out: students perform better when they are well-nourished.
 

This and their free grocery giveaways were part of their Survival Programs.

Food Empowerment Project, which in comparison is a very young organization, is honored to continue our work on food justice with members of the IRRC, who have been pioneers in looking out for the people.

Looking in their eyes

To commemorate my 25th year of being a vegan, I have decided to share some stories from various investigations I have done of factory farms, auctions and slaughterhouses. Though these investigations were conducted with the organization I started and ran, Viva!USA, they are a powerful part of my life and hopefully will help many understand why veganism is a key part to Food Empowerment Project’s goal of a more just food system.

The first animal rights video I ever saw was The Animals Film in 1987. That was the first time I saw the “debeaking process” of chicks – it has been seared into my mind ever since. In case you are not familiar with the film, it actually goes through the many different ways in which animals are killed, exploited and abused.  

I was in high school at the time, but I remember thinking, “I could never take footage like that.” But as all activists know, many times we do things that we never thought we could. Somehow, we find the strength through our convictions to do what we never thought possible.

My first investigations brought me to look for farms in California, where baby male calves are raised for the “veal” industry.

And I found one.  When I first walked through the door, I saw dozens of stalls (maybe 50). If you have ever seen footage of calves raised for the “veal” industry, you know what the stalls look like: dark, small and with chains nearby. But these stalls were empty. Half relief and half disappointment came over me. I was glad there were no animals there, but I was also disappointed, as we were trying to prove the industry was still alive in California.

As I was leaving, I walked by half a dozen stalls. Housed in some were the most adorable jersey cows – the cows with those big, beautiful brown eyes and long eyelashes. They were covered in flies. Now these stalls were outside and bigger than the ones I had seen in the shed – but don’t get me wrong, they were small. 

I imagine it was this farmer’s idea of a more “humane” method.  These sheds were still so small that the calves could not take free steps and there were no food or water troughs for them, either.

But this is where some of the real pain of doing these investigations happens. After taking the video footage I left – physically; however, my mind stayed with those calves, looking into their eyes – wondering how I could have left them. My mind went over having to accept that I was indeed a speciesist. I knew that if those had been human animals, I would not have left their side. I would have called the police and stayed with them until justice had been served.  

However, I left. I left those babies, with the only satisfaction that I could get, which is that I could share their story with others. I could help people to understand that dairy consumption is the reason calves like these are confined in tiny stalls.

Not too far from where I videotaped these calves is an auction house. The auction house is open one day a week, and it auctions off a variety of animals. The place is filthy, smells awful and, well, has a restaurant on site.  Yes, a restaurant. Ugh…I guess it shows you the mentality of these folks.

This is where I realized another intense difficultly for me doing these types of investigations. It is horrible videotaping animals suffering and in typical farming conditions; however, once humans begin abusing the animals, I have a hard time not intervening.

During the auctions they would prod the animals in and out of the ring and to turn around. The calves would sell for mere dollars.  I will never forget the most beautiful Black Angus calf who, while entering the auction house, slipped. My heart wrenches remembering it now. This magnificent creature full of strength and grace (under normal circumstances) left at the mercy of a merciless system.

But luckily we know we don’t have to be a part of this system.