“You can judge a nation by the way it treats its animals.”
-Gandhi
Every year in the US alone, 273 million turkeys are raised for slaughter. About 79 million of them are killed for Thanksgiving, Christmas and Easter.
At the first ever Thanksgiving, there is no evidence that the pilgrims and the Indians ate turkey. In fact, they probably didn’t eat at all! The pilgrims were so religious, they most likely celebrated their thanks through prayer and fasting.
I’m posting this video of a turkey farm (below), not to ruin your Thanksgiving, but to enlighten it. I do not believe that ignorance is bliss. I have friends who, when I talk about the truth of the meat industry, say, “Don’t tell me! I don’t want to hear it. Then I won’t be able to eat any turkey!” And it always amazes me, because if people turn the other cheek, nothing’s ever going to change. This is our world. We choose how the animals on our planet are treated.
I come from a family of vegetarians, and I remember one discussion I had with my aunt about how angry I get with people who don’t seem to care about the welfare and treatment of the animals they put in their bodies and how I was going to make it part of my mission in life to get people to stop eating meat. She said that when she was younger she felt the exact same way, but now that she’s lived more, her goal is not necessarily to get people to stop eating meat, but to get them to stop eating meat from farms that abuse their animals. People want their meat. I get it. But do you really want to eat an animal that was quite literally tortured? We should be adamant as a nation that we want better. We should accept nothing less. That is our responsibility.
Do your research. YouTube more videos. Read Alicia Sliverstone’s educational cookbook, The Kind Diet, and my favourite fictional/factual novel, My Year of Meats, by BC’s very own Ruth Ozeki.
Some people believe God gave us dominion over all animals. But do you really think this is what He meant?
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