| Fantasy
vs. Reality
February
6, 2008
You’ve
seen those pleasant photos of cows frolicking in a green pasture
surrounded by shade trees, pigs wallowing in cool mud, a rooster
crowing on a rail fence, or salmon jumping in a pristine stream.
While such pastoral scenes are depicted on packages, cartons and
labels of meat, milk, and eggs, unfortunately those are completely
bogus…just so much hype by multi-national corporations posing
as “family farmers”.
The reality
is that the milk you drink from those cartons comes from thousands
of cows crammed into mega-dairies where the cows never see green
grass, much less frolic in it. They spend their days and nights
on concrete.
Ham, bacon,
and pork chops in supermarket cases come from hogs that, from the
time they are born to the time when the bell tolls, are raised in
conjunction with thousands of other hogs in metal buildings, where,
every now and then, the feces and urine under the slatted floor
are flushed into giant cess pits.
The packages of chicken legs and thighs purchased in the grocery
store or in that “Eight-piece box” are hacked from the
carcasses of birds that are no more than 7 weeks old.
The carton of
eggs sold in supermarkets comes from chickens raised in such tight
spaces they can’t even turn around and when those poor hens
are no longer productive (by industry standards) they become chicken
soup or are thrown in a dumpster. MOARK is now owned by Land O’
Lakes and the bottom line takes precedent over all else.
The hamburger
sold in supermarkets and fast-food joints is composed of the meat
from hundreds of cows, and likely a dash of E. Coli (due to the
speed of the “disassembly” lines).
The salmon fillet
in meat cases or braised in upscale restaurants likely came from
a “fish farm” in British Columbia, where Atlantic salmon
are reared in the Pacific Ocean, in secluded bays, by the hundreds
of thousands in cages suspended above the marine waters (and the
salmon are laced with PCBs)
These realities don’t make pretty pictures, however, and are
not the ones featured on supermarket packages.
Reality doesn’t
sell. Fantasy does.
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Whether it is
the continual gut-wrenching stench from thousands of hogs, contamination
of drinking water from thousands of cows or a few thousand broken
eggs, or dangerous working conditions in slaughterhouses and packing
plants, the realities of the factory-like production of meat, milk
and eggs mean that the products sold and consumed are quite likely
unsafe and unhealthy.
“Wild”
Atlantic Salmon are listed by the US Department of the Interior
as an endangered species and cannot be “taken” (killed,
caught, captured, eaten) under any circumstances. But, it is perfectly
legal to raise these creatures by the thousands in the Georgia Straits,
between Vancouver Island and British Columbia, where the seafloor
is polluted, escaped Atlantic salmon threaten native stocks, and
the fish end up with flesh and fat contaminated with PCBs (polychlorinated
bi-phenyls, related to dioxin).
--------------
Officers of
agribusiness corporations make enormous amounts of money in selling
consumers such fabrications. For example, Chris Policinski, the
current CEO of Land O’ Lakes, made a bit over $859,000 in
2005, probably a bit more this past year. If Fortune 500 company
Land O’ Lakes meets quarterly projections, he has done well;
if not, he needs to update his resume. But, how much he makes and
whether or not he keeps his job, depends not a whit on how well
MOARK – a Land O’ Lakes egglaying operation - protects
the environment of southwest Missouri nor whether or not a hungry
child is fed in India. While corporations such as Land O’
Lakes like to refer to “externalization of costs”, what
really happens is that land, air, and water get polluted, family
farmers get run out of business, the rural economy tanks, slaughterhouse
workers get dehumanized and seriously injured, and the meat, milk,
and eggs we eat are tasteless and possibly harmful.
--------------
However, there
are better ways.
There are those
who “do it right”: who farm in sustainable, non-polluting
ways, who contribute to their community, and produce healthy and
tasteful foods.
These sources are readily available throughout the United States.
There are farmers’ markets and for-profit outlets for locally-produced
food. In addition, most chain supermarkets now carry organic, free-range,
and locally-produced meat, milk, and eggs.
As Wendell Berry
famously stated: “Eating is an agricultural act.” Brother
David Andrews – formerly the Executive Director of the National
Catholic Rural Life Conference - took this one step further, declaring,
“Eating is a moral act.”
We need to support
those who haven’t subscribed to the corporate mantra of profit
at the expense of everything else. We need to support diversified,
sustainable family farms and with our pocketbooks and our forks.
In short, we
need to treat eating as an agricultural and moral act.
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