Peta video - setting for a story

I just watched this video by peta. It didn't tell me anything I hadn't already known and while I am temporarily a vegetarian (I chose to give up meat during lent and have done so for several years now) the video has no impact on whether or not I will stay a vegetarian for longer than the amount of time I have decided on. I know the benefits to being vegetarian and the down sides ethically and biologically (and I do agree with most of them) so don't bother telling me them via comments (they won't effect my decision if I decide to stay vegetarian or even go farther and become a vegan it will be a choice I make that will not take into account random unknown people on the internet so don't waste your time talking about that to me). I like that they spread the knowledge about what is done on farms, at least the major ones, primarily because too many people don't know and imagine them to be very different.

What I thought about watching the video was about a setting for a story. A factory farm is a pretty horrific place from the animals point of view and having a protagonist end up on one could be interesting. The protagonist could be an animal, a human who was cursed to be an animal somehow, or even a human in an alternate reality where humans are food stock. I don't know which type of protagonist I would most likely write about but it is more likely that I'd write it as a human (people in general can relate more to people than animals).

Every Dog has a Gift

Every Dog Has a Gift: True Stories of Dogs Who Bring Hope & Healing into Our Lives by Rachel McPherson (who started The Good Dog Foundation) is a book that contains several stories about dogs helping people. As I have mentioned before I like dogs. Personally I feel dogs do not receive enough credit for their contributions to society. This book mentions a few of the ways dogs have and do contribute to society but no where near all the ways that they do. Dogs have been helping people for thousands of years in a large number of tasks. For example (my list not purely from the book): autism service dogs trained to handle the challenges of autism; seeing-eye dogs for the blind; dogs offer comfort to people at funeral homes, hospitals, and nursing homes; dogs locate trapped or missing people; dogs locate bombs and drugs; dogs are/were messengers during war; dogs help people hunt; dogs protect peoples property; dogs help in corralling other animals; dogs offer friendship/companionship to people; dogs provide entertainment; dogs encourage people to exercise; have been experimented on; went to space; dogs are substitutes for children to many people; etc.

This book contains a few waffy (warm and fuzzy feeling) stories but not really that many. I feel that the author could have and probably should have included more. The best thing about this book is that it gives you some information about raising service dogs that I did not know before. It is a much easier task according to the book than I believed it to be.

A photo gallery with some picture of dogs from this book can be found at: Tarcherbooks

Old Dogs are the Best Dogs

Old Dogs are the Best Dogs is a book written by Gene Weingarten with photographs by Michael S. Williamson. The book is a collection of photos of old dogs with a short statement about the dog(s) pictured. I did like the photographs taken; they looked very natural and managed to capture the emotion/personality of the dogs. Some of the comments/biographies on the dogs were pretty interesting, for example, the dog named Junior is/was Mayor of Rabbit Hash, Kentucky - a very low population area that had a stunt to raise money to pick a mayor who, or whatever, got the most votes which cost a dollar per vote won.

While I did enjoy the book I found it to be sad for a few reasons: because they are of old dogs which implies that the dogs will have departed from the mortal coil by the time (or shortly after) I gain knowledge of their existence, some of the biographies are sad, and the largest reason of all two dogs close to me have recently passed on; Blue and Bear.

As for whether or not old dogs are the best dogs, that is up to personal preferences. Many people prefer young or middle aged dogs. Some reasons as to why people would consider old dogs to be the best are because they have been with those dogs for years, old dogs are less active dogs, and because the dog and you both have gotten used to each others quirks. I don't really have a preference for dogs be it age or breed; I like all dogs.

Introduction from the book: The last word: Why old dogs are the best dogs
Old Dogs are the Best Dogs slideshow: Washington Post 12 pictures.

Thanksgiving Day - USA

Here is some trivia/facts about Thanksgiving Day.

• The fourth Thursday in November is Thanksgiving Day in the United States.
• This holiday is a harvest feast/festival.
  
• Thanksgiving Day was first was declared an official holiday by Abraham Lincoln on October 3 1863.
• Thanksgiving was originally a religious observance for all the members of the community to give thanks to God for a common purpose.
• The National Turkey Federation estimated that 46 million turkeys were consumed in the United States on Thanksgiving Day in 2007.
• Every year Macy's holds a Thanksgiving Day Parade, the first one took place in New York City in 1924.
• The first recorded Thanksgiving ceremony took place on September 8, 1565, when 600 Spanish settlers landed at what is now St. Augustine, Florida, and held a Mass of Thanksgiving for their safe delivery to the New World, followed by a feast and celebration.
• The more commonly thought of one, held in 1621 by the pilgrims off the Mayflower, occurred sometime between September 21 and November 11 and was three days long.
• What is generally thought off as pilgrim clothing is not what the pilgrims actually wore. For example: Buckles did not come into fashion until late in the seventeenth century and black and white were only commonly worn on Sunday and formal occasions.
• Watching football on Thanksgiving has become a common custom for many people. The National Football League and the (no longer in existence) American Football League have played games on Thanksgiving every year since their creation. - I do not watch football.
• Watching television specials like a Charlie Brown Thanksgiving is also a custom many people follow. - including me.
  
• Thanksgivings Day is also held by the Native Americans as National Day of Mourning. They annually hold protests and view it as a day of remembrance for the Democide (term used to include forms of government murder that are not covered by the legal definition of genocide) of the Native Americans.
• Turkeys are the most commonly eaten food on Thanksgiving Day.
  
• The first presidential pardon of a turkey was by George H.W. Bush in 1989. Since then every Thanksgiving a turkey is pardoned by the current president.
• Wild Turkeys are not very easy to catch since they have excellent visual acuity, a wide field of vision, very good hearing, can reach speeds of 25 miles per hour on the ground, perch in trees on occasion, and can fly for short distances at speeds up to 55 miles per hour.
• Turkey's are omnivores.
• Turkey's on factory farms have truly appalling existences. Videos can be found on animal welfare sites like Peta but I wouldn't recommend watching them unless you like seeing birds in misery and being mistreated. Peta has a petition to be sent to turkey breeders asking that they take steps to prevent cruelty to the birds. The petition and video can be found here: Breaking Investigation Reveals Holiday Horrors for Turkeys

Here is a site for further information about Thanksgiving myths: Deconstructing the Myths of “The First Thanksgiving”

What animals are known to eat kittens?

I have seen this particular question, or a variation of it, show up multiple times in keywords used to find this blog and I figure I might as well answer it.

Many animals will eat kittens if the opportunity presents itself but kittens really do not have animals that generally prey on them. For instance, a raccoon will on occasion eat a kitten (raccoon's are capable of killing things bigger than kittens like small dogs) but generally prefer fruits, insects, small mammals and human left overs. A hawk will on occasion eat a small kitten if it can but generally prefers small mammals less likely to be defended and other birds. Wild dogs will on occasion eat kittens. Human beings will occasionally eat them, an example that I heard about is that in Switzerland farmers would sometimes eat kittens if the cat had an excess number of them using the logic that if they are going to kill them anyways they may as well eat them, I do not know if this practice is still done though.

The animal that kittens are most likely to be killed and eaten by though is other cats. It is not uncommon for cats to eat stillborn kittens and placentas, to regain energy/nutrients from birthing them. Some first time mother cats will eat non-stillborn kittens but it isn't really all that common.

Some reasons mother cats will kill and sometimes eat kittens are:
*can't "switch off" hunting behavior during play and kills the kitten
*thinks kitten is defective
*thinks kittens have poor chance of survival anyway (due to food shortage or external threat)
*Handling by others obscures mother's scent on kittens, so she doesn't recognize them as her own
*Feels odds are insurmountable and can't protect kitten
*To increase the chances of successfully rearing their surviving kittens
*Territory, will on occasion kill rival female cats kittens
*eat it if it died of natural causes to not attract other predators and for food

Male cats will kill kittens:
*for food
*smells the scent of a rival tomcat and decides that the kittens have been fathered by the visiting tomcat
*takes over or inherits a territory may be driven to destroy any kittens in order to spread his genetics
*in attempting dominance over a kitten may accidentally kill the kitten
*from being repelled while trying to mate with mother cat might take frustration out on kitten.

Information about Swiss eating kittens comes from this blog Hello Cute Animals and I looked up the Swiss Society for Animal Welfare/ProTier as well.

Animal Intelligence

It annoys me when people say animals aren't intelligent. There is a lot of evidence pointing out that quite a few animals are very intelligent. They may not be intelligent in the same way as we are or apply their intelligence in the ways we do, but they still are pretty intelligent. Animals display problem solving abilities, some use tools (mentioned in a previous post), some have complicated social structures, have very good memory, etc.

Recent story I read on annanova about a bear stealing a hub cap from one car and then walking over to another car that was missing it's hubcaps putting the hubcap down and then knocking on the cars window seemingly trying to get the inhabitants attention.

There was another article in which they explained that elephants are very good at mathematics. The test involved dropping a varying numbers of apples into two buckets in front of the animals and then recording how often they could correctly choose the bucket holding the most fruit. They would drop them in clusters of up to three or four at a time on occasion to force the elephants to keep running totals in their heads to keep count. The elephants did very well choosing the correct bucket on average of 74% of the time with one elephant getting it correct 87% of the time. Humans taking the exact same test got scored a 67%.

There are also stories all the time in which an animal like a dog saves a human being. Just recently I read about a dog in Argentine that saved a baby. The baby had been abandoned by it's 14 year old mother and the dog had found it at brought it home putting it with her puppies.

There was another article on New York Times about how crows and their relatives could recognize faces. They tested this by capturing birds while wearing masks, those birds that were captured by the masked individual would remember the mask and be wary of/heckle that person. It was more complicated but with control groups and testing with different masks. End result was that the birds could remember the face and would tell other birds about that face. They would heckle the person and later other birds who were not captured would also heckle and avoid the person with that mask on.

We are constantly finding new evidence that animals are a lot more intelligent than people think they are. It's been found that whales and birds have a sort of grammar while singing. Some apes can be taught sign language. Some birds are at least as smart as five year old's (a parrot has demonstrated the ability to understand the concept of zero for example). They can be taught to do things and can teach each other things once taught. Dolphins that have been taught tricks and released into the wild will occasionally teach other dolphins how to do them. A lost parrot in Japan made it's way home because it told people it's name and address (though it at first refused to tell it to the police -which personally I find to be funny).

Sure some of it is just instinct and mimicry but our own intelligence is also instinct and mimicry. We learn to talk by mimicry and studies have shown more of our behavior is instinctual than we previously thought. A recent study on children show that little kids are selfish but as they approach eight years old they instinctively become less selfish, the change is so pronounced that it can only be explained, at least in part, by genes says the scientists that did the study.

Euthanize Wild Horses

The Bureau of Land Management has been rounding up wild horses at an unprecedented rate. Back in 1971 congress had passed a law (Wild Free-Roaming Horses and Burros Act) to stop the mass slaughter and commercial exploitation of wild horses. Adoption demand could not keep pace with the amount of removals, which has forced the BLM to pay for private, long-term holding care. This policy has resulted in almost half of the wild horse population being in holding pens. The BLM wants to kill thousands of healthy horses because of cost issues.

More about this and a petition against this can be found at The American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals website.

I do not like that the new administration of the Bureau of Land Management is suddenly changing it's stance. I can understand not having the money to put the animals in long term care, but I do not think they should be gathering them up at the rate that they are in the first place. The world we live in is fairly sad, the number of wild animals goes down daily with entire species dying out. While humans do need land and room, so do animals. We share the world with animals and it is not right to take away the freedom and life of so many animals.

I have read that horses originated in North America, the herds of horses eventually made their way to the rest of the world. The Ice Age though made environmental conditions unfavorable for horses, i.e. reduced the grasslands available to them. Humans (hunting the wild horses, killing them with spears and running them off cliffs in large groups) and environmental effects killed off all the horses in the Americas. By 8000 B.C., the horse only existed in other parts of the world. For thousands of years there were no horses in the Americas. It wasn’t until the end of the 15th century that horses were brought back to American shores by Columbus. The Native Americans (Arawak people of the West Indian island specifically) were in awe of the horses having never seen horses before. Horses became an important part of American society, even amongst Native Americans, the Navajo Nation's best jobs are rodeos.

If I wanted to make this post a connection to Ranma 1/2 it's easy, because one interpretation (the most common one) of the name "Ranma" is wild horse in Japanese (though chaotic horse would be more accurate) and horses are seen several times in the manga.

Animal testing and hair care

I want to purchase products that are not tested on animals, whenever possible. I could make a blanket statement and say all animal testing should be abolished, but there are times in which it is necessary and required by law. I'd like them to at least treat the animals as humanely as possible, using as few animals as possible when ever it is necessary. For somethings though there is absolutely no reason at all for the testing and the testing is overly cruel.

One product that has no need at all for testing on animals, provided it isn't for that animal specifically, is shampoo. There are hundreds of chemicals already deemed safe for humans. There is no law requiring the testing of hair care products on animals. There are many alternatives to animal testing like taking skin and eye cell cultures and seeing how it reacts with that and to test it on hair that is no longer on the person (i.e. hair that was cut off).

Most shampoo's nowadays are not tested on animals. Thing is for me it is not enough that the shampoo itself is not tested on animals, I do not want to support a business that has practices and ethics I do not agree with. Sometimes though it is hard to tell if the product is from a company that does animal testing. The bottle may say that they do not test it on animals but not everything printed on labels is the truth, companies do lie. Herbal Essence for example says on their bottles that there was no animal testing. Herbal Essence is owned by Proctor and Gamble which does do animal testing, therefore the chemicals used to make Herbal Essence may have been tested on animals, though the final product is not (butylparaben – was tested and declared safe many years ago. However, Herbal Essences force-fed butylparaben to pregnant rats to see if it harmed their developing offspring in a test that killed 100 pregnant mothers and their 1,200 baby animals.).

There are other things as well that make it difficult to tell if a company tests on animals. For starters, what company actually made the item? Usually the items do say the company that made the item, problem is that the listed company is really owned by another bigger company. So if you look for the practices of that company may not find anything but were you to look at it's parent company you'd see a lot of practices you do not agree with. The next thing is what is the source of your information? The company may release a press release saying one thing but doing another. If you check a website it maybe fraudulent (creator dislikes the company for a different reason), out of date (the company may have changed it's practices), or just misinformed. The source of information has to be reliable, up to date, and reputable.

By the way the hair care product I use most is VO5, mainly because it very cheap. I'm pretty sure they do not use animal testing. The company that owns it is Alberto-Culver and in 2002 they released a press release stating they will put an internal company ban, in place for 10 years, that prohibits all animal testing. I am in part believing them to do as they say and I did not see them listed on the most current sites I believe to be reputable.

Site in which to check if a company does animal testing: Caring Consumer
Second site to check if a company does animal testing: Global Action Network
United Kingdom anti-Herbal Essence website: Hurtful Essence

Peaceable Kingdom: A Tribe of Heart Documentary

I had watched the documentary Peaceable Kingdom at a free screening sponsored by Mercy for Animals. I don't really know why I attend Mercy for Animals or other charity events. The attendance to them is generally fairly low and it is not very likely that I will learn something I have not already learned elsewhere. The vegan dinners though at least give free food.

Peaceable Kingdom is a documentary on factory farms. I think it was well done. Some documentaries on factory farms show a lot of gore and have a high shock value. While this film did show the mistreatment of animals it did not do so in away that would make you want to puke like some do. It does make you feel sorry for them though.

The film talks about and shows information about farm sanctuary which is an organization that rescues animals from factory farms and interviews former factory farm owners/workers. It explains the differences of how farms are perceived and the reality of how massive factory farms are. The documentary would be very good for people who do not know about factory farms to learn about them and some of the practices of factory farms.

The picture at the top is one of Edward Hicks paintings on the Peaceable Kingdom (he did 62 variants). His Peaceable Kingdom series is based on this bible passage: Isiah 11:6 "The wolf also shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid; and the calf and the young lion and the fatling together; and a little child shall lead them."

My views on hunting

Having just written about a movie on hunting I decided to tell my views on hunting. I'm for the most part against hunting. I'm entirely against trophy hunting and hunting for sport.

I do not mind people, particularly people who have been hunter gathers for millennia hunting for sustenance. In truth I'd rather people ate free range dear, goose, turkey, kangaroo, etc. instead of factory farmed animals. At least the animals had more freedom. I also understand hunting a dangerous animal or animals that are destroying your farms.

I understand killing animals as a means of population control. After all that is what predators do. I'd rather people used other methods like better land management, reintroduction of predator's when not to close to human populated areas, and fencing. Could also use the means of population control used on other animals such as dogs and cats i.e. sterilization but personally I don't see that as a much better solution than hunting.

I do not see the sport in hunting. How is it fair to hunt practically defenseless animals like deer and rabbits using guns. Hunting using a knife I can see as fair, since it is very hard to get right up close enough to use a knife and you put yourself in danger. Even spears and arrows are more of a sport and a challenge to use then guns. I really see no reason at all as to why you would ever need high powered assault riffles to hunt animals though. It's just over kill and very little challenge to it.

I dislike that many hunters go out and hunt while drunk, with little to no skill in using the weapon they are using, and that even though killing with a gun does not take all that much skill they wound animals instead of killing them. Either by poor aim or by taking shots at animals that are out of range so that the bullet no longer has the penetrating power required to take down the animal instead leaving it wounded. I also dislike hunting done too close to residential areas. Also hunting can be fairly dangerous. Hunters accidentally shoot each other or other people who happen to be in the area (for example: The Vice president accidentally shot one of his hunting partners).

Street Dogs

I recently read Street Dogs by Traer Scott. Street Dogs is a book of photographs on dogs living alone or in packs on the city streets of Puerto Rico and Mexico. The pictures were very good. Many of the dogs pictured had suffered terrible wounds but the pictures were not ghastly. The photography was excellent to catch the dogs beauty. It would probably been much easier to take pictures that show the pain the dogs suffered, than to show how the dogs are still good looking.

In the introduction and mini biographies the book tells of some of the cruelties done to the dogs. The book mentioned how people had poured boiling oil on dogs, cut them with knives, burnt them with cigarettes, and a group of teenagers purposely running over a mother dog and her puppies with their car. While not something I did not already know about, the casual cruelty of people always surprises me. I really do not understand how or why people do horrible things like the above mentioned stuff.

I understand eating dogs, though I wouldn't. People need to eat, dogs are edible, and it really isn't any worse than other stuff people eat like pigs, dolphins, etc. I have even seen an argument for eating dogs that makes sense to me, though I don't agree with it. The argument was that since many shelters are over crowded and will kill the dogs anyways. Those dogs instead of being buried or thrown away can be fed to people.

I understand abandoning dogs. People get dogs and find out they do not have the ability to take care of them. People have financial problems and can't afford them. People are lazy. People become injured and no longer are able to care for them. People think that the dogs have a better chance running in the wild then they do at shelters. In some cases the dogs may very well have a better chance in the wild than at shelters. Some shelters particularly government run shelters in third world countries (and some even in first world countries) are over crowded, under funded, and do kill a large percentage of the animals. Though it did surprise me to learn that there were/are 200,000 to 300,000 street dogs in Puerto Rico.

I do not understand people's cruelty and probably never will. Don't the people have empathy for the animals they are abusing. I definitely do not want to know any people who can abuse animals. If these people abuse and mistreat animals they likely will abuse and mistreat fellow human beings.

The book was not all about the mistreatment and abandoning of dogs (and did not mention eating dogs at all). The book really was about how loving and social dogs are. It is amazing how dogs can still be trusting, kind, and playful with humans even though they suffered hardships, injury, and abuse by humans. It did mention some touching stories about dogs for example mentioned a pack of dogs that befriended a human and when the human was threatened by another human the pack went to protect the guy.

The book also mentioned the good people and organizations are doing for dogs. People giving hand outs to street dogs, restaurants giving scraps to the dogs, providing medicine for the dogs, etc. Educating the populace that abandoning and mistreating dogs is wrong and giving alternatives to abandonment. People adopting the dogs and spending money to send the dogs to the USA for adoption. Since there is a demand in some places for small dogs and puppies.

If you like dogs; I recommend you purchase this book. A part of the proceeds also goes to help dogs.

Evil enough to eat a kitten?

While browsing forums on the internet I came across a topic: Who is evil enough to eat a kitten?. It was on a comic book forum that often incorporates other forms of media. The expected response is something akin to the clown from IT (Stephen King book), Venom (Spiderman villain), Lex Luthor (Superman antagonist), etc.

The answer I thought of though was most people. You do not have to be a villain or evil to eat kittens. In real life, a lot of people eat cats. The Koreans, starving people in Cuba, etc., eat cats. Cat meat can even be purchased at stores in some countries.

Are the people eating cats evil? That would depend on how evil is being defined, on the circumstances, and on the culture. Lets start with circumstance. Very few people would condemn starving people for eating cats/kittens. It is perfectly understandable for people who have nothing else to eat, to eat a cat so that they can survive. If you were starving and had access to nothing besides kittens to eat it would be understandable to eat them. It would not by most peoples definition make you evil.

What about those people who eat kittens/cats and aren't starving, they're evil aren't they? Possibly but probably not. Unless your a vegetarian you can't really condemn people for eating cats or any animal (could but it'd make you a hypocrite). Sure you can justify why it is alright for you to eat chicken, pig, cow, etc., and call them evil for eating kittens. You shouldn't though. Sure cats are kept as pets where as most of the time the other animals aren't (though I had a pet chicken when I was small). For that reason alone people will condemn those who eat them.

A lot of the reasons you find it wrong to eat kittens, besides them being pets, is cultural. What is acceptable to eat varies greatly by country/culture. The USA find it alright to eat chicken, cow, and pig; but find it abhorrent to eat horse (which a lot of the world doesn't), whale and dolphin (which some countries like Japan find acceptable to eat). Those same animals which the USA finds acceptable to eat are not acceptable to eat in some other countries/ cultures. For instance, the eating of pigs is forbidden by the Jewish, the eating of cows is forbidden by the Hindu and in countries with a large percent of the population with people practicing those religions have it illegal to do so.

Could still argue that the eating of kittens is evil because they are young not fully grown. It is no more evil than people eating chicken most of which are killed at 16 weeks old or Veal which is tortured baby cow.

In conclusion and the entire point of the above rant. The eating of kittens is not really any more evil than the eating of other animals. While a person can rationalize why it is alright to eat one particular animal and not alright (evil) to eat another; what it comes down to, in my opinion, is that it is either evil to eat any animal or it's alright to eat any animal. Things like humane treatment of animals (though the more humane the better), intelligence of the animals (though less intelligence would be preferable), and whether the animal is a pet or not are ultimately rationalizations. Though considering the culture and society I was brought up in I would not eat kittens/dogs and since I have both dogs and a cat it would bother me to see someone eating kittens/dogs.

Ash Wednesday

Yesterday was Ash Wednesday, the first day of Lent. A day of abstinence from meat and of fasting. I fasted, ate no meat, and went to church. It is not uncommon to give something up for Lent. This year I am giving up meat for Lent. Not just on Fridays of Lent and Ash Wednesday.

I really should give up meat entirely, not just during Lent. There are a lot of reasons for why I should give up meat. Here are some:

Health Reasons: Many diseases/conditions are more common for people who eat meat than vegetarians, diseases like Anemia, appendicitis, arthritis, diabetes, gall stones, high blood pressure, stroke, heart problems, some types of cancer, and have more bad cholesterol. Vegetarians generally live longer than non-vegetarians. If I avoid eating meat I have much less chance of encountering mad cow disease and will get less hormones, drugs and other chemicals put into my body.

Environmental reasons: There are quite a few environmental reasons eating meat,at least factory farmed meat, is bad for the environment. Run off of animal waste pollutes local water reserves and rivers. Slaughterhouses are a place in which germs can spread. More nonrenewable resources are used up in raising the animals. Inefficient use of water (nearly half the US water supply) and grains (Large percentage of soy and corn is used to feed animals rather than people). Of course this is mainly a problem with factory farms and the type of farming done. If your eating some of the excess deer to limit the deer population or road kill (i.e. animals hit by cars) these environmental problems do not occur as much. Putting a stop to the environmental problems does not necessarily require people to stop eating meat.

Ethical reasons: When you eat meat you are killing an animal. Considering that I can get my proteins/vitamins/nutrients from plants instead of killing animals, it just seems cruel. Also many of the animals are treated excessively cruelly. Small pens, cutting off horns/beaks, excessive number of animals in to small a space, branding, etc.

Economic reasons: Vegetables and grains are cheaper than meat. Also other countries send grain to the US to feed animals instead of using it to feed the starving people of their own countries since there is more profit for them.

Labor reasons: People who work at meat factories are not treated fairly and often are illegal immigrants who get paid far too little.

The reason I haven't and probably won't become a full time vegetarian is mostly laziness. The country I live in eats more meat than any other country on the planet with the average person eating something like 273 pounds of meat per year. Many restaurants have very limited selection for vegetarians, so eating meat offers a much larger variety. Meat is added into things that have no real reason to add it such as chicken or beef broth added to otherwise vegetable soups or meat added to lasagna/pasta sauces. Sales at local pizza shops are generally for pepperoni pizza's instead of for a vegetarian topping or plain (several places have plain cheese pizza's cost more than pepperoni pizzas). It is much easier to eat meatless at home.

Chicken cruelty

Of all the animals raised on factory farms, chickens are most likely the most abused. This is not new knowledge many people, books, and websites talk about how the animals are treated. If you read the books or visit the websites they will tell you quite a bit about how the chickens are tortured. The type of things you would find out about are: Overcrowding in too small an area, 10-15% dying before they ever reach the slaughterhouse, improper traveling conditions like over crowded wire cages during o below zero temperatures, Chickens cannibalizing each other, rampant disease spread from unsanitary conditions, cutting off the beaks to prevent them from pecking each other, cruel means of killing them, etc.

Of course not all places treat chicken in this manner. There are some places that sell free range chicken, or at least claim that they do, you can't really know whether the company is lying or not. Regardless of how the chicken is raised. Think about the number of chicken that have to die just to make a bucket of chicken legs.

I don't eat chicken. I'd like to say that my reasons are purely altruistic, but they aren't. The main reason I do not eat chicken is because I do not like the taste of chicken. A common saying is “It tastes just like chicken”. To me that is a reason not to eat it. Another contributing factor is probably because I used to have a chicken as a pet when I was very little (it was actually pretty mean to most people and liked to chase all the other birds out of the yard).

I've talked about how the chicken are treated, the massive numbers killed, and my reason for not eating chicken. There are other reasons to not eat chicken as well. Chicken are fairly intelligent. The chicken maybe stuffed full of growth hormones or antibiotics which long term exposure to it can be detrimental to humans health. There are diseases that can transfer from chickens to humans and some of the places raising chicken are a breeding ground for illness.

One site that you can get more information on this is http://www.kfccruelty.com/ which is mostly about Kentucky Fried Chickens animal cruelty.

Candy company kills animals

I just found about how Mars Inc., makers of M&M's, Snickers, and Starburst amongst other candies is doing cruel experiments on animals.

Some of the experiments they are doing are:

• Mars is currently funding an experiment on rats at the University of California, San Francisco, to determine the effect of chocolate ingredients on the animals' blood vessels, even though the experimenter admits that studies have already been done using humans. Experimenters force-feed the rats by shoving plastic tubes down their throats and then cut open the rats' legs to expose an artery, which is clamped shut to block blood flow. After the experiment, the animals are killed.

• Mars funded a deadly experiment on mice that was published in a 2007 issue of the Journal of Neuroscience in which mice were fed flavanols (phytochemicals that are found in chocolate) and forced to swim in a pool of water mixed with white paint to hide a submerged platform, which the mice had to find in order to avoid drowning, only to be killed and dissected later on.

• In one experiment supported by Mars and conducted by the current Mars, Inc., endowed chair in developmental nutrition at the University of California, Davis, rats were fed cocoa and anesthesized with carbon dioxide so that blood could be collected by a needle injected directly into the heart—a procedure criticized by U.S. Department of Agriculture researcher Dr. William T. Golde, who notes: “This is not a simple method. … Missing the heart or passing the needle completely through the heart could lead to undetected internal bleeding or other complications.”

Information taken from http://marscandykills.com/

These type of things really bother me. I don't like people miss treating animals (or people for that matter). While personally I don't eat very much candy, I am not going to buy any of the candy made by Mars Inc. until they stop their unnecessary killing of animals. Candy is not made for animal consumption and there are differences between humans and animals. While I do realize that scientific study is necessary in some instances this is not one of those instances. Hershey doesn't do animal testing.

Beyond the animal testing the company really upsets me in that they are lying about doing them. If you call up there consumer care number, 1-800-627-7852, they say that they do not do or support animal testing. There is plenty of evidence showing that they do. Reuters, Peta, and several scientific journals all say that they do.

There was a comment on this that I accidentally deleted that said Please sign petition to tell Mars Inc. to stop animal testing!