Showing posts with label farms. Show all posts

Food and Climate Change

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Factory farming is the main cause of environmental degradation. A global transition to a vegen diet is the most efficient solution.

According to the article by two World Bank environmental advisers in the publication of November / December 2009 issue of “World Clock " , the livestock sector is responsible for at least 51 % of GHGS . In 2006 a report by the United Nations Organization for Food and Agriculture (FAO) entitled “Livestock’s Long Shadow", said agricultural production for animals is responsible for more GHGS ( CO2 equivalents ) than all cars , airplanes, ships and other means of transportation around the world together .

The situation bodes even worse , if current trends continue , global meat production will double by 2050 , with the associated increase in GHGS and denial of the effects of many positive changes , which would make it very difficult, if not impossible , GHGS achieve reductions that climate experts believe essential to avoid the worst effects of climate change .

Factory farming has resulted in too large livestock population. In sum, the 5 species used for human consumption the population tripled. There is 1 cow for every 5 people , 1 sheep for every 6 people , 1 pig for every 7 people, 1 goat for every 8 persons and 2.5 chicks per each person. To feed all those animals will require massive amounts of cereals, grains, seeds and grasses. Cropland become insufficient and this is how the livestock industry uses deforestation of jungles and forests, generating millions of tons of CO2.

The digestive process of the more than 1,000 million cows generates 37 % of all human -induced methane, this gas is 23 times more potent than CO2. Cow feces contain high amounts of nitrous oxide, a gas 296 times more potent than CO2, and urine and feces 17,000 million chickens generate 64 % of ammonia -induced human, a chemical element that causes the rain acidic.

What's more, carry and keep refrigerated the hundreds of tons of meat, milk and eggs produced each year, involves a huge expenditure of fossil fuels and electricity.

Factory farming is responsible for 90 % of deforestation in the Amazon, the main lung of the world. This is due to the extension of pasture and forage crops to feed a growing population of cattle. Information provided by the National Forestry Commission through the inquiry system, says that 60 % of deforestation in Mexico is due to changes in land use livestock purposes.

This adversely affects the balance of ecosystems; 15 of 24 ecosystems that provide important ecosystem services are in decline, and an analysis of the Red List of Threatened Species prestigious World Conservation Union (IUCN) shows that most endangered species in the world are subject to loss of habitat due to livestock.

Livestock is probably the main cause of water pollution because of all wastes discharged into rivers, lakes and oceans, as feces, hormones, antibiotics, fertilizers, pesticides, chemicals used in tanneries, etc. According to the National Water Commission, the livestock sector accounts for 50 % of water use in Mexico, when the household occupies only 14% and production of vegetables to feed 20% human.

In all, livestock production is for 70% of agricultural land and 30% of the Earth's land area. While 30% of the human population in the world suffer from hunger or malnutrition, livestock occupies half of the production of grains and cereals worldwide, and wasting natural resources such as gas, water or soil.

To produce a kilo of beef requires seven kilos of cereal, but if this cereal should be allocated directly to the human could end with starvation and malnutrition worldwide.

The livestock industry and economic interests are as important as the taste of the people for eating meat, milk and eggs. These are the probable causes why many leaders are afraid to address the issue as its magnitude requires.

Nevertheless, the UN considers that the main solution to environmental problems is to reduce the livestock population. To achieve this it is essential that society leads towards a diet free of animal products, or at least reduce your intake of them. The vegan diet is the main ecological solution and has great benefits for human health and respect for animals.

Wait for world leaders to save us from environmental catastrophe will remain just in waiting. Time to take a proactive stance and take actions that benefit nature. Both the health of the planet as their own, begin at the table.

Source: Hazte Vegetariano

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Eat Smart. Your Food Choices Affect the Climate

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Climate and Environmental Impacts







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‪McDonald's Cruelty: The Rotten Truth About Egg McMuffins‬


A new Mercy For Animals undercover investigation into a McDonald's egg supplier, Sparboe Egg Farms, exposes the fast-food giant's secret ingredient: shocking cruelty to animals.


Hidden-camera footage taken at Sparboe facilities in Iowa, Minnesota and Colorado reveals:




- Hens crammed into filthy wire cages with less space for each bird than a standard-sized sheet of paper to live her entire miserable life, unable to fully stretch her wings or engage in most other natural behaviors.

- Workers burning off the beaks of young chicks without any painkillers and callously throwing them into cages, some missing the cage doors and hitting the floor.

- Workers grabbing hens by their throats and ramming them into battery cages.

- Rotted hens, decomposed beyond recognition as birds, left in cages with hens still laying eggs for human consumption.

- A worker tormenting a bird by swinging her around in the air while her legs were caught in a grabbing device - violence described as "torture" by another worker.

- A worker shoving a bird into the pocket of another employee without any regard for the animal's fear and suffering.

- Chicks trapped and mangled in cage wire - others suffering from open wounds and torn beaks.

- Live chicks thrown into plastic bags to be suffocated.

Common sense tells us that animals should be given at a minimum the freedom to walk, stretch their limbs, turn around and engage in natural behaviors. Yet, this McDonald's supplier deprives hens of even these most basic freedoms. After viewing the undercover footage, Dr. Sara Shields, research scientist, poultry specialist and consultant in animal welfare, condemned battery-cage egg production:

Battery cage operations are inherently cruel. The barren, restrictive environment offers no hope for an acceptable quality of life, and such severely overcrowded confinement would be unthinkable for any other farmed species. World-wide, there is increasing recognition that battery cages are simply not appropriate housing.

In fact, barren battery cages are so cruel that the entire European Union and the states of California and Michigan have banned their use. Additionally, leading food retailers, such as Whole Foods, Hellmann's, Wolfgang Puck and Subway, and hundreds of colleges and universities refuse to use or sell eggs from hens subjected to the inherent abuses of battery cages.

MFA is calling on McDonald's Corporation to end its use of eggs from hens confined in battery cages in the United States, as it has already in the European Union. As Dr. Shields states, "Animals are designed to move, are biologically prepared for regular movement, and will suffer physical consequences if they are not given the freedom to exercise."

Sadly, not a single federal law currently provides any protection to birds at the hatchery, on the factory farm, or during slaughter. Further, most states - including those in which this investigation was conducted - have sweeping exemptions for farmed animals, which allow for abuses to run rampant without prosecution.

As the largest egg purchaser in the United States, McDonald's has enormous power in effecting improved standards of care for egg-laying hens. Accordingly, MFA is also asking that McDonald's actively support a recent agreement between the United Egg Producers and The Humane Society of the United States that seeks to establish federal regulations that would provide hens enough space to turn around, as well as environmental enrichments, such as perches and nesting boxes. The agreement is a modest but important first step in establishing minimal standards for care of birds on a federal level. Sadly, Sparboe Egg Farms is aggressively opposing the implementation of even these meager reforms to reduce animal suffering.

While McDonald's has the moral obligation and purchasing power to lessen the cruelty suffered by the millions of hens who are abused and exploited to produce eggs for its restaurants, consumers also hold enormous power of their own in preventing animal abuse by adopting a compassionate vegan diet.


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Ethics, Laws, and Traditions

What does Republican Matthew Scully, the former senior speechwriter for George W. Bush, have in common with Ohio's ultra Democrat and former presidential candidate Dennis Kucinich? The same thing Russell Simmons, Erykah Badu and Joaquin Phoenix have in common with Cesar Chavez, Pythagoras and Leonardo da Vinci. Besides capturing the hearts and minds of generations, all are vegan. By not wearing fur, leather, wool, silk and down, nor consuming milk, cheese, eggs, honey and the meat of any land or marine animal, they made a compassionate decision to directly save the lives of thousands of animals.

Animals had an inherent right to be free and live completely unfettered by human domination, I wondered why it takes so much time to attain this nonviolent awakening.

I began to ask, "Who taught me that animals were put on this Earth for food? Who taught me to disrespect animals and view them as mere commodities? Who stole my compassion, my empathy and my conscience? Who lied to me? Who instilled this vicious mindset of human-to-animal exploitation as standard operating procedure?"

If every meat, dairy and egg-eater logically and compassionately re-evaluated their beliefs, they would understand why veganism is the only ethical and acceptable way to live on this planet.

Isaac Bashevis Singer, the compassionate Jewish humanitarian who escaped Nazi-occupied Poland, once condemned every animal-exploiter by stating, "What do they know—all these scholars, all these philosophers, all the leaders of the world? They have convinced themselves that man, the worst transgressor of all the species, is the crown of creation. All other creatures were created merely to provide him with food, pelts, to be tormented, exterminated. In relation to them [animals], all people are Nazis; for the animals it is an eternal Treblinka."

Singer's indictment is probably the most damning statement ever about humankind. It establishes the fact that violence is violence and murder is murder even if the victims have beaks, horns, gills, feathers or fur.

It's important to note that animals were the first victims of slavery, oppression and murder. Humans perfected these psychotic techniques on animals before using them on each other. In the last 12 months alone, tens of billions of animals worldwide were enslaved, murdered, dismembered or tortured by the food and clothing industries, in vivisection experiments, by hunters, in rodeos, circuses, and zoos, making the Animal Holocaust the largest and longest-running Holocaust of all time.

When Nazis rounded up Jews, babies were ripped out of their mothers' arms. In the dairy industry, calves are stolen from their mothers after birth. Other animal mothers, such as sows, rabbits and ewes, have their babies taken within days, weeks or months after birth. Separating families is a psychologically devastating tactic used to weaken one's pride and inhibit their desire to retaliate and fight back. Nazis swiped this technique from the meat, dairy and egg industries. Jews were tattooed to mark them. All animals in the meat and dairy industries are branded with hot irons, or ear-notched with a numerical tag. Jews were sent to the concentration camps in the same extermination trucks that still send animals to slaughterhouses. The Nazis constructed human slaughterhouses to massacre millions, while these torture-buildings have been strategically built all over the planet to massacre billions of animals. Jews have been, while animals still are, treated like nothing, as if their lives don't matter.

You can also compare the two Holocausts this way. Go to the nearest cow or pig slaughterhouse and remove the animals and replace them with humans. You have now re-created Birkenau. If you travel back in time and remove the Jews from Birkenau and replace them with cows or pigs, a Holocaust is still taking place. During my 2012 lectures in Israel, after showing a new slaughterhouse video, I asked thousands of people the following: "How come if the animals in that video were dogs or cats, you'd be outraged? If they were kids, you'd be screaming bloody murder! Instead the victims are cows and chickens and fish and all of a sudden no one cares, it's okay? So I'm a little confused here. Is the slaughterhouse a problem? Or is the problem who's getting killed in the slaughterhouse? It's a HOUSE OF SLAUGHTER. Why does it even exist? Especially in a country that loves to say, 'NEVER AGAIN. IT'LL NEVER HAPPEN AGAIN.' I got some news for ya. The Animal Holocaust was happening long before the Jewish Holocaust, during the Jewish Holocaust and it's still happening today. It's time for Israel to become the first nation on this planet to abolish concentration camps once and for all."

The global atrocity of eating animals kills more innocent beings in one year than all human atrocities over the past 5,000 years combined! This makes veganism the most important aspect of animal rights because almost every animal who is abused and killed on this planet is abused and killed by the meat, dairy and egg industries, despite the fact that no one in this day and age needs meat, cheese, milk and eggs to survive. The only exception would be people residing in icy environments or desert settings. But eating animals for pure survival is rare with only around 1 percent of the earth's population being able to use this excuse. Keep in mind, this is just a valid excuse and NOT a justification. I understand why they do it. I wouldn't do it under any circumstances, but I understand their motives. Everyone else on this planet eats animals and the things that come out of animals for four reasons: Habit, convenience, taste and tradition. With the addition of the profit motive, those are invalid, unnecessary and barbaric reasons to intentionally harm animals.

Meat, dairy and egg-eating societies are also the main cause of world hunger as they continually feed around 50 percent of the world's corn, wheat, oats and soy to 60 billion land animals and tens of billions of marine animals (fish-farming) instead of hundreds of millions of starving people! Every two to three seconds, someone on this planet dies from malnutrition while pigs and cows get fat. Consequently, meat, dairy and egg-eaters are anti-human because feeding billions of animals instead of millions of hungry children is an indirect form of genocide.

Worldwide, around 60 billion land animals [10 billion in the USA] and 90 billion marine animals [18 billion in the USA] are killed and eaten every year in a monumental Holocaust borne of ignorance, arrogance and racism. The human race v. animal race brand of racism permits humans to enslave and kill any other species with impunity. Singer calls speciesism the "purest form of racism" because it kills more innocent beings that any form of human-to-human racism.

This is why vegans are the utmost humanitarians. We indiscriminately seek justice for all by doing unto others as we would have done unto ourselves [THE GOLDEN RULE].

As an ethical vegan, it's logical for me to proclaim that the only nice slaughterhouse is an empty slaughterhouse. This statement, however, is often challenged by uninformed, egocentric individuals who believe mercy and kindness are exclusive to humans. But to deny every animal's inherent right to fly, swim and run freely is cruel and dishonest. If given an option, no animal would choose pain or death.

To understand the compassionate movement of animal rights, empathy must be used to examine the issue from the animals' point of view. This isn't a radical concept either. Abolitionists looked at slavery through the eyes of subjugated blacks, just as the Allied Forces looked at Nazism through the eyes of Jews and other non-Aryans whom Hitler labeled unworthy and expendable. Empathy allows people to understand the injustice without over-analyzing the issue, especially when those in power deem the victims unworthy and expendable, something Hitler, slave-owners, and meat, dairy and egg-eaters have all done to their respective victims.

In an attempt to defile the animal rights movement, meat, dairy and egg-eaters often proclaim that Hitler practiced vegetarianism. However, biographers Albert Speer and Robert Payne attested to Hitler's love for liver dumplings, stuffed squab [pigeon], ham and sausage. German Chef Dione Lucas wrote about Hitler's carnivorism in her Gourmet Cooking School Cookbook, published in 1964. Rynn Berry's Hitler: Neither Vegetarian Nor Animal Lover describes how Goebbels, The Third Reich's propaganda minister, tried to sell Hitler as a vegetarian to make him seem as peaceful as Gandhi. The next section in this series, HITLER WAS NOT VEGETARIAN, provides ample evidence that, contrary to a good deal of popular misconception, Hitler and his henchmen were not vegetarians at all.

Were you also aware that animals in the meat, dairy and egg industries receive no legal protection whatsoever? After all, slavery and slaughterhouses cannot co-exist with freedom and protection. Here's an excerpt from section two of the Animal Welfare Act (AWA), the federal law that oversees animal-use in America: "When used in this act, the term "animal" ... excludes farm animals, such as, but not limited to, livestock and poultry used or intended for use as food ..." That's pretty cute, isn't it? The animals who are enslaved or eaten aren't even recognized as animals under the law. Does this remind you of another piece of legislation that ignored the victims and existed to shield victimizers from prosecution? When the Constitution was first enacted, only land-owning, slave-owning, white men of European descent were protected. Blacks, Natives, women and many others were conveniently excluded.

The AWA, kosher and halal-style killings, and the free-range/freedom/organic/cage-free/antibiotic-free/hormone-free/grass-fed/buying local marketing terms are used to manipulate people into thinking that meat, dairy and egg production can be done happily and humanely. But there is no such thing as happy and humane slaughter just as there is no such thing as happy and human rape, happy and humane slavery, or happy and humane child molestation. From the animals' point of view, anyone who commodifies their bodies is equally vicious. And if for some reason my aforesaid words aren't proof enough of the terrorism claims I'm lodging against the meat, dairy and egg establishments—and the people who consume these products—maybe the billions of dead, dismembered animal bodies consumed annually could count as proof.

Fortunately, de-programming the perfunctory ways of meat, dairy and egg-eaters is possible. The University of North Texas opened a vegan dining hall in 2011, a New York elementary school turned its cafeteria vegetarian in 2013, and the Victor Valley Medium Community Correctional Facility in Adelanto, California, successfully ran a vegan rehabilitation program, just to name a few. My lectures convert thousands to veganism annually while thousands more significantly reduce their meat, cheese, milk and egg intake. Reduction and abolition are the only options to end this massacre. Welfare regulations are a stamp of approval to let the carnage continue unabated because compassionate ways of enslaving and killing billions of animals do not exist.

This is why we shouldn't be a fan of legislation. Fighting for bigger cages or "better" treatment of animals is contradictory and ridiculous. It will never lead to empty cages. When examining human liberation movements, you'll notice that Malcolm X and Dr. King didn't fight for "better" treatment of blacks via improved segregation policies. They wanted to abolish segregation. They fought for equality and freedom. Cesar Chavez fought for it, too. Same thing when Gandhi liberated India from British rule. If abolition instead of welfare were somehow legislated, I'd be down for that. But I don't believe you can legislate until you educate. Passing welfare laws—which won't be enforced anyway—without explaining why it's evil to commodify animals is backwards.

In America, each meat, dairy and egg-eater is responsible for the deaths of 3,000 land animals and thousands of other marine animals throughout their lifetime. Meat, dairy and egg-eating, however, is not an instinctive behavior. It is learned tradition. Scientific claims of the human body being omnivorous or carnivorous are erroneous and illogical. If someone placed a two-year old child in a crib with a bunny rabbit and an apple, the child would play with the rabbit and eat the apple, an unambiguously herbivorous reaction. People become inured to the taste of blood, flesh, veins, muscles, tendons, cow secretions [milk], hen-ass droppings [eggs] and bee vomit [honey], as I will discuss in the "Humans Are Herbivores" section.

Since veganism is for anybody who wants to be kind to animals, good to the environment and healthy, millions of Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Buddhist, Hindu, atheist, black, white, Asian, Latino, Native, pro-life, pro-choice, pro-gun and anti-gun people live a vegan lifestyle. Millions of Democrats, Independents and Republicans are vegan as well. Tales of tree-hugging liberals being the only supporters of veganism couldn't be further from the truth. Scully's Dominion is a right-wing, faith-based, Christian conservative view supporting veganism because ethnicity, religious affiliation or political party have no bearing on eating a veggie burger tonight instead of a hamburger.


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Why vegans reject animal materials?

Minks, foxes, cattle, otters, ferrets, chinchillas, are part of the group of animals used to produce leather for clothing and upholstery.

Hunted animals for their skin

The animals hunted for their fur will face a horrible and brutal death: either be caught in snares or traps that will suffer in agony until the end, or, as in the case of seals will be killed with blows to the head.

Fur Farms

Many of the animals who are exploited for their fur are confined in cages on fur farms. The 85% of European production is native fur farmed animals.

Lives confined in cages

The suffering that these animals suffer while allowed to live is overwhelming. When living in the wild they all need large areas to live and thrive. On farms the conditions to which they are subjected, living in small and dirty cages metal, the mentally unbalanced so that they fall into behaviors ranging from convulsive movements repeated until self-mutilation of limbs or tails.

Rape of females

Breeding techniques are specially designed for females to have the highest number of births before they themselves are executed when their performance decreases.

Killing of animals for the fur industry

The animals that are enslaved for their fur are killed in several ways: they are electrocuted, gassed them, choking them, they are clubbed or hunting traps that agonize for hours, even days.

For mink, foxes, chinchillas and ferrets their lives will last until the thickness of your skin friendly enough to be marketed. At that time they will be killed by methods that try to produce less damage to your valuable skin: lethal injection, suffocation, electrocution. Sometimes they are torn skin while the animals are still alive.

Animal Materials

To make a fur coat only needed, depending on the animal's skin that it has been started, the following number of animals: 300 chinchillas, 17 bobcats, 20 baby seals, 8 adult seals, 60 mink, 20 otters, 20 foxes, martens 60, 250 squirrels, 12 wolves.

Countries that have banned fur industry

The United Kingdom banned fur farms in 2000, and are also banned in Austria and Serbia. Irish governments have resisted prohibition, protecting a tiny but wildly destructive industry. The five remaining fur farms in Ireland are the only cause of continuing releases of mink, sometimes by accident and sometimes attacks. They are also the place of astonishing cruelty, where sentient individuals are confined to cages the size of a few boxes of shoes. The Irish Government is considering the disappearance of farms from 2012. But Ireland is a small player. Two thirds of the world's mink farms and 70% of foxes are in other EU countries. Only Denmark produces 40% of global supply of mink pelts. Other countries where a ban discussion are Sweden and Norway.



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Why vegans do not eat what bees produce?

It traded between about 250,000 and 300,000 tons of honey in the world, and actually occurs twice that amount. There are six main world producers of honey: China, USA, Mexico, Argentina, Canada, and Germany.

Each bee flies about 800 km in his working life and produces only half a teaspoon of honey. A queen can produce half a million eggs in her natural life cycle. However, only two years left to live in the commercial world producing 150,000 eggs per year. In calm conditions the worker bee flies at 24 miles per hour and up to 40 km for short periods of time, and works for 7-10 hours daily.

Some people ask us why vegans do not eat honey, they believe that the collection of honey and pollen frustrates their fundamental interests, or do not believe that the bees have the capacity to feel pain.

Vegan Answer
Beekeeping explodes and kills bees. We can live healthily without eating honey, thus respecting the bees, which is humanly taste value.

The bees have ability to feel pain, and therefore the interest of not suffer. Bees are insects and insects belong to the animal kingdom. Although the nervous system of insects, arachnids, etc.. is more rudimentary than that of other animal species evolutionarily superior, also feel. Studies of this are:

- In March 2010, the journal Nature published a study in which researchers from Brandeis University in Waltham (USA), directed Paul A. Garrity, discovered in flies and mosquitoes ancestral molecular mechanism associated with the pain they share with humans. The results shed light on the evolutionary origins of pain sensation. The study shows that the TRPA1 ion channel protein helps neurons like insects to detect harmful chemicals. TRPA1 is involved in the human response to pain to such irritants, suggesting that this molecular mechanism is not specific to vertebrates. According to the researchers, unlike other chemical senses such as smell or taste, it seems that human detection of irritants lies a chemical sensor conserved ancestral molecular level over 500 million years of evolution.

The bees were subjected to electric shocks to produce a bite. Discovered that need a higher voltage to produce a bite by bees that had been exposed to IPA and therefore had their natural analgesic system activated, compared with bees that had not been exposed. The response also increased with the amount of IPA was exposed to the bees. Moreover, if the bees were exposed to IPA and naloxone (which blocks the opioid system), the effect was completely offset IPA and bees stinging continued even at a higher discharge.

This explains the results of the study of Balderrama et al., Who tried to discover whether Africanized bees were more aggressive than European honeybees. They found that the Africanized responded with fewer bites than European to the same stimulus. However, this is not due to the less aggressive European, but rather to have a pain response system more effective. That is, the pain system than bees behavior relates to threats.

It discriminates morally, other sentient individuals (speciesism)
Many people sometimes accuse vegans of extremists or crazy for trying to defend and protect up the smallest animal life.

People give the sample of the face more faithful to speciesism when only shows interest, (and in some cases not even that) just for your favorite pet, for your dog or cat, etc. Showing a terrible apathy any other animal nature. It also shows his confusion when we say we do not use WOOL, SILK, DYES, nor kill ANTS or do not consume the "fabulous" HONEY. And it is the latter that we have to report now.

All animals deserve respect, because they are sentient beings who are in this world for their own and for their own interests, not to be "used" for humanity. Bees are not the exception to the rule, their small sizes are not a reason to exclude them from respect or defend reason not as much as a cow or a cat lab.

Bees are manipulated to obtain many products for human use, honey, wax, propolis, pollen, royal jelly, and venom. They are intelligent insects that have been described as having a complex communication systems.

No need to eat honey to be healthy and strong
There are many natural sweeteners can be used in place of honey brown sugar, fructose, maple syrup, fruit juice concentrates, molasses, malt extracts, syrups (agave, maple, etc..)

Honey consumption involves animal exploitation
Because you see the bees fly freely, they are also usually considered free of the usual cruelties of the livestock industry. However, bees are mostly treated just like any other farm animal. They are subjected to routine tests and handling, artificial feeding regimes, drug and pesticide treatment, genetic manipulation, artificial insemination, transportation (air, rail and road) and sacrifice.

Transport
There bees buying and selling worldwide. Your transport implies that bees suffer stress, suffocation, overheating, or cold. Many perish buried in coffins are their packages.

Bees crushed when handling the panels
When beekeepers manipulate combs many bees die crushed. Often, the hives are sprayed with smoke to calm the bees and easier handling. Locks are placed or special devices which violate bee space to collect the products as they enter the hive. It separates the bees from their hives by shaking vigorously or expelling with powerful air currents. You may end up with legs or wings clipped.


Theft of honey and feeding of worst quality
Honey bees produce it for themselves, therefore, take it is to steal what they have produced by their hard work.

Beekeepers usually feed their colonies with artificial substitutes for pollen and white sugar syrup, honey usually to replace stolen them. If these practices are carried out over long time periods are reducing productivity and longevity of the hive. The colonies should be fed with its own natural food - honey and pollen - producing bees born with larger and more vigorous.

Queen bee wings are cut
Cut the wings to avoid swarming queens and go flying. Swarming is the natural form of reproduction growth and survival of the species, at least in the wild. However, beekeepers are constantly trying to avoid this natural phenomenon using artificial pheromones and cutting off their wings to maintain their colony under control.

The Queen is murdered. (Hive orphan)
In the production of honey, usually artificially inseminated queen bees with sperm obtained from decapitated male. Queens are systematically sacrificed every two years because after a period of time the egg production capacity decreases, so that the whole hive is unproductive and not profitable. In Israel the kill and renewed every year. So beekeepers explain:

1) You have to kill the old queen to be replaced. This can be crushing with fingers and then leave it on the floor of the hive, just below the lower slats frames.

2) If you have not fertilized queen hive that swarmed or because they experienced a replacement, you must locate and kill the virgin queen.

3) ALL need to destroy queen cells (capped or opercular) that are present in the hive. To this end, it is shaking the bees from the frames inside the hive to see if in some corner or hidden for some honeycomb building us some actual cell unnoticed. To destroy any queen cells that may be present, we decrease significantly the chances that worker bees develop orphan preference unborn cells rather than fertilized queen cage just introduced.

4) After killing the queen is going to be replaced and have destroyed all the real cells that may have, leave the hive 48 hours in complete horfandad without doing any manipulation of it. "

Use of pesticides and antibiotics
Beekeepers have become dependent on the use of synthetic pesticides and antibiotics to combat pests, and this has led to problems for both toxicological beekeepers themselves to bees and risks of contamination of honey.

Now it appears that the trend is to replace the use of pesticides by antibiotics with the bees.




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Why vegans reject the consumption of eggs?

ANIMAL FARM: EGGS

An egg is a rounded body size and hardness variables that produce females from different groups of animals, and supports and protects the embryo if the egg is fertilized, thus becoming zygote. Oviparous vertebrates lay eggs, with little or no development inside the mother, and many invertebrates. This is the reproduction of many fish, amphibians and reptiles, all birds, mammals monotremes, and most insects and arachnids. When the eggs develop inside the mother ovoviviparismo discussing.

The egg laying hen is your ovulation, therefore, as occurs when a woman ovulates (the next rule) is not necessary that the hen has sex for them. Only fertilized eggs chicks born.

The ways in how you can get an egg are:

- Exploitation of hens in cages.
- Exploitation of hens in floor.
- Exploitation of hens.
- Exploitation of ecological chickens.
- Hen as "pet".

Stealing eggs
Across the European Union 97.2 billion eggs are stolen from their mothers, bound for the food industry. Theft occurs in both chicks hatcheries and farm eggs for consumption.

Sexing chicks
With chicken sexing separates males from females in sexing carousels where millions of chickens are treated as mere commodities. The chicks are stressed, are hit and suffer fractures.The chicks that pass through the carousel sexed and have economic value are sold to farms to organic farms to family farms and individuals.

The male chicks are killed
For each laying hen, whether it is confined in a cage or jacket that is a chicken in "freedom", there is a male chick who was killed at the hatchery. This is because hens breeds have been genetically selected exclusively for maximum egg production, males do not lay eggs and are not fattening fast enough or not enough weight to reach the eating of meat. Therefore, male chicks hens breeds have no economic value, since it does not lay eggs nor are fattening broiler breed quickly, and literally thrown away the day they are born, usually by the cheapest means: thrown into trash cans by the thousands, male chicks die axfisiados or crushed by the weight of others, are directly gassed or crushed.


Another common method for getting rid of unwanted male chicks is grinding them alive. This can lead to unimaginable horrors, as described by a scientist who observed that "even after twenty seconds, there were only partly damaged animals with whole skulls". That is fully conscious chicks were partially ground slowly into a brutal agony. Eyewitness in hatcheries indicate similar horrors of chicks being slowly dismembered by machinery blades en route to the trash bins or manure spreaders.



- A hidden camera investigation by Mercy For Animals showed how male chicks are ground on a poultry farm center, a common practice in the industry.

Some of these male chicks end up being painted and sold in stalls like toys. The chicks are usually painted with aniline, which is a toxic substance, and with vegetable dyes. As a result, many chicks die in the process or in the days after purchase.

Beak trimming
Beak trimming is a common practice among poultry farm farms (including so-called 'green') which involves amputating the peak (bone, cartilage and tissue) to chicks 5-10 days old by a machine BEAK. The machine BEAK peak amputated end of chicks by a hot blade cauterized the cut. The wound bleeds and sometimes burns and infections occur, not forgetting the obvious pain mutilation. Beak trimming is twofold: to prevent cannibalism among the most stressed birds and reduce feed waste.

In the book Guidelines for the management of a poultry farm beak trimming is explained as follows:

"This practice has two purposes, to prevent cannibalism (which occurs frequently by stress) and reduce feed waste. Should be done quickly because to a machine that is used BEAK with hot knife cuts both generally upper and lower part of the beak. warm blade cauterized (stops bleeding) cutting, avoiding massive bleeding. cannibalism starts pecking and feather plucking of each other, until the break or cut skin and bleeding. If not controlled in time at this stage of bleeding, more aggressive birds end up killing the weakest. the red color of blood is what catches their attention more, so that the problem of cannibalism is more serious in birds of clear or white ". Boris Coto, Guidelines for the management of a poultry farm
The bill has very important functions for birds. Besides being a means of defense and perception of sensations, is the mouth of the birds, and therefore the input for food. Many birds whose beaks have been starved amputees to get their beaks stuck, for the pain of the injury or because they can not hold the food.

It is also common for bird calls "organic farms" are also the peak amputee, because birds are crowded at night and also stress often leads to set upon each other. A chicks intended for the sale of their meat were also amputated the peak, as they are also crowded during the 21-39 days that makes them fat quickly.

Overcrowding of hens
When females are old enough to lay eggs, with about 16 or 18 weeks, moved to the farm of chickens, a plant generally consists of several buildings, each the length of a football field, filled with rows of wire cages, sometimes stacked to the roof: is what is called "battery hens". These cages have uneven ground, so that the egg rolling through a conveyor path of the next stage of production.

To optimize the production of each building, many chickens are crammed in the same cage as possible.

There are two types of cages for hens: conventional or adapted or upgraded and enriched. The conventional or unenriched cages are banned in the European Union are the only authorized cages enriched cages. This decision took in 1999 and entered into force on January 1, 2012. European legislation provides that each hen enriched cages must have a minimum of 750 cm ² of cage / chicken, 600 cm ² of which shall be usable. 

To give us an idea of the space available to the hens who live in these cages for their entire life is less than the surface of a sheet of A4 size paper (21 x 29.7 = 623.7 cm ²). The cage should have a minimum of 30 cm of usable width and a maximum inclination of 14%, plus a minimum of 45 cm in height. In addition, the cage must have a nest, litter such that pecking and scratching, and adequate perches that offer at least a space of 15 cm per hen. The nest and perch are not counted as usable area.

The conditions are reduced, preventing the animal performing normal behaviors such as nesting and grooming, both important for the hens. Constantly rubbing against the wire cages, they suffer from severe feather loss, and their bodies are covered with bruises and abrasions.

Forced to a lifetime of foot, legs are deformed, the wire cut your fingers, which also bows and become claws to hold on an unsuitable floor. Sometimes in cold conditions your legs are frozen in the bars.

Molting
Laying hens may be forced to make molting leaving them in darkness, making them go hungry and thirsty for 18 days to stimulate their bodies to complete another laying cycle. Typically between 5 and 10% of birds die of starvation or dehydration during molting, and those who survive may lose more than 25% of their body weight. The move makes starting a new cycle of egg laying when the production floor, and so lengthen the economic productivity of these animals. The photo hen was rescued from a factory egg with broken body by this method.

"Spent" hens
Currently each half hen lays 260 eggs per year. The statistics of 1940 showed a production of 134 eggs per hen per year, which gives us insight into the genetic and environmental manipulations were carried out to double production . They suffer from " fatty liver syndrome " when their liver cells working overtime to produce fat and protein for egg yolks, accumulate extra fat . They also suffer from what the industry calls ' cage fatigue " , and many animals die when their bodies are too weak to lay an egg . Osteoporosis is another common ailment that afflicts laying hens , because their bodies lose more calcium to form egg shells than they can assimilate from their diets. Some hens used an amount of calcium for yearly egg production that is greater than the weight of the entire skeleton . Lack of calcium aids in the breakdown of bones , paralysis , and death. After one year in egg production , birds are classified as " spent hens " and sent to slaughter. His brittle bones, and decalcified often break during the trip to the slaughterhouse . They usually end up as ingredients in soups , pies or meat products of inferior quality, in which bodies can be shredded to hide the bruises consumers .

In a guide for management explained in a poultry farm hens wear well:

" A" selection " practice of detecting , first by sight and then by individual physical examination , all those birds that have no uniformity within a flock and who appear ill and / or are not producing. Once localized to a chicken with the appearance of not being in production , one proceeds to check her separation with the pelvic bones , which are located on both sides of the gutter and between which there must be a gap of about three cm . This separation or space is necessary because there must pass the egg. It is important to make this selection because the birds do not reduce the profits of productive activity . For this reason you should always be rigorous selection , you should make when birds turn 15 weeks old and again at five weeks into production. Then you must perform at least once a month . "Boris Coto, " Guidelines for the management of a poultry farm!"
Slaughterhouse
All hens, have spent their lives in a cage or "freedom" in the slaughterhouse just once cease to be productive and therefore profitable for the speciesist because a chicken is not an individual who deserves respect but one thing that produces benefits. This was explained in a guide for management in a poultry farm:

"The ideal time to make the decision to remove certain batch of birds is when the value of the egg produced is equal to the cost of food." Boris Coto, "Guidelines for the management of a poultry farm"

Buy eggs from hens in "freedom" reduces some of the suffering of these animals in life, something that is positive but insufficient if we want to treat these beings with respect and justice they deserve. Their lives, and ours, should not be owned by anyone because they are not simple objects.

Not for health reasons but for ethics
It should be clear that vegans do not eat eggs because of ethical reasons to the other animals, not a health issue. The health arguments are for information only. For example, failing to consume eggs we will improve our health. Eating just one egg at breakfast can raise cholesterol levels up to 10 points. The human body produces all the cholesterol it needs, and when extra cholesterol is consumed, the excess clogs arteries.

- In August 2012, researchers at University Hospital in London (United Kingdom), vascular prevention experts, studied data from 1231 men and women with an average age of 61.5 years. Using ultrasound measured the total area of ​​plate and collected simultaneously data on lifestyle including medication, cigarette smoking and number of egg yolks consumed per week. It identified that both excess snuff as the abuse of egg yolks (three or more per week) accelerate atherosclerosis, as reported in the journal Atherosclerosis. Remind investigators in diabetics, for example, it was found that an egg yolk a day can increase from 2 to 5 times the risk of coronary heart disease.

- Eggs are one of the main sources of salmonella, a bacteria that sickens millions and cause up to 3,800 deaths annually in the U.S.


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Why vegans do not eat the bodies of other animals?


ANIMAL FARM: FARM AND SLAUGHTER

Nonhuman animals are individuals who also have the capacity to suffer and interest to enjoy your life. This is the main relevant ability for an individual deserves to be respected and considered morally, since it indicates that may be affected by our actions. There is no minimally coherent argument can establish that their interests are to be undervalued by our species homo sapiens. The criterion of species (speciesism) is an arbitrary criterion, and therefore unfair, and what is the criterion of race, sex, or national intelligence.


As is the case with animal products (milk, eggs, honey) we can live healthily without eating meat if we follow a diet without animal products.

Animal Exploitation that produce meat consumption

All kinds of animals are killed and slaved to use their bodies as food. The animals who suffer this custom are fish, chickens, ducks, pigs, rabbits, turkeys, sheep, cattle, dogs, cats, dolphins, insects, bushmeat, ... in a spiral of decline that knows no bounds:
"To me the weirdest thing happened to me at a table was when I ate human flesh without knowing it. Occurred at a banquet offered madman Bokassa when proclaimed emperor of the Empire of Central Africa in 1976. Thing served Parisian restaurant Maxim's, but there was a meat dish that was made there and they said it was the ultimate local cuisine. We had a meat sauce that, when tested, I found delicious. beside me was the diplomat Alberto Aza, current head of the King's House, and also liked. a few months ago we learned that the meat came from a school that Bokassa had ordered murder ". Jaime Penafiel 

Animal Farm
In Europe, the "DIRECTIVE 2007/43/EC OF THE COUNCIL of 28 June 2007 laying down minimum rules for the protection of chickens kept for meat production" establishes standards for the enslavement and murder of chickens kept for meat production.

Pacing
Meat production begins with the murder of babies "unprofitable". PACing (or tapping) is an industry term for pig meat which means "to strike against the concrete." It is a method to kill piglets by which you take the pig by the hind legs and he crashes to the ground, causing trauma to the head. The smaller piglets from each litter were killed one or two days old, as these "dwarfs" are considered unlikely to arrive to "market weight" on the desired date for the kill.

Castration without anesthesia
The castration without anesthesia is a common torture practiced by the livestock industry and that causes extreme pain to pigs. The purpose of this practice is that the meat of these animals does not acquire an unpleasant taste when they adultos.


Research
The living conditions of animals on farms and slaughter and is inherently cruel, as is an abuse of defenseless beings. Defenders of these practices often say that nonhuman animals are the "treated well" on farms and the killer "without pain" in slaughterhouses, complying with regulations, this is the welfarist argument. These people say that only violates the rules of "animal welfare" in isolated cases, but the reality is very different, as shown in numerous studies:


- In November 2012, the Spanish organization Animal Equality issued a new research investigation in the foie gras industry. This time it shows the living conditions of the animals on the farm Caracierzos, the second farm of foie gras with increased production of Spain.


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