Barbara Kingsolver: Talking about Animals
About 2,000 pounds of grain must be supplied to livestock in order to produce enough meat and other livestock products to support a person for a year, whereas 400 pounds of grain eaten directly will support a person for a year.
M.E. Ensminger, Ph.D. Internationally recognized animal agriculture specialist, former Department of Animal Science Chairman at Washington State University.
I listen to many different podcasts. As an audio learner, I find them the best way to learn while I am in transit or when I’m cleaning around the house. I just came across American Public Media podcasts, specifically Speaking of Faith with Krista Tippett, which according to the website is about “religion, meaning, ethics, and ideas.” I downloaded several podcasts that caught my eye, specifically I noticed that Barbara Kingsolver was interviewed about her most recent novel, Animal Vegetable Miracle in a podcast entitled “The Ethics of Eating.” Her novel, The Poisonwood Bible, is one of my favourites. This new book is a non-fiction about her experience, where for one year, Kingsolver and her family ate all local foods as an experiment to draw attention to the environmental consequences of having all of our food shipping to us from around the world. They grew their own vegetables and fruit, and also raised and killed animals for their food. Exerpt from the transcription:
Ms. Tippett: Because you’re not just talking about growing vegetables, you also raised turkeys and roosters and killed them and, as you say, you know, you tell a story of “at dusk sitting down to feast on cold bean salad, sliced tomatoes with basil, blue potato salad, and meat that had met this day’s dawn by crowing.”
I mean, that is a part of what we eat, I don’t know, even of just the fact of life and death that we, American consumers, are very removed from. Tell me what — when you say there’s a big difference between talking about harvesting meat and the way we normally think about the meat we buy.
Ms. Kingsolver: Yeah. I used to think it was a euphemism to use that word “harvest.”
Ms. Tippett: Mm-hmm.
Ms. Kingsolver: I don’t anymore. And it’s — it’s funny, just now, I, I reacted a little oddly when you said, “You raised chickens and then killed them.” That, that word, if you think about it, the way we use it is murder, a homicide, you know, an intentional murder…
Ms. Tippett: Yeah. Well, we talk about slaughterhouses.
Ms. Kingsolver: …well, or we say, ‘Oops, I killed my African violet.’ It — suggests some accidental or intentionally mean-spirited act. Harvesting…
Ms. Tippett: We’re back at sin again, aren’t we?
Ms. Kingsolver: Yeah, we are. Whereas harvesting a rooster is allowing this animal to achieve its final glory. I really enjoy seeing my turkeys out on pasture, foraging, you know, living under the sunshine, living lives of essential turkeyness. If I’m going to eat an animal, I want its life to have had some dignity, some, you know, poultry joy, because I do believe there is such a thing. Turkeys don’t want to live to be 100 years old. They don’t want to know their grandchildren. Believe me. They couldn’t pick their grandchildren out of a lineup. I know this for a fact.
Later, in the same interview:
Ms. Kingsolver: I think that’s true. We, we think we’re so smart, we humans, you know, we’re just top-heavy hominids walking around in shoes, thinking we own the place. And then, what do you know? We discover that we are animals, indeed, subject to the same biological laws as, as everything else, subject to the same physics…
Recently we had our Canadian thanksgiving, and in the United States thanksgiving is in November. Around this time of the year, many turkeys give their lives for our celebratory dinners. While Barbara Kingsolver may have be among the few philanthropists who enjoy seeing ‘their’ turkeys “living under the sunshine,” the reality is that the vast majority of turkeys live their lives:
in large windowless sheds with wood shavings on the floor that are never cleaned of wastes. There are usually 10,000 or so birds to a shed with about 3 square feet per bird. Lighting is kept low to reduce aggression between the closely packed birds. Foot ulcerations that cause lameness often develop because the birds constantly stand in the wet, dirty litter. Ammonia and other irritating gases rising from this filth cause airborne germs and the air pollution results in respiratory problems. Respiratory diseases such as colibacillosis, fowl cholera, avian influenza, past eurella and turkey coryzasis are responsible for almost half of all death losses - turkeys who don’t even make it to slaughter. As in the chicken broiler industry, turkeys are often debeaked which involves slicing off about one third of the beak with a red hot blade when the bird is around five days old. This is done to minimize injury when, due to the lack of space, the birds peck at one another as a result of stress induced aggression. Studies have found that the pain caused from this procedure is prolonged and possibly indefinite. -Earthsave Canada
The worst part for me, though, is the fact that we have genetically modified turkeys to the point where they are too large to be able to mate properly. ALL turkeys must be artificially inseminated in order to reproduce.
Genetic manipulation and antibiotics enable farmers to produce heavily muscled birds who can weigh 35 pounds in as little as five months, and “their internal organs are noticeably crammed together in the little bit of space remaining for the body cavity,” according to The Washington Post.(11) An industry magazine said, “[T]urkey breeders have created birds with huge, unnatural, outsized breasts, since white breast meat is where the money is.”(12) Another turkey breeder complained that birds “are bred to grow fast just to live to 16 weeks [and then] they die,” usually from organ failure. Some turkeys suffer from broken legs because their bones are not able to support their weight.(13) A 12-year study of turkey farmers in Iowa, one of the nation’s top turkey-producing states, revealed that leg problems and aneurysms were among the top three health problems in turkey flocks.(14) Factory-farmed turkeys are so large that they cannot even engage in normal reproductive behaviors, so all turkeys raised for food are conceived by artificial insemination.(15) -PETA
And do you know what they go through - that artificial insemination? It is utterly terrifying to me, especially as a woman, but I will spare you the details. And how many turkeys die for us? In Canada, 20 million turkeys yearly. In the US, it was estimated that by 1996 297 million had been slaughtered. It makes my blood run cold for Kingsolver to take it so lightly. Her tone was mocking as she said those words, as she insulted the intelligence of the turkey, supposedly not being able to tell its grandchildren out of a lineup. Like most animals, they are more complex than we think:
Many respected researchers have spoken out on behalf of this intelligent, social bird. Oregon State University poultry scientist Tom Savage says, “I’ve always viewed turkeys as smart animals with personality and character, and keen awareness of their surroundings. The ‘dumb’ tag simply doesn’t fit.”
I know I’ve quoted a lot in this article. But I wanted to, as much as I could, present real research that supports my viewpoint. Turkeys are among the most maligned animals, and play a large part in our yearly holidays, much to my dismay. I can’t imagine how our means of celebrating our gratefulness involves sitting around a dead animal. I do respect Barbara Kingsolver as a brilliant writer, and I admire her quest to eat locally. I totally support that, and I do my best to eat as locally as possible, shopping at farmers markets myself.
I think that many will say - well, if we buy organic, free-range turkeys then that’s okay. The truth is that the act of killing other animals is an inherently unnecessary and violent one - free range is a myth. If we continue to contribute to the animal industry, these animals will continue to suffer - one by one. And turkeys are just the tip of the iceberg that no one likes to talk about. She herself admits that we are animals, just like the other creatures we share the planet with. Out of respect for my health, for the environment, and for the other, non-human animals, I have chosen to not eat them. Since I am new to veganism, having only transformed my lifestyle in January, I know what it is like to be living in denial and/or complete seeming innocence of this unnecessary slaughter. But I have made the decision to eat healthier and with more consciousness of the lives my actions effect. No animals have to die for me to live. I gave thanks this year with delicious veggies in my tummy! I’m sorry to bring such a dark tone to this blog, but I had to get this response out.
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