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I want you to open your eyes.

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Open your eyes
and take my hand.

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There’s so much you need to see.

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It won’t be easy,

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but it will be
simple.

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Don’t worry.

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I’m right here with you.

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[fading in sound of truck idling and a pig screaming until abruptly cut off]

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Wake up.

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Hi it’s Emily from Bite Size Vegan and welcome
to another vegan nugget.

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As a society, we hide the realities of our food industry from
view. We shroud the process in secrecy, interact

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only with sterilized, aesthetically-pleasing
packages. We tell ourselves our food animals

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are treated nicely. That they’re killed
humanely. And when faced with evidence to

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the contrary, we say “it’s not like that
here.”

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Well I’m here to show you that it is like
that here.

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This video is for vegans and non-vegans alike.

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If you’re non-vegan, being fully
aware of what you’re purchasing and choosing

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to eat is of vital importance. If you’re
vegan, keeping that connection to why you’ve

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chosen this way of life is of equal importance.

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Regardless of your lifestyle, the lives we
will encounter here together have value,

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and turning a blind eye to their experiences is
condemning them to an existence completely

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devoid of even a moment’s recognition.

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Some of what I will be showing you today will
be disturbing, heartbreaking, even infuriating.

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You will want to close your eyes, but I’ll
ask that you bear witness to this reality.

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This is not sensationalized. These are everyday
sights, mundane tasks in the daily operations

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of the animal products industry.

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If you aren’t vegan and feel the need to
turn away, I’d ask you to think on the question,

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if it’s not good enough for your eyes, why
is it good enough for your stomach?

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This is the bare truth of where your food comes from.

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If you are vegan, please find it within yourself
to validate what these individuals have gone through.

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If they have to live through it and
die by it, the very least we can do is bear witness to it.

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If you must look away, please
continue to listen.

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This is reality for trillions of individuals
in our world.

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This is not an isolated case.

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This is not in some distant land.

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This is
here and now, in your own backyard.

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For this 24 hour vigil with the activist group
Toronto Pig Save, we started off in the early

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morning at Fearman’s Pork, Incorporated
in Burlington, Canada. Before most people

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had even gotten out of bed, these pigs were
around the corner from their deaths.

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Pigs and other quote unquote livestock animals
can travel for days without food and water,

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with the maximum allowable limit varying by
country. In Canada, it’s currently 36 hours

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for pigs and chickens and 48 hours for cows.
Due to cramped and unhygienic conditions pigs

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attack and cannibalize one another and suffer
from growths and infections.

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Whether they come from factory farms or quiet
humane family farms, they all end up here.

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And today is their death day.

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"We love you! We love you sweetheart! We love you baby! Yes we..."

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Our next stop was two cow slaughterhouses
in Toronto, St. Helens and the Halal and Kosher

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Ryding-Regency. Under Halal and Kosher standards,
animals must be fully conscious when killed.

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Ryding also slaughters spent dairy cows, mothers
whose bodies are so exhausted from repeated

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pregnancies and milkings they they’ve given
out or succumbed to disease.

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Ryding-Regency Meat Packers slaughterhouse
kills 50 dairy cows a day. A kill floor worker

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told us this week that 60-70% of the cows are pregnant when on the kill floor.


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The fetuses can be as small as 2 inches or as large as calves ready to be born the same
day.

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The heads and spinal cords of the mother dairy
cows are labeled SRM or “Specified Risk

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Material.” Anyone over 30 months is prone
to Mad Cow Disease.

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That is, they may potentially carry bovine spongiform encephalopathy.

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The 
mother heads are painted blue to designate

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them as Specified Risk Material. They are
sent off to incineration rather than to a

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rendering plant for pet food or farmed animal
feed.

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I met with a kill floor worker at Ryding-Regency
Meat Packers slaughterhouse, who told me that

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he has born witness to cows being skinned
while they are still conscious. This atrocity

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is unimaginable and anyone’s worst nightmare
in wars, yet this happens everyday in Toronto.

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A scalper skins the faces while the cows are
awake. It often happens particularly to the

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first 10 cows slaughtered each morning at
7 am because the owner doesn’t allow time

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for the first cows on the kill floor to be
fully bled. There is pressure to start dismembering

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the cows right away and not lose money by
slowing down the production line.

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The skinning of cows while they are still conscious
was an atrocity reported in Gail Eisnitz's

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book Slaughterhouse... It happens every day
here because they kill kosher or halal... There

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is no stunning and if the cows are not bled
enough, the scalper begins

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while the cows are still conscious.

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The owners of Ryding-Regency and St. Helens
profess to be animal lovers, with St. Helens’

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stating to one Toronto Pig Save activist “no
one loves animals more than me.”

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The cows’ skins are loaded into trucks and
taken down the street to the tannery, leaving

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a trail of blood along the way. The stench
at the tannery is almost unbearable as workers

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run the skins through salt water to prevent
putrefaction of the collagen.

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Towering stacks of skins are moved around on a forklift. This
is your luxurious leather.

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At all of the slaughterhouses, semis are pumped
full of blood, which along with rejected body

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parts is carted off to rendering plants to
be mixed into pet food and livestock feed.

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We feed our food animals the blood and remains
of those who went before them.

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Our final stop for the night was Maple Leaf
Poultry in Toronto, a chicken slaughterhouse

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that runs 24 hours a day during the week,
slaughtering in excess of 60,000 chickens a day.

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Each arriving truck carries between
5 and 10,000 chickens.

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Some die slowly and painfully from disease,
injury, or exhaustion before even reaching slaughter.

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While they appear to be full grown,
they are only 36 to 42 days old on the day

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of their death. As with all animals killed
for food, they are but babies.

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At the last 24 hour vigil, Martin, the plant
manager at Maple Leaf surrendered a chicken

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to Toronto Pig Save activists. Mercy now lives
free at a local farm sanctuary.

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Encouraged by this victory, activists asked to free one
more.

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One of thousands today, one of hundreds

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of thousands this week, one of millions this
year at this slaughterhouse alone. Just one.

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But they were denied, pushed aside, and detained.

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Later on, a truck driver pushed into an activist
with his semi. This is not an uncommon occurrence.

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The slaughterhouse workers themselves range
from kind and helpful to outright hostile.

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This is their livelihood, how they support
their family. Many feel they have no other

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option, and many realistically have very few,
as the hourly pay is higher than other industries.

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And with good reason.

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This is no one's dream job.

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Toronto Pig Save is working on developing
a transitional program to help slaughterhouse

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workers find alternative employment. The industry
is rife with human rights abuses and violations,

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worker injuries and even deaths. With the
priority on speed and quantity, safety falls

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by the wayside.

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The security guard at St. Helens told us he
has a wife and kids to support. He said

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has no problem with what we’re doing but
with great agitation escorts us off the property,

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saying he has to do his job. He’s looked
for security work elsewhere but no other business

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pays as high. Of course other no business
has so much to hide.

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The animal products industry thrives in secrecy and dies with exposure.


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We asked if he ever goes inside to watch what happens.

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He screwed up his face in disgust
and admitted he stopped eating cows and pigs altogether.

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One of the truck drivers who delivers the
cows even admitted he’s gone vegan after

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seeing what actually happens to the cows he
drops off. But he continues his work because

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he can’t find anything to match his current
pay.

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Our food system is broken in more ways than
one. The industry relies on consumers not

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seeing the truth, and consumers are all too
ready to comply.

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Profit over safety, the bottom

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line over reason, corner-cutting over compassion.


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We as consumers rely on having our food presented

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without the bother of thinking how it got
there and what, or who, it was before being

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neatly packaged for our purchase. Slaughterhouse
workers rely on the plants higher-than-average

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income despite horrifying and often dangerous
working conditions.

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And the animals…well, the animals rely on us.

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Their only hope for freedom comes from us,
their tormentors. We have the ability to change

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all of this. And it starts with acknowledging
that it is happening. It starts with coming

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face to face with our choices and their real-life
impact. It starts with us bearing witness to the truth.

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It starts, when you open your
eyes.

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Please share this video to open eyes everywhere
to the reality of our food system. Vegan or

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non-vegan, each and every person should experience
this firsthand. You don’t have to be strong,

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you just have to be there. For more information,
resources and to connect with Toronto Pig

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Save to attend a vigil yourself, please see
the blog post for this video and/or the links

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in the video description below.

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If you want to help support Bite Size Vegan
in creating this educational video-based resource

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and Toronto Pig Save in bearing witness to
these beings, please see the support links

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here, in the sidebar, and in the video description.


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Thank you for listening.

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Thank you for bearing witness.

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Thank you for opening your eyes.