Today is about challenging appearances and
assumptions of extremism and normality.

Today is a lesson in unlearning.

Anytime we make a living being into a machine,
a supplier of inventory, the bottom line will

always be profit. And increasing profit means
increasing output and increasing efficiency.

The bodies of layer hens give out prematurely
from the extreme demands of production.

Every aspect of their lives is regulated to ensure
maximum output. From controlling their laying

cycles with days and days of persistent light
followed by long periods of complete darkness,

to starving them for weeks at a time to force
yet another egg cycle from their worn out

bodies, to the outright manipulation of their
very genetic makeup.

We’ve optimized our machines, you see, and we've
bred one kind of chicken for meat and another

kind for eggs. Because of this, the egg industry
produces millions if not a billion unwanted

male baby chicks every year. Male layer chicks
can’t lay eggs. So they are of no use.

To “dispose of”—as they say—these
baby chicks, they are either painfully gassed,

slowly suffocated in plastic bags, or they
are ground up alive. We’re talking about

the cute fluffy yellow baby chicks we adore
come Easter time.

They are not even granted three days of life.

This is standard practice all over the world.
This is standard practice all over the world.

This is standard practice all over the world.

The sisters of the egg industry’s discarded
sons get to live out their short lives in

cramped battery cages, unable to even extend
their wings. Of course nowadays we hear about

the rise of free-range and cage-free facilities.
But in truth, the only comfort these labels

bring is to our own conscience. Cage-free
birds are crammed into tiny sheds and have

twice the mortality rates of battery raised
hens.

I hope you are starting to see the power of
this lie. Of presenting cruel confinement,

starvation, abuse, the barbaric murder of
day-old babies and the slaughter of one-year-olds—themselves

still children— as something completely
normal and kind—packaged in perfect little orbs.

And we have the audacity to decorate them
in celebration of new life. To fawn over the

very chicks who were ground up alive for their
production. To mix them into treats for our

children and loved ones. To start our day
with the products of abject misery and call

it “sunny side up.” We might as well start
our day by throwing chicks in a blender.

And people say veganism is extreme.

The animal products we perceive as mundane,
when reverse engineered, reveal a perversely

complex and, to put it lightly, ethically
challenging, journey from genesis through

processing and production to the end product.
That is to say, from the animals’ birth,

through confinement, abuse, slaughter and
denigration of corpses to the shiny, happy,

store-ready products we literally eat up without
even a single thought

as to what the animals went through.