Vegan Ruins School Lunch

They usually hang them up, they kill them,
they stick their hand down into their body

cavities and rip out their organs.

Hi, it’s Emily from Bite Size Vegan with
another vegan nugget.

I had the honor of speaking in two classes
at the Passaic Valley Regional High school

in New Jersey.

I was invited to spend some time with a passionate
vegan student Alyssa, that’s her: “Hi,

I’m Alyssa, I was the one who contacted
you to set up the conference”, and her attentive

peers who listened to me ramble on quite a
bit about all manner of animal rights and

vegan topics.

This was part of a unique class called ‘Contemporary
Issues Through Video Conferencing’ run by

Ms. Kathleen Menake.

The class invites guests speakers to utilize
technology to create an interactive classroom

and speak with individuals in diverse fields
all over the world.

So I wanted to share with you guys a segment
from one of the classes.

I apologize for the rapid speaking in this,
i was really excited to try to fit in as many

vegan ‘nuggets’ as possible in these 45
minute classes.

Captions are available for your convenience
and as always, for more information please

see the description below and the blog post.

Now it’s time to go back to high school,
where i was always the cool kid...

Alyssa: I just want to know if you can explain a little bit more about the relationship that our government—

or just governments in general—have with the agricultural and the factory farming and dairy industries

…kind of the money that might be exchanged or the power within and things like that.

Okay, I would love to talk about that.

The government, especially
in America, but I think other countries

that I've looked into as well, the regulatory
bodies that are supposed to regulate animal

agriculture like in America, the USDA, also
have a vested interest: the USDA also

benefits from more animal products being sold,
so they’re self regulating.

What we do in America—they stopped doing
this in Europe—but in America for chickens,

once we've killed them and taken off their
feathers and everything we soak the carcasses

in these things called tanks.

They just pop them into this water that this
one industry specialist calls 'fecal soup'

because the chickens, they've still got a
lot of their feces and they weren't flushed

out well because they're supposed to —well
what they do is— they usually hang them

up, they kill them, they stick their hand
down into their body cavities and rip out

their organs and everything.

They're supposed to them flush out, flush
out all the poop and everything.

Doesn't always work that way because we've
also assembly lined 'faster and faster', which

is how workers lose arms and everything.

So by the time they get to the water, they
still have fecal matter and stuff on them.

But you know chicken producers they get paid
per weight most of the time, so the heavier

the bird is the better.

So they'll actually even inject
them with more water

or let them sit there and kinda
[indicates swelling of carcass with hands].

So it's like yeah, you've got more chicken—
it's just kind of bloated with some poop-water for ya'!

It's kind of astounding, but the USDA is like,
“well a certain level of fecal matter is

ok. Just cook it”.

One of the more recent speeches I did it was
in Dublin, Ireland.

And when I was putting this together—Ireland
is kind of—you know when people talk about

free range, grass fed, small farms, Ireland
is the embodiment of that: the entire country

does it that way.

So all of the dairy cattle there— they're
very big on dairy, all of the dairy cattle

are grass fed out in the beautiful Irish fields—
what they don't talk about though, that they

do have industrial pig farming and chicken
farming.

But what I did in that speech—and I'm going
to be tying this into what you've asked in

a second— is one thing I like to do, there
are so many horror stories that I can show

people, I can show graphic abuse of animals
that even meat-eaters are like "this is wrong,

we shouldn't be doing this to them.”

And sometimes it can shock people into waking
up.

But I think it also leaves this door open
for, "well we just need to treat them better".

So what I think is more effective is to say,
“Ok, let's look at the ideal.

Let's look at what we as a society have said
“this is acceptable”.

So if we look at the ideal, and even that
is not acceptable to us— then it might be

time to change.

One of the things I've done very often in
a lot of my research especially going to Portugal

in Ireland but in America as well, is I look
at the legislation and sometimes it takes

months and months of digging into, like the
EU legislation, because I have yet to find

a country that makes it really easy to find
everything.

For one thing, in America, I think one thing
that people don't always realize, is that

we have no federal law protecting the treatment
of farmed animals, there's nothing, there's

no regulation as to how they should be treated
federally.

There's also something called ‘Common Farming
Exemptions’, which basically means if something

is done enough across industry—if enough
people do this even if it's awful— we are

going to call it standard practice and it's
okay.

So in this Ireland speech, I was going way,
way deep into the legislation —because the

EU has some of what's lauded as the most widest
range protection for animals, great legislation—

because in this thing called ‘The Treaty
of Lisbon’ the EU basically was the first

governmental body to legally say that animals
are sentient, so it's actually in their legislation,

“animals are sentient”.

So what they decided from that —now that
they're sentient and we've acknowledged that

they can feel these emotions and they can
hurt— the conclusion wasn't “now maybe

we shouldn't kill them" —no— “now we're
going to make sure we design the right ways

to kill them”.

So then they launched these different studies
and everything to try and figure out how do

we kill them and then they drafted this thing
called, ‘The Protection For Animals at the

Time of Killing’, which sounds absurd and
if you really look in there, one of the things

I like to talk about is the male chicks in
the egg industry.

In the egg industry, the chickens who are
laying eggs for human consumption, males can't

do that.

And the way that we've specialized things:
we have 'layer hens' and then we have 'broiler’

chickens.

So the chickens that you eat are different
than the chickens who have eggs.

So the male chickens of the egg industry,
there's no use for them, so then the industry

—the egg industries the world over no matter
how big or little— have to figure out what

do we do with all these male baby chicks.

So in every country they're killed.

I mean there's nothing else to do with them!

And it's either through gassing them, suffocating
them, or grinding them alive.

Grinding seems to be the preferred thing.

In the EU legislation —this landmark stuff
that you hear in the news— “maceration”,

it's hard to kill chicks, throw them in the
grinder!

In America too it's the standard.

Ireland, it's the standard.

And the reason that they did this —I dug
deep enough to find what's called the ‘Impact

Assessment’— where they're deciding how
they're gonna kill these animals.

And of course the people on the panel are
the egg industry, the dairy industry, a company

called Butina —which I'll talk about in
a second— and they have in there, if we

gas the chicks, it's going to cost this many
euros... and that's expensive!

If we grind them up, studies have shown that
it's a negligible cost —it's pretty cheap—

so what do they put in the humane legislation?

Grind them up!

Grind up the baby boys.

And you know, there's actually now a number
of companies that have spent at least a million

—I don't know if they've gotten into the
billions of dollars— trying to research

a way to sex the eggs before they're hatched.

So we can determine which ones are going to
be boys and then we'll just throw those eggs

away so they don't hatch and we won't have
to kill them.

Because the legislation usually says –if
there is any— that they have to be killed

within the first three days of life.

Now we're gonna spend years and probably at
the end at least 1 billion dollars trying

to figure out how to tell if it's a baby boy.

So when it hatches, we don't have to kill
him.

And it's kind of like, if we step back from
it, maybe we just shouldn't eat the eggs!

Maybe we could think about that —that maybe
we shouldn't be doing this— because it's

kind of ridiculous.

So that's something where I think...

I have yet to meet a person who eats eggs
that would wake up in the morning, take a

little fluffy yellow chick, throw him in a
blender, and blend him up for breakfast!

But, when you eat eggs, that's what's happening!

You just don't see it, and you don't want
to connect to it.

But there's no way to have eggs without that
happening.

Because the baby boys are waste, they're just
waste material.

So this one company is trying to develop this
sexing technique, they assume it's like 3.2

billion baby chicks are killed worldwide every
year.

And then the EU has their actual number listed,
in the multiple millions.

So, when we look at these kinds of legislations
,this is our ideal, our humane ideal of how

to treat these animals.

And in the dairy industry, baby boys there
are also waste material because dairy cows

produce milk!

Boys aren't going to produce milk.

A mother cow has a baby, and if he's a boy
he's either taken to the veal industry, — which

a lot of people even meat eaters sometimes
are like "I'm not going to eat veal it's just

cruel"— so he's shuttled either to the veal
industry, where he's tied up, can't move and

is slaughtered when he is a couple days old.

Or sometimes they just shoot him in the head
or they'll bludgeon him, they'll just beat

him, beat him in the head hope that they're
going to die at some point, they don't really

check on them.

They are waste.

They're waste material.

Veal is the ideal because at least someone
can make a profit from this baby.

And in the pig industry, in America too —it's
another humane thing if you look in the EU

too— one of the ways to kill piglets that
are either deformed, or a runt or their sick,

or too sick there's no financial reason or
gain, or it's too expensive to fix them.

It's something called ‘blunt force’.

So what they do is pick up the baby pigs by
the legs and they smack their heads on the

concrete, and that's a humane approved thing.

So in America —we had this expose happen
of undercover footage— and a lot of the

news articles said things like "workers were
filmed beating baby pigs against the pavement

and they were still twitching for days later”.

Because there were undercover people, they
would document how long it took these piglets

to die.

But the things that the news articles will
never tell you, because you will also find

news articles about, "undercover” footage
showing baby chicks being thrown in a grinder.

And it's salacious and everyone goes "oh my
gosh this is horrible we have to stop this".

But then they keep eating eggs, and they keep
eating bacon, and they keep eating pork, and

they keep drinking milk.

The connection that's not being made is that
this isn't undercover abuse, this is standard

industry practice.

You know, it's just not something the articles
usually cover.

So we get this impression that it's just one
place where these people were doing this horrible

thing —no— there's nothing illegal about
that.

And in that expose of this pig place —workers
were also abusing mother pigs because it was

a pig breeding facility—so they were beating
the pregnant pigs, jamming rods into their

orifices, just horrible stuff.

And one of the leading humane specialists
in the country is Temple Grandin, if you've

ever heard of her, she commented on one of
these articles, "this is outrageous abuse"

—she's talking about the mother pigs—
they say something about the baby pigs, "that's

standard practice that's fine, but what they're
doing to the mothers, horrible".

So in one of my more recent videos, I list
all of these offenses, all of these things

that are seen in this undercover investigation
from the baby pigs and the mother pigs.

And if you didn't know the laws and you looked
at these two, I don't know if anyone would

be able to be like "this one's okay, this
one's not, this one's okay, this one's not".

Ripping out the baby boys testicles with no
anesthetic?

Oh that's totally fine —because that's what
happens— you cut off their tails, you clip

their teeth, you pull out their testicles,
no anesthetic is required at all.

And I think if people don't know the law they
assume that's some kind of abuse that's going

to be corrected, but it's not, it's completely
legal.

And it's just one of the things that in this
EU document as well, they talk about the CO2

chambers —and that's Butina the company
I was telling you about— it's the way to

kill pigs these days, it kind of seems like
the most humane way.

So pigs are kind of lowered into this CO2
chamber —the biggest ones it's almost like

a giant rotisserie— they go in there, they
get lowered, and basically they burn from

the inside out and they scream.

I've been to these places, I've been to one
in Manchester in the UK, the walls were thin

enough you could hear the churning, you could
hear the workers slapping the pigs, you could

hear them screaming for blocks and it's terrifying
when they scream.

So it's not a calm death.

It's not a friendly death.

It's not a humane death!

There's no such thing.

But this is what we look at.

It’s like “ok well, the gas is like the
most humane thing” and it’s anything but!

On that impact assessment of course, there’s
Butina: “Hey!

We’re here, we’re gonna help figure out
what’s the best way to kill these pigs”.

And also if you buy a lot of these chambers,
we’ll make a crap ton of money.

But don’t worry, we’re not biased.

So, in the legislation, CO2 chambers are the
thing.

But there is something in the legislation:
we’re gonna reconsider this at some point.

This, and electric baths for chickens, we’re
gonna reconsider that.

But the Impact Assessment deemed that it’s
not financially viable right now.

The laws that we have—even at the ideal,
even if we don’t look at abuse—the laws

that our governments have, the regulations
that we have, it’s pretty horrifying.

There is no way to make dairy without taking
baby boys from their mothers, and even the

baby girls get taken, immediately after birth.

They’re shuttled elsewhere and then they
can grow up and be a big milk machine too.

And cows can live 20 to 25 years.

In the dairy industry, they usually give out
and they become what we call ‘downers’

around 4 to 5 years old, because they are
just serially impregnated again and again

and again.

As soon as they’ve had a baby, artificial
insemination again, they get another round.

And then every time their babies are taken
from them.

I have a friend who used to be a cattle farmer—or she married a multi-generation cattle farmer—

and she just... there was one too many times
where they’d take the babies away and the

mothers are chasing the trailer as their babies leave.

And then they cry for days—I mean they just
cry out for their babies until they go hoarse

and they can’t cry anymore.

And she was like “I can’t do this.

I can’t do this anymore”.

There is an article I found from Massachusetts,
where there was Sunshine Dairy Farms, a little

farm there.

Neighbors were calling the police because
the cows would not stop screaming out.

And the police issued a report: “Ok we talked
to the farmers.

Don’t worry!

The cows are fine.

It’s just the normal part of the dairy industry,
‘cause they’re upset that their babies

were taken.

Don’t worry.

It’s fine.

It’s ok.

They’re fine”.

So even when we acknowledge the fact that
they are grieving the loss of their children,

oh, but because it’s standard practice it’s
okay.

So it’s really just interesting, we have
such a divide in our minds.

Like pigs —pigs have mannerisms very much
like dogs— we would never do the things

we do to pigs that we do to dogs [sic].

And even Americans get super outraged about
the Yulin Dog Festival.

You know, people in that country eating dogs,
that’s not cool.

And never would I say that is.

But if who we can eat and who we can’t eat
is determined by where we are living.

That kind of gives evidence that this isn’t
a logical based decision of ours.

Yet we have the audacity to hold this legislative
recognition of non-human sentience on high

as a giant step forward for the rights of
animals.

As if systematically exploiting individuals
with fully admitted knowledge and comprehension

of their capacity to suffer is something to
commend.

Look what we offer ourselves as evidence of
progress: one news report extolled the reduction

in animals slipping and falling on their way
to slaughter in one abattoir in one country.

When we look at our actions from the other
side, the perverse absurdity of our deluded

self-congratulations is astounding.

If you were in the place of these beings,
how grateful would you feel if your captor

laid down a bathmat on the ramp to your execution?