Skinny B*tches Save the Piggies

I’ve read Skinny Bitch by Rory Freedman and Kim Barnouin once before awhile back.  Checked it out at the library this past weekend and I am remembering what a treat it is!  Though they promote a vegan as opposed to raw life style, I can totally relate to these girls and I love this book!  It’s just what I needed to give me an extra boost of motivation before the LT and I head off on a mini-vacay.

There are so many parts of this book that I want to post about, but I will start with the portion I read at lunch today.   I would guess, most of my readers became vegetarian, vegan, or raw for moral reasons.  To protect the little piggies and chicks.  I confess, I got into raw foods for the nutritional aspects.  I used to LOVE, LUFF, LUV some beef jerky.  And a Wendy’s Grilled Chicken Sandwich?  Fageddaboudit.  And now I really try not to judge people who eat meat, dairy, or eggs. I did it, too.  It’s your choice what you put in your body.  (Plus if you’ve read my last post, I occasionally eat breads which I’m pretty sure must contain eggs)

Anyhow, after reading the below excerpt, it’s really hard NOT to judge meat eaters!  I mean, as I used to, they must purposely avoid knowing where their food comes from, but just reading this, gave me chills.  It would be a good thing that anyone who wishes to continue using or eating animal products to avoid reading the below, because after a few paragraphs, you will be gung-ho about changing your diet!

CAUTION: THE BELOW IS NOT FOR THE FEINT OF HEART.  IT IS DISTURBING AND DISGUSTING. AND MAY MAKE YOU WANT TO CRY EVEN IF YOU CUT OUT ANIMAL PRODUCTS 10 YEARS AGO.

Even knowing how abysmal the living conditions are for animals on factory farms, you cannot begin to imagine

Please don't eat us!

what the slaughter practices are like.  “Humane” protocol calls for animals to be “stunned” before they are slaughtered.  For cows, this means getting a metal bolt shot into the skull and then retracted.  When done properly, using working equipment, this renders the cow unconscious.  But time is money, and slaughterhouses operate at lightning speeds, some killing one animal every three seconds.  Because thousands of frightened, struggling cows are not easy to stun, it is extremely common for a “stunner” to miss his mark.  Panicked hogs, also difficult to “hit,” are stunned with an electric device.  And if the jolt is too high, it bruises and bloodies the hogs’ flesh (bad for business).  Because business comes first on factory farms, the jolt is lowered, despite the fact that it doesn’t properly stun the hogs.

Save Us! Help!

Stunned or not, cows and hogs are then “strung up” from the ceiling by a chain attached to their leg(s).  In theory, while they dangle there, they are supposed to be unconscious.  But often they are fully conscious, struggling, screaming, and fearfully staring at the workers while they have their throats stabbed open.  Next they travel along a “bleed rail,” where they should bleed to death.  But again, these large, frightened, struggling, conscious animals are difficult targets and the “sticker” (workers who cut their throats) don’t always get a “good cut.”  Before cows can bleed to death, they are sent on their way to the “head-skinners,” where the skin is sliced from their heads while they are still conscious.  Of course, this is excruciatingly painful, and the cows kick and struggle frantically.  To avoid getting injured by the struggling animal, workers will sometimes sever the spinal cord with a knife blow to the back of the head.  This paralyzes the animal below the neck so that the worker is safe.  But these cows can still feel their skin being sliced away from their faces.  Next their legs and head are chopped off, their entrails removed from their bodies, and then, finally, they are split in half.  Often before hogs can bleed to death, they are dunked fully conscious into 140-degree scalding water to remove the hair from their bodies…there’s much more where that came from.  Get the book and your eyes will be opened.

From Skinny Bitch by Rory Freedman and Kim Barnouin.  The whole point of this passage is two-fold: 1) To gross you out and open your eyes enough so that you won’t eat meat or use animal byproducts; and 2) This animal-abstinence will help you to become a Skinny Bitch.  And if I can be skinny and save the cows, well, I’d be happy as a pig in sh*t! 🙂

And for those of you who are inclined to research more, below is the work referenced in the above two paragraphs.

• Eisnitz, Gail A. Slaughterhouse: The Shocking Story of Greed, Neglect, and Inhumane Treatment Inside the USMEat Industry.  Amherst: Prometheus Books, 1997.