I've been eating primarily vegetarian, and I eat eggs regularly. After reading this my next personal step is to seek cage-free eggs.

Thanks for the great post.

Liz Rizzo

I blog at Everyday Goddess.

I too, was very happy to see this issue in such a forum - it is without a doubt, time for us to start talking about this.  I am an omnivore and probably always will be, but it's becoming more and more important to me how the food makes it to my plate.  We have started to make more informed choices in my house and whether or not this bill passes, change is definitely coming.  I would really like to hear more from the free range pig farmer - he was so calm and eloquent and really seemed to want to help the other "factory" pig farmer. I think if we look at it more like "we're all in this together", we'll be able to make the changes that we need. 

Christine 

It's My World. Welcome To It.
Life: http://www.colormepink.com
Homeschool: http://web.mac.com/colormepink/
Jewels: http://www.starbrightjewels.com/blog

Hey Christine, 

I'm so glad you wrote in about this. It's the darn Omnivores that need to care before things change. It will undoubtedly result in healthier food. 

I'm hoping for more pig farmer as well. I'm thinking that after being seen by 14 million people, you and I are not alone. I have a feeling a lot of people are going to want to tlka to him.

I love your idea of sharing - so novel! I agree there needs to be a middle ground here - everyone to benefit. Maybe tax breaks for farmers making the transition? 

~ClizBiz

BlogHer Contributing Editor, Photography & Animal Concerns, Proprietor, ClizBiz

Thank you for writing it.  Inspired by Elisa Camahort's words (neither preachy nor remotely judgmental) at a vegetarian restaurant last year, I read The Ethics of What We Eat: Why Our Food Choices Matter, by Peter Singer.  Anyone interested in factory farming and what happens to our food before it lands on our table will be absorbed by this book that follows the food choices of three very different American families.

I've been very happily vegetarian for a little over a year now and am so glad this stuff is all going mainstream. 

I'm an omnivore, and I do my best to find the most ethically-produced meat and eggs that I can within my budget.

I think it's important to say that it's worthwhile to visit local farms.  The farm industry requirements for becoming certified organic or free-range are often strict and cost-ineffective for the small family farm.  That said, if you take time to get to know your local farmer you can see how their animals are raised, fed and treated (and if you like what you see you can buy directly from them).  You can feel good knowing your food comes from such a farm, even without the right label from the grocery store.

Amanda
Mrs.W's Kitchen

I finally watched the Oprah episode, after debating whether I "needed" to.

While I support Prop 2 I'm torn for the reasons Stephanie brings up above...that there's so much it doesn't address, including the big one: how humane is the slaughter itself?

For example: many local farmers are not licensed to do the slaughter on-site, so they end up sending their animals to the same mass slaughterhouse operation as any factory farm...and transporting them under the same mass, cruel conditions...and neither this transport nor the slaughter itself are addressed by Prop 2.

Consciousness is awesome, and I'm all for it, but I do worry about the complacency encouraged by only partial consciousness.

Other books to read:

The Omnivore's Dilemma by Michael Pollan
My only problem with this book is that he makes the case for veg*nism ethically, environmentally and health-wise...and then wusses out on a personal level. But it's extremely compelling even so.

The China Syndrome
I've heard this book has done the trick for many people teetering on the edge

Meat Market by Erik Marcus
This is the book that tipped me finally over from vegetarian to vegan.

Thanks for writing about this, ClizBiz. I am definitely voting Yes on 2, misgivings or no.

Elisa Camahort Page
BlogHer
elisa@blogher.com

My BlogHer profile truly shows you everything I do online...Check it out!!

Great post. Thank you for bringing more awareness to this very important subject. I've been a vegetarian for a while now, and I've recently gone strictly vegan. I do it because of the horrific treatment of farm animals. I went vegan THE MINUTE I watched the famous Meet Your Meat video.

I was satisfied with Oprah's coverage of this issue. YES, this was an opportunity for MUCH MORE to be said. But, the show had to be watchable. If Oprah started showing horrific and cruel scenes of what ALSO happens to those animals, people would turn the channel. I feel this show provided just enough to get people THINKING and, from there, perhaps searching for more information and finding out about what else is going on with their meat. It's also another show entirely to talk about the GMO issue, and of chickens eating cow, etc., etc., and how we're eating abnormally large BABY animals. Sorry. I feel a rant coming on. Better stop. Nobody wants to hear it.... (I have to censor myself on my blog, too -- so I feel like I know what Oprah was doing by holding back.)

Thanks again. Great post. :) 

Going vegan is actually a surprisingly easy task - you just have to commit. It's been two years since I veganized my life (I had been a vegetarian for about 13 years prior), and one of the things that it's enabled me to do is really examine WHY I 'craved' eggs and cheese to the point where I ignored my moral values and continued to consume them. It's gotten nothing but easier as time has gone on, which is one of the reasons why I believe everyone CAN do it. Vegan's aren't endowed with special powers of will, nor do we like cheese, eggs or flesh any less than anyone else. We're just ordinary people who probably used to consume all of the above. Which means you too can do it. 

Although I didn't get to watch the show, I read the slide-show featured on Oprah's site and thought it raised some interesting points, although from my point of view some of them were a little infuriating. However, it brings the issues to a wider audience and I think it's up to those who have already embraced compassionate lifestyles to capitalize on that by gently encouraging people to change their behaviors. I think starting with purchasing only cage free eggs is a great start if you're a full omnivore, just as I think trying one vegan meal a week is a great start if you're a vegetarian. 

By the way, I think Singer and Mason's Ethics Of What We Eat is one of the best books you could possibly pick up if you're interested in the subject. If you're looking for something a little less academic, Where The Blind Horse Sings is a wonderful book for learning a little bit more about farm animals and the way we treat them. 

It's great to see so many people with open minds.  

I've solved the delmna myself by raising my own meat and eggs.  We have meat goats and chickens.  It's been an incredible learning experience and I have a lot more respect for my food.  I think Americans have become far too detached from their food and where it comes from.  I'm not sure that this prop is worth the amount of money being spent on it when our State is in such dire financial straits.  As consumers, if we demand more humanely raised food, the market wiill follow.  We need more people like Chris Cosentino out there using humanely raised foods in his restaurant, and being a vocal advocate for it.  

Omnivores Delight

KimO, may I ask about your slaughter practices? 

Also, I take issue with the argument that we shouldn't be spending money on, or worrying about, animal issues because there are supposedly bigger, more important problems to tackle. There will always, always be difficulties facing humans, and waiting until humans' lives are perfect to worry about nonhumans' lives is not an option. We impose indescribable suffering on animals, and "we have bigger problems" is no excuse for not trying to rectify that injustice.

Stephanie

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Animal Rights @ Change.org

A Vegan Editor's Life of Words (and animals and nature and politics and family and food)

http://omnivoresdelight.blogspot.com

Our operation is mainly for personal consumption.  The goat is in the pasture happily grazing up until the day of slaughter.  He is removed from the herd, where they cannot see the slaughter occur.  His throat is slit, which is the most humane and painless way to slaughter.  He is then bled out and butchered. In honor of the animal, very little is wasted.  We keep the heart, brains, kidneys etc.  All is eaten. My husband and a friend to all the work themselves. 

It's not that I think we shouldn't worry about animal issues.  How we maintain the health and well being of the animals who feed us affects us in many ways as we are witnessing with American health issues.  If our livestock is not healthy, neither are we.And that includes how they are treated while alive. I think many of us can help determine changes in animal welfare by making changes in our own lifestyles, as I feel I have done.  If becoming a vegetarian works better for you, that is a great step in the right direction.  The problem is our state is in dire financial straits, to the point that our schools are loosing 10% of their bugets. They cannot afford to lose even 10%.  Many are being closed, and much needed teachers are being layed off.  My children and their educations will always be a priority for me.  Spending money on legislation for animal welfare while our children are losing out on education shows poor priorities.  Especially when we can be forcing animal welfare changes in other less costly ways.  Mainly via the market.

All other issues in this discussion aside, I completely--and strongly--disagree that "spending money on legislation for animal welfare while our children are losing out on education shows poor priorities." Is education important to me? Absolutely! But a budget crunch in education is not an excuse for sitting back and saying, "We have bigger problems" when living beings are being subjected to torturous, cruel, inhumane practices. I want kids' education to be the best it can be, but we're not talking about kids being kicked out of schools. We are, however, talking about animals living in utter agony every moment of their lives.

Don't get me wrong--there's going to be plenty of cruelty in animal agriculture even after Prop 2 goes into effect, if it passes, but regardless of my feelings on Prop 2 and its inadequacy, I couldn't disagree more with the notion that, in general, we shouldn't even try to improve the lives of animals who live in veritable hell every day simply because the money could also be spent elsewhere. Concern about education (or any other issue) and concern about animals are not mutually exclusive.

All sorts of valuable, worthy programs could always use more money (the money you want to spend on education, someone else wants to spend on renewable energy research or services for the elderly). That's no reason to say the animals don't deserve consideration. They aren't the animals "who feed us"; they are the animals we choose to kill and eat. Humans make that choice and take that action; the action and choice do not belong to the animals. Humans created and forcibly populated the hell in which most farmed animals live and die. Humans are responsible for the day-to-day cruelties, and only humans--not the animals--can change any of that. Those changes will inevitably come at a financial cost, but cost is no excuse for cruelty.

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Animal Rights @ Change.org

A Vegan Editor's Life of Words (and animals and nature and politics and family and food)

There is so, so much I want to say to this, and I just don't have time to say it all. I will say, however, this:

First, I did grow up in a rural area. All four of my grandparents and both of my parents raised and killed animals, whether in childhood or adulthood. I'm not an urban outsider unfamiliar with small farming communities. That's a stereotype of animal rights advocates that often doesn't fit. In fact, some of the most effective, passionate advocates for the animals are former farmers themselves--people like Howard Lyman and Harold Brown who grew up in farming and pursued careers in animal agriculture for years before experiencing a life-altering awakening. And there are also lots of animal rights advocates who work directly with animals, including the many volunteers who run and assist at farm animal sanctuaries. The assumption that all animal rights advocates are ignorant about animals and animal care is utterly absurd.

Second, there is no such "social contract." That's a notion fabricated by humans to justify their exploitation of animals. A valid contract requires two willing parties, and typically, each party is benefiting equally from the arrangement. Humans dominate and exploit animals; they do not simply follow through with a "contract." The argument "Hey, we started doing this thousands of years ago, and we turned them into this resource a thousand years ago" is not a valid reason for continuing to do something. At one point, white Americans made the same arguments about slaves. Neither is "they depend on us for their lives" a real argument. We forced them into dependency, so that means we are justified in looking at them as inferior for being dependent, and we are obligated to continue breeding them, just so that we can continue killing them? It's absurd to think that animals raised for meat, dairy, and eggs, most of whom live horrendous lives and almost all of whom die terrible deaths, are getting a fair deal in the arrangement simply because we "allow" them and "help" them to live until we decide it's time for them to die, long before they would have died naturally.

And finally, how can we even begin to expect our children to grow up to behave compassionately and ethically toward animals if we are telling them, when they're children, that such compassion isn't important? When we're not modeling that for them? When we're saying that we'll care about the animals only when all the humans are taken care of first?

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Animal Rights @ Change.org

A Vegan Editor's Life of Words (and animals and nature and politics and family and food)

http://omnivoresdelight.blogspot.com

And you are letting your activist emotions run amock.  First of all.  Do you honestly believe for one second that a domestic goat or cow could survive in the wild for more than a month?  If you do, you are blissfully ignorant of your parents farm background.  And I didn't ask you about your family, I asked if you yourself had personally handled and raised livestock.  It's a whole different thing, believe me.  I agree that farmers and some restraunteurs are passionate about humanley raised animals AS AM I.  That's why I raise them myself.  Did you not get that?  I did not say that ALL animal activists are ignorant of how to raise animals, but I will say those in the media often are, and those who ignorantly jump on the band wagon are as well.  How many cattle has Pam Anderson raised do you think?  

And these animals are in a sense a willing participant via evolution.  Just as dogs are a willing participant, and I see you own a couple, in being our companions.  Get this, the native Americans created this bond with dogs in order to use them to hunt animals like deer and elk for meat.  The original motivation was for meat for food, and there is a social contract on an evolutionary level.  Maybe a biologist could beter explain this.

Animals raised for meat and eggs were not always raised so "horrendously".  This is a recent phenomenon in our history - again, you need to study some history.  And not all farmers and ranchers raise their animals this way, as I do not.  You yourself are being very narrow minded and not seeing the whole picture here.  

And I can tell you how to raise your children to have compassion for animals.  It's not through lawyers, legislation and a pure waste of money.  It's by example.  Our children are in full partnership with raising our food.  They've seen the kids born and eaten their meat later. In fact my daugter personally helped raised one goat and found it difficult to let go when he was butchered.  She asked to have his brains with scrambled eggs the next day so she could have a part of his soul with her.  We honored her request.  She loved them.  Our girls have bottle fed and grained the goats, groomed and nurtured them, and they have seen that you can gently raise an animal and gratefully enjoy the nutrients they provide.  I am making a difference.  Are you? Because of the way I raise my food, I'm reducing my carbon foot print.  I challenge you to raise a goat or sheep and see what work is involved.  Milk it.  That is what they are bred for, milk and meat.  Crontrary to your "beliefs" that is the scientific reality of it.  Without us these animals would be extinct in a matter of decades.  If we just chose to let them go, like wild animals, without care, they will be gone.  Is that humane?   

I think Stephanie adequately dispensed with the idea of there being a "social contract", and the idea of animals being "willing participants" in being raised for slaughter strikes me as just silly. How exactly do we document and codify willingness in this scenario?

However, when you say "this is what they are bred for", that is entirely true. But just because something is, doesn't make it right. Just because people make their living a particular way also doesn't justify its perpetuation. Speaking of evolution: Societies evolve in how they treat each other, their planet, other creatures etc.

This proposition is about very small changes to the living conditions of factory farmed animals, and giving farmers until 2015 to implement these changes...which the egg industry's own economist assesses may cost them about a penny an egg to effect.

Also, I did want to go back to your earlier point that the it's wrong to worry about this issue when California's educational system needs all the help it can get. I don't see the correlation between the two issues, honestly. First of all the legislative analyst indicates there may be potential for reduced tax revenues of "several million dollars", and there may be "minor" enforcement costs, partly offset by fines, but there's no indication this proposition will cost the state a ton of money.

Meanwhile California's state budget for education is over $68 billion, so even the worst-case potential possible predicted cost is a drop in the education budget. All to say: I don't think this proposition should be a scapegoat for California's education problems.

We could have a long philosophical argument about a lot of other stuff in the comments above. We likely wouldn't agree, which is fine, but given the election is less than 2 weeks away, I am trying to address the proposition and the reasons to vote for it despite my misgivings. The market moves too slowly when you consider that mass cruelty is involved, and that the changes proposed are very modest, with plenty of runway given to accomplish it. This is, truly, not a completely market-driven country, we regulate all sorts of things for good reasons. I think this is one such case.

Elisa Camahort Page
BlogHer
elisa@blogher.com

My BlogHer profile truly shows you everything I do online...Check it out!!

Kim,

If I weren't desperately trying to meet a deadline today, I'd have lots to say in response right now--you've made a lot of highly debatable points (as well as some baseless condescending remarks). I'll jump back into this discussion later tonight or tomorrow.

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Animal Rights @ Change.org

http://omnivoresdelight.blogspot.com

I appologize for my condesending remarks.  I just get angry and frustrated because, as important as animal welfare is, I don't understand people who think chickens and other livestock are more important than our children.  The only way I can understand it, is to assume those who feel that way either don't have children, or they're grown, or they can afford to put them in private school.  I just don't get that.

This is why I will vote no on prop 2 as well as all 12 propositions on the ballot.

If they all were to pass they would cost the state of California $78.9 billion dollars over the next 30 years.  Our state, the 5th largest economy in the world is carrying a $15.2 billion dollar deficit.  These initiative could add $1.48 billion to the annual bills.  Prop 2 is a waste of time and ineffective in that veal crates and gestation crates are practically non existent in the state, and will be completely phased out by the end of the year.  As far as caged chickens, this will not stop the animal cruelty, it will merely move it.  Large chicken farms that cannot afford to retrofit will shut down or move out of state possibly costing more than 3000 jobs.  We'll now be increasing the carbon foot print by shipping in eggs from farther away and from chickens still in cages.  This will have an economic affect on the state, which it can ill afford.  Merced County depends heavily on the chicken industry.  They have very high poverty and double digit unemployment.  This won't be good for them.  The tax revenue will also decrease with businesses leaving the state.

These potential costs to the state are coming at a time when the govenor wants to cut the education budget by 10%.  That $68 billion education budget puts California at the 47th in the country for spending per child.  $1900 less per student than the national average. This is before the cut.  63 milion children attend the most crowded classes with the fewest counselors and librarians in the nation.  Our public schools are the only state funded agency that depend on car washes and bake sales to function.  I am a mother and my children are in the public school system and I can't be more worried about a chicken being caged than my childs education.  I own chickens, I treat them well, but they're not more important or special than my or anyone elses child and their welfare and education.