Happy Healthy Gut (11 page)

One of the owners confided to me that her husband has always been concerned with animal rights, and was even a near-vegetarian before owning their own farm. Their family eats what they raise, because they know exactly what they’re consuming. This is important
to them, because they know what a conventional farm is about, how it’s run, and how the quality of the meat produced there compares to what their own farm provides. They offer a fabulous model of what modern-day animal farming should consist.

The practice of issuing this type of care to food animals greatly enhances the probability that disease does not show up on your plate, which is one more added bonus for those of us suffering from digestive malfunction. Although I personally don’t eat very many animal products anymore (I abstain completely from all land animals and most dairy products), I feel comfortable supporting these farms, and having my family consume products from them. It’s a good alternative solution.

The typical factory farm operates a little differently. Cows are numbered, not named. Calves are separated from their mothers almost immediately after birth, and instead of being permitted to nurse naturally, they are fed artificial nutrients in a bottle by a farmhand. Dairy cows live for only a few years as long as they are producing milk, and are often treated for exhaustion and infection after the regular doses of antibiotics used to treat their various infections (such as mastitis) stop working. If they are male, they are chained and caged so that they cannot stand up, resulting in underdeveloped calf and thigh muscles. This is done purposely to encourage softer, more tender cuts of veal, which is what these baby calves end up becoming after being slaughtered following a mere four months of life.

When I was about twenty years old, my then-boyfriend and I decided to drive up north to stay with his folks for a few days. We arrived there around dinner, and it wasn’t until the next morning that I really noticed the cows. There were probably about eighty of them, all young, which were kept in two long rows of individual stalls about the size of the calves themselves. I remember feeling uncomfortable at the sight of this, but it was my first experience of the type, and it was before I had ever really given much thought to
the treatment of farmed animals, as being directly related to the food served up on our plates.

My boyfriend’s siblings went out to feed them that morning, and took me along to see what they did. Each of the calves was fed a formula-type mixture from a bottle, and they explained that they would routinely add antibiotics to this mixture so that the cows did not get sick, “like
that
one.” I turned my head to the direction they were pointing and saw one of his siblings, around fifteen years old, driving a small tractor that was pulling a presumably dead calf by a rope tied to its leg. This I remember as being completely horrifying to me. Even if the animal was indeed dead, the way in which this poor animal was being treated was shocking to say the least.

“Downers” is the term used for animals that are decidedly too sick or weak or dead to be of use, and so they are piled up, often still alive, while they wait to be disposed of.

Farm Sanctuary, the largest place of rescue in the United States for farm animals to live out the rest of their lives after being discarded by feed lots, was founded by Gene Baur.
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Baur is an animal rights activist who happened to stumble upon a pile of downers while visiting the Lancaster stockyard one day in the 80s. He noticed how a sheep that he had presumed dead raised her head to look at him. He was so surprised that the animal was alive that he quickly placed her in the back of his vehicle and took off to a veterinarian. He recalls how that sheep lived for ten years after he saved her.
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The point is, downers can often be well enough to get better, but finding that out is just not the factory farms’ prerogative. A stockyard would rather write an animal off, even though they’re sometimes only dehydrated from transport, than stick around to find out. It’s a small glimpse into the way factory farming offers cruel and inhumane treatment to food animals.

Back to my personal story, this was my first experience in which it became so terribly obvious that we disassociate these animals and
their often horrendous experiences with the food that we buy, cook, and proceed to eat every day.

“When we eat factory-farmed meat we live, literally, on tortured flesh. Increasingly, that tortured flesh is becoming our own.”
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—Jonathan Safran Foer,
Eating Animals

It’s not just cattle, either. Baby chicks, at only a couple of days old, routinely get their sensitive beaks sheared off to prevent them from pecking each other from stress and frustration. The greater population is incredibly disease-ridden due to severe overcrowding, and many suffer from fatty liver disease from being fed grains that they were never meant to ingest, let alone digest. The stress of the situation often leads to heart failure, and results in death. Factory-farmed chickens are fatter now in a month and a half than they were previously in three months, thanks to the cocktail of growth hormones that is mixed into their feed. This causes great stress to their organs, and they often cannot stand for longer than a minute at a time, because they are incapable of holding up their own body weight. As a result of this, their legs are often completely deformed, and they are typically in chronic pain. Male layers (the male offspring of egg-laying hens) are all destroyed, because they are not broiler chickens (those fattened up to eat), and they cannot produce eggs, so they can’t be layers, either.

Each year, approximately 100 million male chicks are killed because they have no use to the chicken industry.
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The high percentage of diseased birds that lay eggs that are consumed by the average consumer is alarming. If you knew that the eggs you were purchasing came from diseased and distressed hens, would you still buy them? Eggs that do not come from hens that are permitted to walk around outdoors and peck at the natural ground cover are not kind to your tummy. They typically originate from diseased birds, and contain genetically modified ingredients, antibiotics, and other stuff that most of us would prefer not be there.

Pigs are no happier. Although being incredibly intelligent and social animals by nature, they live their lives in tiny, metal pens, surrounded by their collective feces. Gestation crates are crates made of metal bars that pregnant sows are typically kept in for the entire length of their three months, three weeks, and three day pregnancies. They are so compact that the sow can barely move, and cannot turn around. The common farmer’s defense for a gestation crate is that they feel it lessens the likelihood of the sow trampling her piglets. It’s “saving her from herself.” This is ridiculous and offensive as a fellow female! If the sow had space, like they do in the wild, they would not get nervous and stressed, and subsequently would not squash their young. The situation that these farmers place the sows in is directly related to the outcome of the sow’s new piglets. It’s the situation itself that creates inevitable stress.

Manure Lagoons

Here’s a fun question for you: where does the animal poop go? This topic has serious implications for human heath, even if you don’t live next to a factory farm. Waste removal is an enormous issue for these farms. The amount of waste produced on each factory farm is similar to what is produced in a small city. Where cities have environmentally approved waste removal strategies for their citizens, these crowded, fast-paced operations can’t possibly provide as such for their food animals. While better waste-removal practices definitely exist, much of the liquid waste that is produced in both Canadian and American farms is moved to above ground storage units, or uncovered lagoons,
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and eventually an attempt is made to spread the waste back onto fields to be used as fertilizer. This is especially true with hog farms.

There are problems with this. The first is that there is just way too much waste to deal with. The toxic manure can seep into the ground and contaminate soil, ground water, and the air we breathe. The Natural Resources Defense Council and Clean Water Network have
come up with, in their view, a list of major reasons why we should all be concerned, with regards to how factory farms dispose of their waste:
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1. “Toxic air emissions are making people sick.” Hazardous, organic compounds are being released into the air surrounding factory farms, affecting farmers, residents, neighbours, and the animals themselves. These compounds include, but are not limited to, ammonia, hydrogen sulphide, and methane gas.
   
2. “Pathogens in manure cause human diseases.” Swine lagoons contain crazy levels of viruses and bacteria. These pathogens are polluting drinking water, streams, rivers, and creeks, which also affect aquatic life. The diseases and symptoms that humans can contract from living near one of these lagoons includes kidney failure, severe stomach cramps, nausea, diarrhea, fevers, and even death. I definitely recommend finding out where your water comes from, and if its location is close to a swine lagoon.
   
3. “Nitrates from animal waste pollute drinking water.” Nitrates are highly toxic. They are found in many places, but are always present in swine lagoons. When a lagoon seeps, spills, or leaks (which is not rare), those nitrates make their way to nearby drinking water wells. They have been found to cause such issues as spontaneous abortions, developmental deficiencies, or even death in infants. 34% of North Carolina drinking wells near factory farms were found contaminated with nitrates in 1998.
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4. “Widespread Use of Antibiotics at Factory Farms Contributes to Antibiotic-resistance.” 24.6 million pounds of antibiotics are used annually to treat factory-farmed animals, sick from overcrowded conditions. We eat that meat. Some antibiotics don’t work on us anymore. ‘Nuf said.
   
5. “Health of Factory Farm Neighbors and Workers is Harmed by Lagoons and Sprayfields.” Common symptoms that farm
   workers and neighbours have experienced because of living in close proximity to hog farms include headaches, sore throats, respiratory problems, burning eyes, depression, nausea, diarrhea, and fatigue. More awesome evidence of emerging health issues.
   
6. “Environmental Devastation.” The number of fish that have been killed due to leakage or spills from manure lagoons is in the billions.
   
7. “Water Contaminants of Concern.” This one needs no explanation. Water is contaminated by its exposure to the high levels of factory farms’ fecal output. Gross.
   
8. “Groundwater Pollution and Depletion.” Fairly self-explanatory.
   
9. “Poor Siting.” Many of these structures are located in floodplains, near streams, or sitting over aquifers, and are at high risk of drinking water contamination.
   
10. “Atmospheric Deposition.” The liquidly waste eventually turns to atmospheric ammonia, which is able to travel far distances and cause widespread illness.
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    Fantastic news.
    

In despite of these reasons, manure lagoons are still routinely used both in the United States and in Canada. The effect that the structures have on human health is well known and documented. Nausea and vomiting, both symptoms of being exposed to the compounds that animal waste produces, is proof that our digestive systems are being affected by this common practice of the attempt to remove factory-farmed waste.

If you still feel strongly that you just can’t give up animal products, then at least pledge to try and make steps to change the quality of the product that you are eating. You can make sure that the meat you choose to purchase has been cultivated humanely, responsibly and
sustainably. I’m by no means implying that this is an equal alternative to giving up animal products completely. Your health would be significantly better without them, guaranteed. However, the following is some alternative information for those who are completely put off to the idea of a meat-free existence, and I do understand if you are. If you are going to continue eating animal products, such as meat, eggs, and dairy, here’s what you want to look for:

Meat

Many food companies will claim that their products are derived from free range, free run, organic, naturally raised, and/or grass-fed animals. All of these titles are undeniably synonymous with greater health, but don’t be fooled. Farms can technically claim that their chickens are “free range” or “free run” when they are not caged, but only have half a square foot of space in which to stand. “Organic” can mean that the corn and soy fed to the animal is, indeed, organic, but overlooks the fact that the animals are still caged, and that they should not eat stuff like corn in the first place. (Most farmed animals should not eat corn. It makes them sick by changing the pH of their stomachs. Corn is not a natural feed for cows, chickens, or pigs.) “Grass-fed” can mean that in one time in a particular cow’s life, it ate grass. “Natural” means nothing; it’s just a label.

Search for a local farm that is family run, and allows their animals to graze, walk, root, and nest all day long. See it with your own eyes. These animals are typically treated much better than their factory-farmed counterparts, and they are not usually given any growth hormones or antibiotics. They don’t need them because they are permitted to live the way they’re supposed to, which means they are not in overcrowded conditions, riddled with disease. These animals are handled more carefully, and with pride. You will pay more for this meat, because the farmer is not able to produce the enormous amount of beef produced on a factory farm or feedlot, but it will be much better quality and you will have the satisfaction of knowing that the animal had a good life, and that you are receiving a superior product.