Skinny Bitch (6 page)

But don’t the government and U.S. Department of Agriculture protect us from all this? Hell no. Sickeningly high levels of pesticides found in dairy meet government standards. Records from the Food and Drug Administration show that “virtually 100% of the cheese products produced and sold in the U.S. has detectable pesticide residues.” 87

Milk is not a reliable source of minerals. You get much higher levels of manganese, chromium, selenium, and magnesium from fruits and vegetables. Fruits and veggies are also high in boron, which helps lessen the loss of calcium through urine.88 Consuming high amounts of dairy blocks iron absorption, contributing to iron deficiency.89

So do you need calcium by the trough? Nope. A simple way to get adequate calcium is by including the following foods in your diet: fortified grains, kale, collard greens, mustard greens, cabbage, kelp, seaweed, watercress, chickpeas, broccoli, red beans, soybeans, tofu, seeds (sesame seeds rate among the highest), and raw nuts. It is just that simple. But don’t be looking to pop a calcium pill as a quick fix. Research shows that supplements do not make a significant difference in preventing or treating osteoporosis.90 Good news: Fifteen minutes of direct sunlight every day aides in Vitamin D absorption, which means stronger bones.

How about eggs, you ask? When a woman is pregnant and she drinks alcohol or does drugs, it affects her unborn child, right? Right.

Well, it is the same with chickens and their unhatched eggs. When you eat eggs, you are ingesting all the same hormones, pesticides, chemicals, and steroids as if you were eating the chicken directly. So if you really believe that eating “just egg whites” isn’t fattening, we’ve got a bridge we can sell ya. Eggs are high in saturated fat and are completely disgusting when you think about what you are eating. Try that for once. Actually think about what you are eating!

You will pee in your pants when you see how much weight you lose from giving up dairy. The fat in cheese is what gives it the taste and texture we love. Of the calories found in cheese, 70 to 80 percent come from fat. Even if you’re buying the low-fat, part-skim nonsense, more than half the calories come from fat.91 Fat free?

Give us a freaking break! Remember what milk is for. It is designed to fatten up baby cows. Do you really believe it can be made fat free? Get your head out of your ass. Milk = fat. Butter = fat.

Cheese = fat. People who think these products can be low fat or fat free = fucking morons.

Luckily, there are many alternatives to dairy products. Not only do grocery stores carry these items, but many coffee shops now offer soymilk and some bakeries are selling dairy-free desserts. A personal favorite-tasting milk substitute is Rice Dream (Original Enriched), which is fortified with vitamins and calcium. But feel free to experiment until you find your own favorite brand. Remember to read the ingredients. Avoid the milk substitutes that contain sugar.

Instead of butter, try Earth Balance Natural Buttery Spread or Soy Garden Natural Buttery Spread, both made from nonhydrogenated oils. Can’t live without ice cream? You don’t have to. Soy Delicious has incredible knock-offs, which are completely dairy free. They even make must-have flavors, such as Chunky Mint Madness, Cookie Avalanche, Rocky Road, and Peanut Butter Zigzag. They also have a line of “ice creams” and sorbets that are fruit-sweetened! Dairy and sugar free! Too exciting for words! We’re also huge fans of Double Rainbow Soy Cream, another amazing ice cream alternative. Are you a cheese addict? No problem. Follow Your Heart’s Vegan Gourmet makes a kick-ass substitute in mozzarella, Monterey jack, and nacho. It even melts! It rules. Beware of the many brands that tout themselves as “soy cheese,” leading consumers to believe they’re dairy free. When you get past the misleading packaging and actually read the ingredients, you’ll discover sneaky dairy ingredients like whey or casein. Steer clear.

Other brands are completely dairy-free, but they taste like shit.

Need eggs in your life? Easy peasy. Egg Beaters are made of real eggs, so they’re a gross no-no. But if you pan-fry House Tofu Steak (slice it in half first) and add a little soy butter, salt, pepper, and ketchup, you’ve got yourself a fried “egg.” There’s also an egg substitute in powder form for cooking and baking called Ener-G egg replacer. And many markets sell a pretty good tofu “egg” salad.

As the demand grows for healthy, yummy, animal-free, dairy-free products, more companies will supply us with these foods. So let your consumer dollars voice your desire, and your body will be rewarded. And don’t be shy. If your grocery store doesn’t carry something you want, open your fat mouth and ask for it.

Chapter 6

You Are What You Eat

Now would be a good time to reflect on the old adage, “You are what you eat.” This statement, in all its simplicity, is brilliant. You are what you eat.

You are a human body comprised of organs, blood and guts, and other shit. The food you put into your body works its way through your organs and bloodstream and is actually part of who you are. So every time you put crap in your body, you are crap.

If Chapters 2 and 3 didn’t convince you to avoid eating animal products (crap), maybe this will. Even knowing how abysmal the living conditions are for animals on factory farms, you cannot begin to imagine 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.92 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.93

Stunned or not, cows and hogs are then “strung up” from the ceil-ing by a chain attached to their leg(s).94 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.95 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 “stickers” (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.96 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.97 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.98

Chickens, because they are so overcrowded and stressed, frequently peck each other and factory farm workers, so the ends of their beaks are literally chopped off their faces. Even though they currently comprise more than 95 percent of all animals slaughtered for food, Congress exempted chickens (and turkeys) from the Humane Slaughter Act, so there is no requirement to stun them99 (not that it would matter, anyway). But because it is easier to handle chickens that aren’t fighting for their lives, their heads are sometimes dragged through a water bath that has been electrically charged. This paralyzes the birds, but does not render them unconscious.100 They are snatched up, shackled upside down, and their throats are slashed by machine at the rate of thousands per hour.101 Next, they are dunked in scalding water to loosen their feathers. Again, they are supposed to be dead at this point, but if the machine misses its mark, or the chickens haven’t bled to death, they are “boiled” alive. Then they are placed into a series of machines that literally beat their feathers off of them, still alive and having just been scalded.102 All the while, they are being handled like rubber toys: grabbed by their necks, feet, or wings and thrown around. You get the idea.

In egg-laying factories, male baby chicks are completely useless to farmers because they don’t produce eggs. So workers snatch up chicks speeding by on a conveyer belt, quickly glance at their under-sides, and then toss the “useless” males into the garbage. Yes.

Literally. Millions of male baby chicks are piled on top of each other in garbage dumpsters—left to die.

In her book,
Slaughterhouse,
Gail Eisnitz, chief investigator for the Humane Farming Association, interviewed dozens of slaughterhouse workers throughout the country.
Every single one
admitted to abusing animals or neglecting to report those who did.103 The following are quotes from slaughterhouse workers taken from her book. (They are quite graphic and difficult to read, but we implore you to read each one. It is important to know what our dietary desires are contributing to. Surely you can endure reading it if animals have to endure suffering it):

“I seen them take those stunners—they’re about as long as a yard stick—and shove it up the hog’s ass. . . They do it with cows, too. . . And in their ears, their eyes, down their throat. . . They’ll be squealing and they’ll just shove it right down there.”104

“Hogs get stressed out pretty easy. If you prod them too much they have heart attacks. If you get a hog in a chute that’s had the shit prodded out of him and has a heart attack or refuses to move, you take a meat hook and hook it into his bunghole [anus]. You’re dragging these hogs alive, and a lot of times the meat hook rips out of the bunghole. I’ve seen hams—thighs—completely ripped open.

I’ve also seen intestines come out. If the hog collapses near the front of the chute, you shove the meat hook into his cheek and drag him forward.”105

“Or in their mouth. The roof of their mouth. And they’re still alive.”106

“Pigs on the kill floor have come up and nuzzled me like a puppy. Two minutes later I had to kill them—beat them to death with a pipe.”107

“These hogs get up to the scalding tank, hit the water and start screaming and kicking. Sometimes they thrash so much they kick water out of the tank. . . . Sooner or later they drown. There’s a rotating arm that pushes them under, no chance for them to get out. I’m not sure if they burn to death before they drown, but it takes them a couple of minutes to stop thrashing.”108

“Sometimes I grab it [a hog] by the ear and stick it right through the eye. I’m not just taking its eye out, I’ll go all the way to the hilt, right up through the brain, and wiggle the knife.”109

“Only you don’t just kill it, you go in hard, push hard, blow the windpipe, make it drown in its own blood. Split its nose. A live hog would be running around the pit. It would just be looking up at me and I’d be sticking, and I would just take my knife and—cut its eye out while it was just sitting there. And this hog would just scream.”110

“I could tell you horror stories . . . about cattle getting their heads stuck under the gate guards, and the only way you can get it out is to cut their heads off while they’re still alive.”111

“He’ll kick them [hogs], fork them, use anything he can get his hands on. He’s already broken three pitchforks so far this year, just jabbing them. He doesn’t care if he hits its eyes, head, butt. He jabs them so hard he busts the wooden handles. And he clubs them over the back.”112

“I’ve seen live animals shackled, hoisted, stuck, and skinned. Too many to count, too many to remember. It’s just a process that’s con-tinually there. I’ve seen shackled beef looking around before they’ve been stuck. I’ve seen hogs [that are supposed to be lying down] on the bleeding conveyor get up after they’ve been stuck.

I’ve seen hogs in the scalding tub trying to swim.”113

“I seen guys take broomsticks and stick it up the cow’s behind, screwing them with a broom.”114

“I’ve drug cows till their bones start breaking, while they were still alive. Bringing them around the corner and they get stuck up in the doorway, just pull them till their hide be ripped, till the blood just drip on the steel and concrete. Breaking their legs. . . . And the cow be crying with its tongue stuck out. They pull him till his neck just pop.”115

“One time I took my knife—it’s sharp enough—and I sliced off the end of a hog’s nose, just like a piece of bologna. The hog went crazy for a few seconds. Then it just sat there looking kind of stupid. So I took a handful of salt brine and ground it into his nose.

Now that hog really went nuts, pushing its nose all over the place. I still had a bunch of salt left in my hand—I was wearing a rubber glove—and I stuck the salt right up the hog’s ass. The poor hog didn’t know whether to shit or go blind.”116