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Katie Curtis

English 110, 08

Paper 3

April 13, 2014

Retirement of Processed Foods is Necessary to Ensure the Health of Animals

Concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs) subject their animal guests to daily

doses of antibiotics, abuse from workers, and confined living spaces that often leave them

standing in their own waste for days on end. These practices are held in order to produce the

large quantities of processed meat millions of Americans eat every day; meats such as Tyson

chicken nuggets, burritos, hamburgers, corn dogs, etc. These overly processed meats should be

extricated from diets as they have supported the mistreatment of animals since the 1950s.

Food has been undergoing a system of processing from the first instance of heating meat

in a fire to todays complex factory farms and manufacturing plants. Since that first discovery,

technology has been continually evolving and new discoveries of how to better, more efficiently

produce food have been made. The main victim of these ever increasing advances are the

animals that provide the meat humans have cooked in fires, rose for slaughter, and hosted in

expansive factory farms. As food and meat processing techniques evolved so did the techniques

for raising and containing animals. Still under consideration, however, is whether or not these

practices are serving or suppressing the health of these animals.

Concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs) are partners with these new, albeit

severe, practices. CAFOs have been operating since the 1950s, amounting to about 64 years of
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unforgiving animal practices. That is 52 years longer than the length of the holocaust (1933-

1945) of which 6 million Jews were killed, a number that is quite small compared to the 450

billion animals that are factory farmed every year by CAFOs in America (CAFO Concentrated

Animal Feeding Operation This is Animal Husbandry?). Using all man power, using every

resource available America, alongside many other countries, pushed back against the oppression

created by Hitler and freed Jews from prejudice and injustice. When looking at the effort that

was put into this event, how can we subject billions of animals to a cruelty unfit for the lowest of

specimens? Can we continue to look away as these animals, which have provided us with

survival since the first Neanderthal, are sent to lives in metal boxes waiting for slaughter?

Steve Hammer does not think so. In his article, Year of the CAFO, Hammer argues that

the Indiana state fairs theme Year of the Pig is an ironic tragedy. The fair celebrates family-

owned pig farms and their hard work in bringing delicious meat to the dinner table year-round.

The irony of this goal is that these celebrated farmers do not possess full control over their own

farms. As Hammer states, farmers either play by the rules of big business or they lose their

livelihood (Hammer, 2010). There is a silver lining to find here though. According to Hammer,

farmers have been exempt from animal cruelty laws for years, which is the reason why CAFOs

and operations like it have gotten away with their medieval methods. Fortunately, that may all

start to change. Consumers are becoming ever aware of the facts that have been hidden by CAFO

corporates and their objections are slowly speaking for the animals that cannot speak for

themselves. More and more consumers are making enlightened choices about the way they

purchase and consume food, as stated by Hammer (Hammer, 2010). These changes, as they

grow, may be the tipping point in altering and preventing the horrific practices of CAFO

operations.
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CAFO operators have their preferred techniques of abuse down to an art form, both

directly and indirectly. They treat the animals in their care as object rather than living, breathing

creatures that understand what is being done to them. These animals need someone to speak for

them; they need a voice to stand against the abuse and injustice being served to them.

It is activists like Steven Higgs who are finally taking risks to protect these animals.

Higgs boldly fights against CAFO cruelty to animals in his piece, Animal CrueltyBut One

CAFO Crime, published in the Bloomington Alternative. Higgs follows the stories, thoughts,

and actions of a former marine and commercial fisherman, Rick Dove. Both Higgs and Dove are

working to raise awareness of the betrayals to nature made by CAFOs nationwide. According to

Higgs, hogs raised in North Carolina produce as much fecal matter as each day as all people in

the states of California, New York, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Texas, New Hampshire, and

North Dakota. All this fecal matter has to go someplace and much of it results in, nitrogen

getting into the rivercoming to us through the air as ammonia gas (Higgs, 2010). This is toxic

to humans, but it is also just as detrimental to the animals in these CAFOs, as they have to stand

ankle-deep in their own waste, therefore, breathing in the ammonia and other toxins created by

the massive amounts of feces. Higgs goes on to highlight what is done with these animals when

they can no longer survive in such conditions. Higgs follows a statement by Dove saying, one

of the ways they get rid of these dead hogs is to put them in these dumpsters, and sometimes they

will sit out in front of the road for a week or more (Higgs, 2010).

Dr. Mercola takes the same position as Higgs and Dove do in that he fights against the

values and seriously falling standards of CAFOs. After reports of abuse in a North Carolina

butterball turkey farm in which 3,000 birds were inspected for injuries, video of the abuse was

recorded and publicized by the Mercy for Animals group (Mercola, 2012). This video, as
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characterized by Mercola, witnessed workers kicking and stomping on multiple birds without

any apparent reasoning or explanation. Upon inspection some birds even showed open wounds

and exposed flesh (Mercola, 2012). Mercola argues that the very government that is supposed to

oversee and protect the food industry and protect the animals involved in it is seriously failing at

its job. If the very people put in place to protect these animals are working with the corporate

interests that have abused these animals, who is left to protect them? According to Mercola, US

government has a history of supporting these industrial confined animal feeding operations

(CAFOs), by looking the other way when abuse or contamination occurs, and by directly

subsidizing cheaply produced beef, and corn and soy used for feed (Mercola, 2012). The

answers to why this pointed ignorance by the government is never explained by Mercola in his

article.

Poultry Insight: What Are the Benefits of CAFOs is a video produced by an unknown

individual or group. The video describes why CAFOs are important and how they are efficient,

helpful. Paul Bredwell is the vice president of Environmental Programs and is the speaker of the

video. According to Bredwell, the large scale chicken houses hold larger numbers of chickens

than traditional farm coops have been able to hold in the past (Poultry Insight: What Are the

Benefits of CAFOs, 2014). These buildings that CAFOs organize are much more efficient in that

they cut down on cost and space and allow farmers to have a reliable and sustainable livelihood.

When looking at Dove, Higgs, and Mercolas arguments, it is quite easy to see the wrong-

doings of CAFOs and the government. It develops a simple understanding that these poor

animals are treated in ways most people would shrink away from in horror. As evident in Higgss

description of CAFO disposal of hog corpses, mentioned above, and in Mercolas frustration that

the government turns a blind eye to the abuse of animals in factory farms. In the articles by
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Higgs and Mercola there is a heavy use of pathetic appeals. Higgs uses the statements of Dove to

invoke horror and disgust in his audience; this moves the audience and encourages them to be

persuaded to views of Higgs. Mercola, similarly, uses pathetic appeals alongside logical and

ethical appeals. Mercola relies on his credentials as a doctor to provide trust within his audience.

Mercola having established that then uses the news and legislation facts to give him a logical

appeal in order to expound on his credibility. Most essential to his article, however, is his use of

pathetic appeals to do as Higgs did and invoke heavy emotions in the audience to wake them up

in a sense and call them to action. The video uses logic to show its audience the benefits CAFOs

give to farmers. Despite this, the video does not actually give statistical evidence or secondary

sources to back up its claims. Therefore, I disagree with the claims made by this video because of

the lack of supporting evidence within it.

These images, these facts presented by these authors and activists demonstrate to us only

one option: stop eating fast food. If consumers make choices that guide them away from the

frozen meat section of supermarkets, then CAFOs can eventually be torn down or forced to

change their tactics. Again, as we look at Mercolas characterization of the lack of government

intervention, we see it is up to consumers to make the difference and save animals from abuse

and mistreatment. This proposal is mentioned time and time again in the articles by Mercola,

Higgs, Hammer, and others who insist that the only sure way to stop CAFOs abusing animals to

take an unwavering stand to choose food grown locally and apart from factory farms. Daniel

Imhoff states in his article, Egg Recall Reveals Scrambled Priorities claims that we have a say

in the kind of world we want, and it is expressed in the food choices we make every day

(Imhoff D. , 2010). Imhoff stated this after a half-billion eggs were recalled from stores for their

salmonella contamination. Monica Eng expresses the same understanding as Imhoff does in her
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article The Cost of Cheap Meat. Eng claims that the food we eat and buy is actually cheaper

than what consumers are claiming, perhaps the cheapest its ever been. But the real question Eng

poses is at what cost? Eng quotes Imhoff in her article, Why arent we regulating it better and

why is cheap such an important factor? (Eng, 2010). This is the question consumers and

producers are now faced with.

It is imperative that these animals that are supposed to be protected by humans are being

hurt by humans. This mass genocide has never been tolerated in human society and if it was ever

experienced there was great pains taken to halt it. These animals are no different than humans,

hey may have the inability to communicate to us through the spoken word, but they speak

nonetheless. They cry through squeals of pain, they implore through downtrodden and manure-

ridden bodies. The animals with which we share the world with have for centuries protected us

with their fur (warmth) and their flesh (food). The pain they suffer is how they communicate

with us and it is the responsibility of humans to be their voice and to fight for their health and

protection and survival. The way we can fight for these animals is simple. Stop eating processed

meats. By eating processed meats we support the CAFO operations and by extension support the

abuse of innocent animals. A consumers choice of local meat and within that realm, meat that

has been raised in the traditional style and outside of cages or hormone treatments can change the

ways these CAFOs treat animals. Thus, if making one small choice at one checkout in one

supermarket could save these animalswhy not do it?

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References
CAFO Concentrated Animal Feeding Operation This is Animal Husbandry? (n.d.). Retrieved
April 14, 2014, from FactoryFarming.com: http://www.factory-farming.com/CAFO.html

Eng, M. (2010, October 27). The Costs of Cheap Meat. Retrieved April 13, 2014, from The
Cornocopia Institute: http://www.cornucopia.org/2010/10/the-costs-of-cheap-meat/

Hammer, S. (2010, August 17). Year of the CAFO. Nuvo.

Higgs, S. (2010, July 25). Animal Cruelty--But One CAFO Crime. The Bloomington Alternative.

Imhoff, D. (2010, September 1). Egg Recall Reveals Scrambled Priorities. Zester Daily.

Mercola, D. (2012, March 22). Gov. Dept. Works With Major Corporation to Hide Animal
Abuse. Retrieved April 14, 2014, from Mercola.com:
http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2012/03/22/animal-feeding-operations-
contamination-abuse.aspx

Poultry Insight: What Are the Benefits of CAFOs (2014). [Motion Picture].