Outrage

I think for some reason, I feel like God has really been laying food on my heart.  Let me explain. Lately I've been very interested in finding recipes involving all natural ingredients, and trying to incorporate them into my life, with my limited budget. At first I was just think about it from the standpoint of my own personal health goals. I want to maintain my weight, keep a trim figure, so it makes sense to eat GOOD food, not all that processed artificial food that your body wasnt meant to consume.
But today my view on that matter has drastically changed, because my English teacher showed us a movie in class, called Food, Inc.
Which shocked, horrified, and terrified me.
Because from what I understood, it is so so true.

It was all about how none of us have any real idea about how our food is processed, how the animals are being treated, or the actual ingredients in our food. Anyone know what Xanthum Gum is? Yeah, i didn't either.
We look on the back of cereal boxes, and have the time there are these huge lists of chemicals, and we have no idea what they actually are. How could it possibly be a good idea to feed ourselves ingredients of which we are totally ignorant??
But the worst part for me was the images of animals.

Thousands of chicks being run down a conveyor belt as if they were not living, breathing animals, just merchendise, being tossed down chutes, then grabbed by their tiny necks and being stamped for identification.
Hundreds of adult chickens packed into tiny, windowless tunnel-like houses, filled with feces, pumped so full of antibiotics and growth hormones that their bodies are overdeveloped, and their feet cannot support their overgrown bodies.
They can't even walk. Then they are packed away  for slaughter, thrown roughly into tiny crates in trucks, just thrown, as if they were nothing but garbage.

Cows standing knee deep in their own feces, covered from head to toe in manure, forced unnaturally to eat corn instead of grass...It was one of the saddest and most heart wrenching sights I have ever seen.
How could this be happening?? How could any human be so heartless as to subject another living, breathing animal to that kind of treatment?

They aren't even recognised as animals anymore, they are crops, merchendise. The companies "grow chickens" (and this is a quote from a Tyson Chicken farmer), simply for their meat, and for money. They dont care what happens to them before or afterwards.
Some farmers do care, but they are so indepted to the large companies that they dont have any say in how the chickens are treated or raised.

All I am is a child of God. And it hurts my heart so much to see other members of God's creations being so exploited and mistreated. We are supposed to be the animals' CARETAKERS. Yet we have subjected them to mere merchendise, we figure its okay to do whatever we want to them, as long as WE get meat on the table.

I'm sorry. But God would not, and is not pleased, with how those animals are being treated. I know He has ordained for animals and plants to be our food. That's why I don't have a problem with eating meat perse. But I DO have a problem when I see how the food I am eating was treated when it was still alive. Just because we are allowed to eat them does not give us the right to mistreat them so horribly while they are in our care. They are so innocent, and they have no voice, and yet they are being treated like the scum of the earth.

That makes me really, really angry and sad. People freak out when a puppy has no home, or when a racehorse is put down simply for having a leg injury, as well they well they should. But why does nobody care about these cows, chickens, turkeys? Are they any less creations of God? Why are there rescues funds for dogs and cats and horses, but no one cares that there are thousands of cows standing knee deep in their own feces??

IT'S WRONG.

And I want so desperately to DO something, to somehow change what is happening, and I don't know how. I don't want to become like one of those paranoid PETA  membors, freaking out every time any animal is eaten.

But I cannot just ignore what I saw today, act like its not happening. Because it is. I've lived my life in ignorance of what I've been eating. And I'm going to try not to do that anymore. I will go to the grocery store, and instead of just picking the cheapest cereal, I will try to look through the ingredients, and see if I actually know what they are. I will try to buy free roam, antibiotic free eggs. I will try to get free range and organic meat whenever I can.

Honestly, at this point, most people become vegetarians, because they want to protest the animal cruelty. But honestly, I don't see how that would solve anything. i would be just one vegetarian among millions of avid meat consumers. It wouldn't put any kind of a dent in the meat production process.

So what I'm going to do, is try to support those who don't mistreat their animals as much as I can. Because I don't think the meat is the problem, the process is.

.....

That's all I have to say. Except that I hope you guys will go on youtube and watch Food Inc.

Ari