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Cats and Dogs, Sentinels in a Silent Spring
This year marks the 50 year anniversary for Rachel Carson’s book Silent Spring. The eponymous book that warned of the dangers of pesticides, a book many say prompted the environmental movement, led to the banning of the pesticide DDT a decade later. What many people don’t realise is that today, 50 years after Silent Spring was published, we are…
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The illusion of choice: How to shop without losing your ethics along the way
How many products and brands are owned by the company you most love to hate? If you wanted to boycott that company do you realize how many other brands they own and all of the other products they make? We say we hate them, but when we are standing in the grocery store aisle deciding which brand to buy do…
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Unhappy pet food formula: Animal cruelty included
If you think this is only about the welfare of chickens, think again. Realize that that chicken shit along with spilled chicken feed containing Specified Risk Materials is fed to cattle creating a circle in Hell where cows are fed shit and BSE. And no, prions are not destroyed by heat, so guess where they end up? In you pet’s…
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Chances are the chicken in your pet food came from this horrific poultry processing plant
A rendering plant owned by Pilgrim’s Pride has been busted once again for violating multiple environmental laws, and this time the charges expose, in graphic detail, the method for processing the most common ingredient used to make dog food and cat food: Chicken by-products. Consumers are given a rare glimpse into the secretive world of pet food manufacturing in one…
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New, eco-friendly use for pet food ingredients discovered! Or how to turn rotting meat into plastic in 5 easy steps!
Unlike most boys his age, when Professor Bressler was a little boy he dreamed of one day creating an environmentally-friendly plastic from cow guts. Blessed with a strong stomach and a burning desire to better the world, he embarked on his noble mission. What began as a project to protect the environment from disposal of cow remnants deemed “hazardous” (known…
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Did you know your chicken sandwich used to feel empathy?
Don’t you just hate it when people guilt trip you about your food choices? I do! Crimeny, if I had a nickel for every time my Mom said, “Jesus, Moll, did you eat ALL the ____?” or my other favorite: “Christ, with a diet like yours, it’s a wonder you’re not DEAD yet!” In honor of International Respect for Chickens…
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Poultry farmers motto: Use everything but the cluck
There’s a saying popular with the poultry industry crowd: “We recycle everything but the cluck!” Depending on your view of recycling that could be considered a good thing, but I have a feeling the poultry industry missed the memo that said, “Although recycling has a lot of benefits to humans, animals and the planet — the product you create from…
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Could Cheap Pet Foods Make Pets Dumb and Dumber?
After reading a study that posed a similar question for children fed a diet of junk food, I couldn’t help immediately extrapolating that evidence to include animals. Scientists found that a diet, high in fats, sugars and processed foods in early childhood (kittenhood or puppyhood) may lower IQ, while a diet packed full of vitamins and nutrients may do the…
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Safe Meat and Factory Farming: A Contradiction in Terms
Safe Meat A Letter to the Editor of the New York Times To the Editor: Mark Bittman wants to outlaw confined livestock feeding operations because, he says, they harm the environment, torture animals and make meat less safe (“A Food Manifesto for the Future,” column, Feb. 2). We take issue with him on all three points. Yes, there were a…
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Consuming Tragedy: Eating Veal
Comments Requested on Disabled Livestock Policy The U.S. Department of Agriculture‘s Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) is requesting comments on two petitions for rulemaking submitted to the agency by animal rights groups aimed at reforming the agency’s policies on non-ambulatory disabled livestock at slaughter. A petition submitted by the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS) requests that FSIS…
