Cage-free, the way to be?

The tiny thing lies on the ground, eyes barely opening, its chest heaving with struggled breaths. Around it, others of its kind trample over it trying to find an escape from the light of day that never seems to turn into dark night.

I don’t know about you, but ever since my switch to vegetarianism (8 years ago), I have wondered how it is that people seem not to think about the state of living of the animals they eat.

I mean, just thinking about an animal being injured, let alone slaughtered, is enough to make me sob with little ceasing. It is as if my heart breaks day by day. The only thing that enables me to get through the knowledge of animal suffering, to get through a day of reading an article about a baby giraffe being slaughtered at a zoo, is that someday, I hope, all of that suffering will cease.

It helps, though, to learn a little bit more about how exactly these animals raised for food are treated. When I stopped eating eggs for a time, I was set on never eating another one ever again. I just could not be content in my heart knowing the suffering those animals went through just so I could scarf down an omelette. At that time, I had just finished a marvelously written book called Eating Animals by J.S. Foer. The chickens Foer witnessed were in conditions just like the one I wrote in the first paragraph, in fact that reference is from his book.

At that moment, I was set on what to do: no more eggs, ever.

But then two little words started making their way into my view: cage-free. Well, if the chickens are cage-free, it’s all good, right? That was the reason I decided not to eat eggs anymore, because they were all trapped in tiny little cages. So I started eating eggs again, sort of. I still wasn’t completely comfortable, but my conscience was not as heavily burdened.


Actually, cage-free is the way to deceive.

Cage-free, free-range, free-roaming only means they have some access to outdoors, with living conditions being just as bad as if they did not have the outdoor access.

They are still suffering.

There is no regulation on how many birds are squished in one space, male chicks are thrown away, and hens have their beaks removed without any pain-killing remedy.

Cage-free, the way to be?

I would rather live my life eating things that do not require another living, breathing being to suffer purely for my benefit.

Check out Eating Animals 

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