“Oh, to get people to hold one of these absolutely gentle birds, their bones so fragile, and realize that we have the power to protect them! That we need to defend the most vulnerable – like babies. They don’t need much from us to take care of them. They simply need us to stop eating them.” - lauren Ornelas, Food Empowerment Project, April 28, 2013

Read Appetite for Justice by Food Empowerment Project

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Appetite for Cruelty: “I couldn’t wait to kill them.”

Smithsonian magazine, June 2013

Read Michael Pollan and Ruth Reichl Hash out the Food Revolution

Of which this is a sample:

Michael Pollan: “I think now I could raise a pig and kill a pig for food. I didn’t feel a sense of attachment. Clearly a pig is a very intelligent animal, but I think I could probably do that. I raised chickens, and worried that I wouldn’t be able to kill them, but by the time they were mature, I couldn’t wait to kill them. They were ruining my garden, abusing one another, making a tremendous mess. Meat birds are not like hens. Their brains have been bred right out of them, they’re really nasty and stupid. And every other critter for miles around was coming after them. I lost one to a raccoon, one to a fox, one to an owl—all in the course of a week. In the end I couldn’t wait to do the deed, because otherwise, somebody else was going to get the meat.”

“Edith, our latest rescue, is a broiler hen and one of the
sweetest and smartest birds we’ve met in a long time.”
Photo: Robert Grillo

Robert Grillo of Free from Harm talks back.
Read Michael Pollan Talks Trash about Chickens Just Like Big Ag He Denounces

What Can I Do?

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