Animal welfare across the next couple of years will become a mass topic of discussion in the general public. […] We don’t mind paying a fair price for that (higher animal welfare standards) and will pass it on appropriately if we believe it has provided added value (for customers).
Steve Easterbrook, chief executive officer, McDonald’s Restaurants Ltd.
The online film The Meatrix, which was released in 2003, had the lowest awareness among the youth, but the highest impact on meat eating habits. Spoofing Hollywood’s “Matrix” trilogy, The Meatrix stars a mysterious trenchcoat-wearing bull, Moopheus, who offers young pig Leo a red tablet which opens his eyes to the “real world,” where agribusiness corporations are eradicating family farms and promoting intensive production methods. At the end of the movie, viewers are directed to an action page where they are encouraged to support sustainable food production.
While only 7 percent of all youth surveyed indicated having heard of or visiting the Meatrix Web site, more than three-quarters of those who are aware of The Meatrix have seen a video concerning animal care or meat consumption. Of those, nearly two-thirds indicated the Web site/video had impacted their meat eating habits.
“Checkoff Tracks Activist Groups’ Influence on Kids” published on the official Website of the National Pork Board.
The Grumpy Vegan has catalogued more than 700 books from the Stallwood Animal Rights Archive on LibraryThing. The next update will be made when he’s reached 800 catalogued books. Also, more than 70 tags are now making it possible to search the library by category. Comments on the tags given to the books are welcome.
A pet dog missed the family’s dead cat so much that he dug up his grave and brought the body back into the house.
“Dog retrieves his best friend – a cat buried in the garden.” The Times
And there’s great video, too.
The campaign against the terrible conditions that prevail in the factory-farmed chicken industry has generated an overwhelming response. But not all of it has been favourable to the high-profile figures leading the campaign. Jamie Oliver has attracted charges of hypocrisy for his criticism of Sainsbury’s, despite the fact that the television chef accepts a lucrative stipend to appear in adverts for the grocery giant. Some feel that Oliver would cut a more impressive figure if he pledged to accept no more money from the chain until it overhauls its poultry-rearing standards.
Perhaps so, but ultimately it is hard to regard this as anything but a sideshow. What matters is the awful treatment of Britain’s 800 million broiler chickens and ensuring that measures are taken to improve this. Encouragingly, there has been some progress already. Sainsbury’s, Waitrose and the Co-op have promised to transform the welfare of the intensively-farmed birds sold in their stores.
The next challenge is to exert pressure on the wider food industry to adhere to similar animal-welfare standards. Relatively few shoppers still purchase battery eggs, but their use is widespread among confectioners. The ready-meal industry hardly ever uses chicken meat other than the most intensively-reared variety.
For too long the food industry has relied on the tendency of consumers to adopt an “out of sight, out of mind” attitude towards the production of cheap chicken meat. Now that these appalling standards of animal welfare are in the public mind, we must ensure that they remain there until real improvements are delivered.
“Pecking Order” Editorial in The Independent on January 8, 2008.
