PeTA and KFC

[Newt]

So, I was winding down the other night while watching the 10 o'clock news. One of their top stories was about 2 large interstate bilboards advertising for PeTA. It was a picture of Colnel Sanders (the KFC guy) holding a chicken upside down with a large bloody knife in his hand. They targeted Arkansas because we're one of the largest chicken producers in the U.S. This just bugs me to no end. What do they think the chickens are being raised for? .... pets?!?! Being a native Arkansan, I know several families which depend on growing chickens as their only means of income. My family being one of them. O.K. I'm off of my soapbox now. I should warn you California folks though, because in that story, they said that you guys were their next target. Doesn't really go in the "hunting" category, but I figured you hunting guys would back me more than anybody.

 

[ChristopherG]

Nope, you figured wrong. Yes, PETA is wrong, in my opinion, in their insistence on vegitarianism. Animals can be raised, killed, and eaten humanely. BUT KFC is not doing it that way. The industrialization of meat--the attempt to treat animals as though they were manufactured products--has resulted in cruelty no respectable hunter would condone.

Not trying to come down on you, by any means; but the system is screwed up. Maybe what I'm suggesting--that we treat animals humanely, even (especially?) when they're destined for the plate--would mean Amercans would pay more for meat. Fine, they should. I don't want to put you out of business; I just think the business should respect the living beings it exploits.

You may feel differently, and I suppose it's hard to quantify exactly what constitutes cruelty to animals and what doesn't; but I've raised animals myself and seen them raised in industrial scale, and the line clearly falls somewhere in between there for me.
cg

 

[redneck]

Well I agree with ya that PETA is wrong, unless your talking about the OTHER PETA (Peope for The Eating of Tasty Animals).

The majority of people don't like to think about where their food comes from, so hopefully they'll only be disgusted with PETA's graphic attempt to gain support. I don't know how old colonel sanders does things now, but if its the way its portrayed on the billboard then its the same way its been done for a LONG time.

As far as megafarms go. I don't like them. Mostly for the fact that they put the family farms out of business. Animals aren't kept quite as nicely as we'd like to see, but I haven't seen anything quite as morbidly inhumane as what treehuggers would like you to beleive.

 

[Art Eatman]

I got into a discussion about "food factories" maybeso a dozen years back. A question I haven't had answered yet has to do with the cost to the consumer and the profitability for the producer for "kinder and gentler" factory operations.

The main problem is the incredible numbers. We have almost 300 million people, a great many of whom eat bacon and eggs for breakfast and enjoy fried chicken for other meals or snacks. "More room" costs a lot of money--in the form of capital investment plus added operating costs for the utilities (mostly for electricity; more climate control and more lighting).

I'm not gonna get into the ramifications of what I'd suspect might be a 20% or 30% across-the-board increase, but I'd sure bet there'd be a tremendous outcry from the lower-income segment of society...

Art

 

[ChristopherG]

Art, you're certainly right to think the cost would be significant, and there would be an outcry; development workers can tell you how hard it is to change people's eating habits, as can dieticians. But we've lost any ethic, as a society, for how animals ought to be treated--probably for the exact reason that redneck mentions; people don't want to think about the processes behind their food. And, with such a tiny fraction of our population in the food production process, most people wouldn't know how to go about thinking about it if they wanted to.

It's for that reason I think we need laws--laws to replace that ethic that's dissappeared in the face of the withering efficiency of MBAs who now run industrial farms, or run the companies that own them. And those laws will mean we pay more for meat, and we should. America's obese, and consumes more animal products than any significant society since the agricultural revolution--I mean the old one, 15 or 17 millenia ago.

Sorry to chew up space with marginal or flat-out OT material. I guess I don't understand why hunters, who might be expected to cultivate a related ethic of animal welfare and dignity, are not in the front lines on this issue.
Cg

 

[Art Eatman]

Chris, I speak on this bit just for me, not for any others: I was raised in a mix of city and farm/ranch. My grandmother raised chickens, for which I was the evil slaughterer in providing a chicken dinner. I guess I was nine or ten, mas o menos. Twenty-some years later, having returned to that old family farm/ranch operation, my wife and I had chickens as well as horses and cattle. (And a pet goat and a pet deer and other assorted creatures. )

Now, we took good care of those egg-laying little doofers. However, a chicken is still just a chicken. They're not as dumb as a domestic turkey, but they probably run lower than a sheep on the IQ scale. I can't help it. It's an emotional thing and I'll say it again: It's just a stupid chicken! I just can't seem to get excited about a kinder, gentler drumstick factory.

I dunno. My brain just seems to have a cutoff point when it comes to chickens and pigs. I'm not gonna beat nor starve nor harass any animal, but I just can't work up any excitement about our food factories...

And that's about as close as I can get as to the "why" of the way I look--or don't look--at the situation.

But don't even try to ask why I'm pretty much the opposite in attitude about housepet cats, dogs, cows, horses and wildlife. Consistency and hobgoblins, I guess.

Regards,

Art

 

[Guyon]

It would be interesting though if PETA did manage to shut down these food factories. Imagine entire cities without eggs, chicken sandwiches, bacon, or hotdogs. I'll bet that a lot of folks who were anti-hunting would suddenly do an about face.

 

[Newt]

Quote: "BUT KFC is not doing it that way."

As well as being a member of a farm family, I have been in many, many mass quantity production facilities for chickens as an engineer for a certain manufacturer. I can tell you that It's an industry standard how these birds are treated, and why PeTA singled out KFC, I don't know. But, I can tell you that if any portion of the production process of these birds were changed to treat these birds more "humanely", than the costs would be signifigant to the consumer, and there goes the price issue again. I don't know that I've ever seen any "inhumane" treatment in any of these production facilities, but I'd have to agree with Art on this one. I just can't get excited or even care how they kill a chicken, cow, pig or any other farm raised animal. I can tell you from first-hand experience that these birds are killed quickly and efficiently. I've been there and seen it. It's just too much of a cost issue for these big plants to do it as a slow or lengthy process.

 

[Art Eatman]

Ya always gotta remember that PETA will use any excuse to further their agenda of totally ending any human control of any animal. It matters not that there's no "meat" to their arguments.

Most of this stuff, as in Florida with pigs, they get the boo-hoo bunch all excercised over the issue of "over-crowding".

Art