You Are What You Eat

Most people today are, to some extent, aware of the nutritious value in the food they're eating, whether it's good or bad. The media is overflowing with advertisements for different "diet" products, vitamins,cooking shows, as well as commercials for diseases you can get from not eating "healthy" foods. So how is it possible that it took me over 20 years of being a health FANATIC to finally realize that the so called "healthy" foods I've been eating come from SERIOUSLY TORTURED animals that are filled with diseases, antibiotics, pesticides, and hormones. It's not that I've never heard about it, but I didn't know the extent of it until I recently watched some undercover videos of slaughterhouses demonstrating the SEVERE CRUELTY and horrible conditions of the animals I've been eating...poultry included.

If you knew your neighbor was torturing his dog or cat everyday, would you report it or just pretend it wasn't happening? If your cat had kittens, would you put the males kittens in a plastic bag and throw them in a garbage bin to suffocate to death just because you had no use for male cats? Every day, hundreds of thousands of male chicks are killed by suffocation in plastic bags, decapitation, gassing, being left to die in dumpsters, or being thrown alive into grinders, sometimes remaining alive for even twenty seconds after being slowly tortured and mangled (Rollin, B.E., Farm Animal Welfare).

A pregnant sow's (mother pig) biological need to build a nest before having her litter is so great that some sows confined in "gestation" crates will rub their snouts raw on the concrete floor while trying to satisfy the drive. Piglets are taken from their mothers as young as 10 days old and packed into pens to be raised for breeding or meat. Due to overcrowded conditions, the piglets develop stress-related behaviors such as cannibalism and tail-biting. Factory farmers chop off the piglets' tails and often use pliers to break off the ends of their teeth. In order to prevent unpleasant odors due to sexual pheromones, the farmers rip out the males' testicles. All of these procedures are done without any use of painkillers (www.merceyforanimals.com).

History classes all over the world will teach about the horrendous treatment that occurred during the holocaust, rightfully so; but most people will turn their backs on the cruelty that is happening everyday to millions of animals. How can a person physically and mentally be "stress-free" when their eating animals that were tortured and completely "stressed-out" until their death? Does the word "Karma" ring a bell?

The average vegetarian spares the lives of more than 50 animals each year. That adds up to thousands during a lifetime. For healthier options and recipes with "peace of mind", go to www.chooseveg.com, www.veganhealth.com, and of course www.facebook.com/cindyfoxfitness.