Food for Thought

We’d like to thank Sarah for inviting us to write about subjects that we have been passionate about since childhood: animal cruelty and bullying. As writers, we blog about writing or ghost hunting, so it’s great to be able to discuss topics that really matter. This feels like a revolution.

When we were eight, we made posters and newspapers condemning cosmetics testing, circuses and zoos. We were Lisa Simpson without the high grades. Though we did have spikey hair. We turned vegetarian at 12 and vegan at 14. We joined animal rights groups,
signed petitions and wrote to politicians worldwide. We use our vote to give Parliament seats to MPs who care about animal issues. Since then, we've seen hunting with dogs, cosmetic testing on animals, sow stalls, and battery cages banned. Next stop is wild animals in
circuses, snares, bullfighting, live exports and the repeal of Section 24, to ban secrecy in labs.

Most people don't understand veganism. No, we don't all live on nuts, pulses and grain. Chocolate, ice cream and chips are our staple diet. Vegans don't eat, drink, wear or use anything that comes from an animal, such as honey, beeswax, feathers, leather, etc. You'd be surprised what this covers. For example, match heads contain gelatine. Vegetarians eat eggs, dairy products, etc. Just not meat. It annoys us when people say they're vegetarian but eat
fish. Fish are animals. Our friends ask if we mind them eating meat in front of us. We don't. Just because we won't eat meat, doesn't mean we'll impose our views on everyone else. We want people to make informed decisions.

People believe when teenagers become passionate about animal rights, it’s a rebellion. We’re 31. Our vegan years outnumber our non-vegan years. Our teenage rebellion days are over. But our days for fighting for animals are not. We hate seeing suffering but some people think it’s acceptable to abuse animals, after all “they're only animals.” Bollocks.

We became involved in animal rights when were 14, being bullied and suffering from depression. It gave us something to fight for when we wanted to give up. We were shy children, which later developed into crippling social phobia, but we always felt comfortable around animals. When it seemed everybody in our school hated us, our animals were pleased to see us. They didn’t judge us and they cuddled us when we cried. Learning what people did to animals enraged us.

The most sickening thing about animal cruelty is that it exists for one reason: money.

The biggest culprit is factory farming.

70 billion animals are farmed for meat, eggs and milk every year worldwide. 50 billion of them are raised in factory or 'intensive' farms. They spend their entire lives in barren metal cages, unable to forage, nest, or even move around. Imagine being in a lift
(elevator) with so many people, you couldn't move. No privacy, no bed, nowhere to go to the toilet except where you stood. All your future contained was a terrifying death. That is the life of factory farmed animals. Animals kept in such close confines experience boredom, stress, agitation and often resort to fighting and cannibalism. The obvious solution is to give them freedom. But freedom comes at a price – to the farmers' pockets. So the animals pay. With pain and suffering. The farmers' solution is to trim beaks, dock tails and clip teeth. Mostly without anaesthetic.

A battery hen lives in a metal cage with several hens, so her space is no bigger than a sheet of A4 paper. Laying for hens is like going to the toilet for people. They like privacy. Cages don't provide privacy. Battery cages were outlawed in the EU in 2012, freeing 250
million hens. However not every country complied, despite having 12 years to phase out the cages. Welfare is less important than profit.

Our mum is a teacher and her class were studying life cycles. The school hatched hen and duck eggs so the children could see the difference between them as they grew. Unfortunately, only one hen egg hatched, so one of the teachers got seven chicks from a
battery farm. She was supposed to get six, but the farmer grabbed seven and was going to throw one back, until she stopped him. At a day old, the battery chicks were twice the size of the week-old natural chick. Why? They're fed high-fat food to grow quicker. Quicker growth means bigger profits.

A chicken's lifespan is 6 years. A broiler's (chicken raised for meat) lifespan is 6 weeks. Free range chickens are slaughtered at 8 weeks, organic chickens at 12. Admittedly, it's not much better, but it's the best of a bad situation. Factory farmed chickens reach their slaughter weight in half the time of organic chickens, who are allowed to grow naturally. Turkeys are slaughtered between 9 and 24 weeks. Both broiler chickens and turkeys spend their short lives in broiler sheds, with thousands of other birds. They have food and water points, but no natural light and they never go outside. There is litter to catch their droppings, but it is only cleared when they go for slaughter. Ammonia from their droppings can damage their eyes, respiratory systems and cause hock burns on their feet as they are forced to stand in it twenty four hours a day. Once they become lame, they cannot reach the food and water.

Broiler chickens are deprived food for many hours before being transported to slaughter. Transporting can be so stressful that 20 million chickens die before reaching the slaughterhouse.

They are the lucky ones.

At the slaughterhouse, chickens and turkeys are hung by their feet, which is excruciating if they are lame. They are stunned by being dipped headfirst into an electrified water bath. However, some chickens raise their heads, missing the water so are conscious
when a laser slits their throats. Conscious chickens will again raise their heads. The laser slits their eyes instead. If the birds are large, the laser cuts their breasts.

Turkeys often suffer broken wings and legs due to rough handling when loaded into crates. Undercover footage from a well-known turkey farm showed workers playing baseball, with turkeys instead of balls. For fun. Legally, turkeys can be hung from their feet for three
minutes, which results in fractures and dislocations as they struggle to escape. Often, their wings touch the electrified water, shocking them. Birds that have not been stunned or killed properly enter the scalding tanks alive.

Smaller seasonal slaughterhouses often kill turkeys by dislocating their necks. It may be done by untrained staff without pre-stunning. Sometimes they have their throats cut without stunning, although this is illegal in the EU. Turkeys are plucked within seconds of
having their necks dislocated. They may still be alive.

The chicks from our mum's school spent the rest of their lives with us and the ducks. They sunbathed in the warmth, dust-bathed in the mud and chased us whenever they thought it was feeding time. (Hourly, according to them).They ate cooked vegetable dinner twice
a week in the kitchen and enjoyed flicking mashed potato over the cupboards. They would disappear into the shed to lay and crow proudly until we came to praise them. They were extremely intelligent/evil geniuses and routinely found ways to escape our garden to eat our neighbours' flowers. We were already vegan when we had them, so we'd give their eggs to our neighbours then march the unapologetic chickens home.

Foie gras is gaining popularity, despite the horrific way it is produced. Ducks and geese are kept in tiny barren cages and force-fed massive amounts of food via a tube shoved down their throats. This causes their livers to swell ten times its normal size. Asylum patients used to receive this treatment when they refused to eat. When it is done to humans, it is barbaric. When it is done to birds, it is a delicacy.

1.2 billion rabbits are slaughtered worldwide every year. In the EU, the majority of rabbits are kept in sheds which can house 500 to 1000 breeding does and 10,000-20,000 growing rabbits. Rabbits reared for meat (growers) are housed in groups in metal wire cages
– they have the space of an A4 sheet of paper each. They can't lie stretched out, sit upright with their ears erect, or stand on their hind feet. Often there is no bedding, which causes sores on their feet. Anyone who's owned rabbits will know how affectionate and inquisitive they are. This is taken away from them. To the farmers, they are not curious, playful animals. They are products on the supermarket shelves.

Does are given hormones so they can be bred at the same time. After giving birth, they are impregnated again after 11 days. Their mortality rate is high, often due to respiratory and intestinal diseases. In 2010, rabbits in France had seven times more antibiotics per kilo of meat than poultry and five times more than pigs.

The EU requires rabbits to be stunned before slaughter, but some are stunned incorrectly. Like birds, they are hung upside down, causing great distress and pain.

Pigs are highly intelligent and love foraging. In parts of Europe, they are used to sniff out truffles because of their superior olfactory senses. Approximately 1.3 billion pigs are slaughtered every year and at least half are factory farmed. Pregnant sows live in sow stalls for their 16 week gestation period. Sow stalls are narrow metal stalls which don't even allow her to turn around. There is no straw for her to nest with. They have been illegal in Sweden
and the UK for years and were finally banned in the EU in 2013. Sow stalls cause physical problems such as lameness, weak bones, cardiovascular, digestive and urinary tract problems. Sows often display behaviour similar to clinical depression.

Once she is due to give birth, she is moved to a farrow crate. These are sow stalls but with space for the piglets. A bar separates them, which allows the piglets to feed, but prevents the mother from crushing them or interacting with them. After the piglets are
weaned at three or four weeks, the sow is impregnated again within weeks. She has two litters a year and has a breeding lifespan of three years. She is then sold for slaughter. A pig's natural lifespan is 15 years.

Life isn't much better for cows. Cows, like all mammals, only produce milk after giving birth. Once she has given birth, she is impregnated again three months later. She is only productive for about three years, after which she is sent to slaughter because she is chronically lame or infertile. Her natural lifespan is 20 years. Almost every calf is taken from their mother shortly after birth – because they drink the milk destined for the shop shelf. Cows, like all mothers have a strong maternal bond and this forced separation causes great anguish. If the calf is male, he is surplus to requirements and is either shot or sold for veal. If the calf is female, she will share her mother's fate.

In the last 50 years, the demand for milk has increased, so farming has become more intensive to keep up. The most common breed of dairy cow in the UK, Europe & the USA is the Holstein-Friesian. They have been bred to produce high milk quantities. In the UK, she produces 22 litres a day. In the US, it's around 30 litres. If she was producing milk just to feed her calf, she would only produce three or four litres a day.

This unnatural amount of milk weighs down her udders, forcing her hind legs into unnatural positions, which makes walking and lying down difficult. This can cause mastitis, a painful udder infection. Some cows are kept in 'zero-grazing' where they spend their lives in
concrete sheds, which damages their feet. In America, they are given growth hormones to increase their milk yield. Fortunately this is illegal in the EU.

Fish are often overlooked in the meat trade, but they are just as intelligent as other animals. They have long-term memories, problem-solving abilities, social structures and some can even use tools. In the 1970s, 5% fish came from fish farms. Now, 50% fish that is eaten are farmed, due to the collapse in wild fish stocks. Scientists have predicted that by 2048, wild fish stocks will disappear completely, meaning all fish will have to be farmed for food. Farmed fish are fed on wild fish. It sounds like an oxymoron. Farmed fish are increasing because wild fish are decreasing. And why are wild fish decreasing? Because they're feeding them to farmed fish. In fish farms, salmon, which can grow up to 75 centimetres, live in a space no bigger than a bathtub.

Overcrowded fish are susceptible to disease, and suffer from stress and aggression which can lead to injuries, like fin damage. It can also reduce oxygen levels in the water. Atlantic salmon and rainbow trout are starved before slaughter so their guts are empty. Only
a day or two of starvation is required, but they're usually starved for a fortnight. The more humane slaughter methods are electrical stunning or a strike to the head. But fish are often suffocated in the air or on ice, gassed by carbon monoxide or have their gills cut without stunning.

Only 1% sheep are factory farmed, but this still amounts to several million. Male lambs are castrated to prevent breeding, help with fattening and to reduce aggression. Men, you might want to skip the next sentence. Castration occurs by having a tight ring or clamp
applied, or through surgery. Without anaesthetic. To prevent lesions or infections from flies, lambs' tails are docked using a hot knife, or a hot iron or tight ring around the tail. However, evidence has shown that this is unnecessary. Merino wool-producing sheep from Australia often have part of their skin around the tail surgically removed, known as mulesing, to prevent flystrike. Usually without anaesthetic.

At the end of their short, miserable lives, farm animals suffer a further trauma – live exports. They are crammed onto trucks, trains, planes and ships. If an animal falls or collapses due to lameness or exhaustion, they will be trampled, often to death. EU legislation
states the length of travel time allowed, and how much food, water and rest they should receive. This is rarely enforced.

In Europe, 6 million animals are transported every year. Australia exports 4 million sheep, mostly to the Middle East. They have a 50 hour road trip to the port, followed by three weeks on a ship and more road travel when they dock. 40,000 sheep die each year before
they reach the slaughterhouse and are left to rot, distressing the living animals around them. Canadian animals are transported thousands of miles across Canada into America. Their trucks are often unheated with no air conditioning, so the sudden temperature changes can be fatal. In India, there are only two states where the slaughter of cows is legal, so cattle are transported across the country and are often brutally treated when they arrive for slaughter. South America exports thousands of animals to the Middle East, so the animals spend weeks at sea only to be poorly treated and slaughtered inhumanely. Animals are loaded and unloaded by being abused with ropes, chains, sticks, electric goads and sharp objects. Some countries don't stun animals before slaughter.

Live exports are unnecessary. If fresh fruit can be transported across the world, why can't meat? Why can't they slaughter animals in their country of origin and transport them in refrigerated trucks? Again, it comes down to profit.

The global spread of diseases such as swine fever, avian flu, bluetongue virus and foot and mouth disease can be directly linked to live transportation. Disease spreads quickly between animals, as there are few medical checks.

Paul McCartney once said "if slaughterhouses had glass walls, we would all be vegetarian."

Factory farming is detrimental to both animals and human’s health. When an animal becomes ill and stressed due to its unnatural living conditions, it is pumped full of antibiotics. Often, animals receive antibiotics whether they are ill or not. In the EU, it is illegal to use antibiotics to promote growth. However, in America, approximately 80% all antibiotics are used on farm animals. What happens to those stress hormones and antibiotics when the animal is slaughtered? They end up on the dinner plate. There is major concern about this increasing the development of drug-resistant bacteria. People are becoming immune to antibiotics because they're eating them with their roast beef.

Small farms with well-treated livestock can't compete with the cheap meat factory farms produce. Many lose their livelihoods. Forestry is destroyed to grow animal feed. Fields that could be used to grow food for people are used to grow animal-feed, meaning less food
for people. This raises food prices, which increases poverty. Vehicles, factory pollution and aerosols are blamed for damaging the ozone layer. But factory farming causes 14.5% greenhouses gasses – more than vehicles. 37% methane emissions and 65% nitrous oxide
emissions are caused by factory farming. Both are more harmful than carbon dioxide.

Factory farm workers often suffer from musculoskeletal conditions. The dust and noxious gasses can cause breathing problems and lung disease.

So what can be done to reverse this trend? The obvious answer is to consume less meat and milk. The easiest way to make a difference is through your wallet. Never underestimate consumer power. Buy locally produced meat to reduce live transportation. If demand for cruelty-free products increases, manufacturers have to listen. If demand for foie gras decreases, they will have to stop making it. The cost between buying eggs from caged or barn hens, compared to buying free range eggs won't matter much to a shopping bill, but it will matter to the millions of hens imprisoned in barren metal cages. Buying meat from factory farmed animals may cost less than meat from free range or organic animals, but the cost to their well-being is higher. Buying fish from sustainable or organic sources may be
expensive, but intensive farming is ruining the oceans for the sea life that depend on fish for survival. When wild fish stocks are depleted, what will happen to dolphins, whales, sharks, penguins, seals and polar bears? They can't visit supermarkets to buy farmed fish.

You only have to spend a few minutes with an animal to know they experience love, excitement, enjoyment, curiosity, jealousy, boredom, fear and pain. Animals' skeletons are the same as ours. Their emotions are the same as ours. There are countless stories of animals risking their lives to save their owners, or their young. And yet, animals are considered lesser beings. Commodities to be used and abused for profit or pleasure. If humans can do this to
creatures who are essentially the same as us, what does that say about us?

Animals don't have a voice. Countless groups throughout history such as slaves, women, Jews, didn't have a voice. Does that mean it's ok to use them, because they can't tell us not to? No.

Cheap meat may be attractive to your bank balance, but suffering is a high price to pay.

Rise Against’s lead singer, Tim McIlrath, a vegan and animal rights campaigner, perfectly sums up most issues going on in the world: "real revolution begins at learning. If you’re not angry, you’re not paying attention."

C L Raven are identical twins from Cardiff, Wales. They write horror novels, novellas and short stories and contribute articles to Haunted Digital Magazine. When they're not looking after their animal army, they're exploring castles, ghost hunting in spooky locations and drinking more Red Bull than the recommended government guidelines. Along with Neen Wilder, they make up the ghost hunting trio, Cardiff's Answer to Supernatural and have their own show on YouTube - Calamityville Horror.