Did you know that the Head of European Food Safety Authority is calling for animal remains to be fed to farmed animals again? According to the plan, pigs will be fed to chickens and chickens will be fed to pigs. But the BSE ban of the 1990s was put in place for a reason. Have they gone mad? With the news that an animal variant of hospital superbug MRSA has entered the food chain because of the meat industry, surely our government should err on the side of caution in times like these?

Admittedly, there is a global food crisis and grain should not be diverted to farmed animals. Around the world, millions of people are starving to death, while millions of other people become obese from eating too much. But is this the way to go about it? Read this BBC World Service comment piece Bruce Friedrich (he gets around a lot, doesn’t he?!) wrote yesterday about the global food crisis, and how going vegetarian is the best option all round. Be prepared to be enlightened…

The European Union is considering making a contribution to the removal of a pig farm from the site of a World War Two internment camp for Romanies. Now I whole-heartedly support any mark of respect for the victims of concentration camps, and a memorial is clearly a wonderful idea. The people that spent time and perished at the Lety Camp in the Czech Republic deserve a lot better than a pig farm. Most of all, I’m elated that the pig farm may be removed.

But I just want to point out a rather large connection here that you may, or may not, have noticed.

Isn’t it just fitting that a human concentration camp was replaced with an animal concentration camp? After all, pig farms are cramped, filthy, miserable prisons for pigs, and at the end of a short and pitiful life they are slaughtered to satisfy humans’ desires. As I pointed out in a recent post, there are many similarities between how we have treated humans in the past and how we treat animals in the present.

Image: AACT / CC

I’ve just heard from our friends over in the Netherlands, who said that as of 2009 all Dutch export pig meat should come from pigs being castrated with anesthetics (as opposed to without, which has gotta hurt). Here’s the score from Judith in the Netherlands:

“Pig farmers and slaughter houses are currently working on the arrangement. The background is this - After pressure from Dutch animal welfare organization ‘Wakker Dier’, in June 2007 all Dutch supermarkets, one of NL’s biggest sausage manufacturers and a popular shopping mall chain stated that from 2009 they would stop selling meat from pigs castrated without anesthetics. Soon after that, many Dutch meat sellers and companies in the snack and meat products-industry followed their example.

“Pig farmers, slaughterhouses and supermarkets responded well and signed the ‘Declaration of Noordwijk’, which states that per 2009 ALL pig meat meant for the Dutch market would come from pigs castrated with anesthetics. But no concrete agreements were made regarding pig meat meant for export. As most pig meat from NL is for export purposes, the slaughterhouses and the farming industry have now reassured that all pigs in NL will be castrated with anesthetics, so also for export. Sadly, the 8.5 million piglets that are being exported ALIVE will still be castrated without anesthetics.”

If that went over your head, here’s the condensed version:

Good – not all pigs will be painfully castrated without anesthetics before being slaughtered for human consumption
Bad – pigs are eaten for food. Whether they’re castrated, not castrated or whatever, it’s still terrible that this happens. Give up the flesh and go veg.

We have a video on Friction.tv! Click below to find out more about why PETA did this naked farrowing crate protest yesterday in Covent Garden, and see what onlookers thought about it. I love the comment ‘Get your boobs out to get your point across.’

It’s almost Mother’s Day! So PETA thought it the perfect opportunity to get people talking about what happens to mothers all over the world… pig mothers, that is. Today in Covent Garden as shoppers dashed around for gifts for their mothers, PETA’s very pregnant Noemie stripped, got down on all fours and knelt in a replica farrowing crate with the banner ‘Unhappy Mother’s Day for Pigs, Go Vegetarian.’

Mother’s Day is a time to show love, respect and gratitude for mothers so it is only fitting that we extend that kindness to mothers that have a really tough time all year round – sows, who are squeezed into narrow metal stalls barely bigger than their own bodies. Unable to turn around, nuzzle their piglets or do anything that comes naturally to them, they live in misery. When weaned, the piglets are taken away to be fattened for slaughter, and the mothers are put through the process all over again.

Massive thanks to Noemie on this one, you’re a star.