Wir haben es satt!- Protest

Family at Protest against Agribusiness.  The family were offering baked goods like cake and muffins to other fellow protesters. 

 

On January 21, 2011, Lars and I joined a demonstration to protest, for us in particular, animal abuse in agriculture.  In Germany, the agriculture industry which controls and regulates the treatment of livestock for the mass-production of meat and dairy products to commcial-chain grocery stores is called  'agribusiness'.  Just like in the US, many Germans are outraged by what they hear about the mistreatment of livestock with hormones and low-quality living conditions.  Some are angry about the mistreatment of animals, others are angry because of fears that chemicals and antibiotics will risk humans' sensitivity to antibiotics- and negatively affect human immunity and ability to fight off disease.  A link to the demands for politicians in regards to food policy, as written by demo/protest organizers can be found on their link below.

Wir haben es satt!/We're fed up!

Hey, I mean, I knew that the animals don't get treated that well.  Heck, we're gonna eat them soon anyway, right, so what's the big deal-- that was kind of my mentality.  I had given the vegetarian lifestyle a year and half of my life back in college.  I was an amateur and didn't know what to eat.  I was always hungry and jealous of everyone eating meat and ate a lot of peanut butter.

But, the reason I wanted to be a vegetarian back then was because I felt like a hypocrite- I loved animals, but had no idea if the ones I ate were at least treated fairly before the slaughter and I knew that I couldn't bear to see a slaughter, so I felt bad about letting people do it for me, while I blindly closed my eyes to the process.

I stopped being a vegetarian after a trip to Germany, ironically, because I had heard that animals were much better treated in Europe due to legal standards in the agriculture industry.  I also wanted to experience the German culture completely, and food is a big part of culture.  I love bratwurst!  When I got back to the US, I started thinking: I want to experience the foods of my own culture too.  That was my argument.

I love food.  I love how tradition and innovation are displayed through the social bonds we form over food gathering, preparing and eating.  Eating can be a celebration.  Besides, humans have long eaten meat.  I think being 100 percent vegan is just too much to ask of a culture.  Also, European groups developed lactose tolerance and can eat dairy products like cheese and milk.  It's special and rare that many Europeans and Americans can eat and comfortably digest dairy products.

But then, one afternoon while riding back home on a trip to Munich, I picked up the Suddeutsche Zeitung to read in the car.( The Suddeutsche Zeitung is my favorite Newspaper in Germany and has a reputation for its high quality reporting and seriousness, with a section on science, international affairs and politics and diverse aspects of culture.  To me, it's like the NYTimes of Germany.)  There was an article in that edition about the mistreatment of pigs in agriculture.  It reported that, although animal abuse is obviously illegal, there is so much of it in the industry, that policing and control really have no chance at stopping it.  Not that politicians realistically can stop it; the pressure on farmers to produce mass amounts of meat is so great. German agriculture competes at the international, or at least at the European, level and prices must be forced DOWN.  Cheap meat for everyone- it's our human right!  Or is it... This is not a side of food culture that I wanted to experience as a born-again meat eater.

The article described the morbid use of tail-chopping.  Tail-chopping is a method used to control aggression in livestock.  Pigs are attacking other pigs because of the effect that their living condition has on their psychological health. Just like humans, without psysical freedom and with nothing to do, their boredom turns into agression towards other animals in adjacent stalls.  You would think that the pig in the stall next door would just scootch over to avoid being mauled through the cage, but there is no space to move over.  Withholding mental and physical stimulation for the animals and denying them their gregarious and curious nature, the animals become confused and bored into violence and aggression released on their fellow stallmates.   Is it too anthropomorphic of me to wish that they would unite and start a revolution?  Sadly, they are domesticated animals and rely on humans for protection.

The farmers' response is to unilaterally chop off their tails.  Apparently, this induces passivity in the animals' behavior.  It doesn't eliminate the cause of their aggression or make them happier. Scientists don't really understand why tail chopping even works- but it does. They become numb to their environment.  According to the article, pain killers are rarely employed during tail-removal.

With chickens, beaks are removed to reduce aggression.  Peta Germany released a statistic that, on average, 24 chickens are caged per square meter. Wow.  Milk-bearing cows are also abused and treated with antibiotics.  I heard second hand from a friend who worked at a milk-production facility, that the pus has to be manually removed from the milk, because infection rates are so high.  Or, they just don't remove it, because there is too much.  This friend of mine only drinks organic milk now.

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The animals are sick so often, that many or most spend almost all their short lives on antibiotics.  Recently, the environmental organization BUND analyzed a random sample of meat on grocery store shelves and found that dangerous levels of germs were present on over half of the meat.  The EU Parliament released the statistic that over 26,000 Europeans die yearly from diseases caused by these germs.  Below is a picture of the article (in German).

Article headline: Dangerous germs found on chickenmeat

So, who are we helping with these low meat and dairy prices?  If most of us saw with our own eyes what was really going on --if all these studies and these reportings are true and not some conspiracy theory-- would we still feel ok about eating so much meat?  Would we really not eat half as much meat or pay twice as much for the same amount?  And in the US, aren't we being told that obesity is related to meat consumption, not fruit, bean and vegetable consumption, which is cheaper to produce anyway?  There are so many reasons why the human race, and Americans for that matter, would not starve if we produced less meat.  There may even be more resources available for more food production.

Charles Darwin observed that animals have the same capacity for emotions as humans.  If we can't bear not to eat meat, shouldn't we at least let them experience social bonds and happiness during their lives, before we eat them?  How can we believe in human kindness and generosity if we cannot at least achieve this one goal?

I'm not against eating meat. I still believe the things I came to believe after being a vegetarian for a year, mainly, that food is culture, and meat dishes are cultural items. I don't want to snub my nose at it. I love burgers, bratwurst, and roastbeef, especially when it's been cooking all day.  I love cheese with a glass of red wine and sometimes I even like my barbecue with a burnt taste.  But I don't eat all these things every day, mostly because it would be unhealthy.  Now I have another reason to eat it on more rare occasions, i.e. on special occasions which warrant a special dish.  If the food industry were more ethical because laws required it of them, meat would just cost more. But, I don't think that people would starve if our country also simultaneously made it a priority to help farmers switch to producing other foods such as fresh fruits and vegetables, grains and other non-meat products. Let's face it, meat goes bad, but grains can be stored a long time.

 This is what I believe:  the end just does not justify the means.  It's the treatment of the animals I cannot stand for. A low price does not justify torture, human or animal.  I, at least, can imagine eating half as much meat weekly, but paying twice as much for it in the first place, given that the animals live more natural lives with more space and social interaction with their species, without being pumped full of antibiotics or steroids to quicken their maturity to full-grown, slaughter-ready stature.  It is sad to eat an animal which is built like a mature adult in its species, when really it is still an immature and playful calf, for instance.

 Humans never ate as much meat as modern Europeans and Americans can afford to eat today, but can we afford to do it fairly?  Is it morally right to do this to animals?   Who is paying the price for our overabundance of meat, to the point that, eating meat three times a day is normal for so many and eating meat is not reserved for special cultural dishes?  Will we in the developed world wait until we have no immunity to some otherwise treatable deadly disease and an epidemic ravishes our countries before we finally stop treating livestock  with antibiotics non-stop because we want to keep the price of meat lower than it would be?

So, Lars and I decided to support the movement, which protests such conditions universally employed in the agriculture industry.

The following pictures are from the protest.  The groups and protesters are urging the Agricultural Minister and the German Chancellor to raise the standard for German agriculture laws.  Although it is already illegal to over-treat animals with antibiotics except when absolutely necessary, it is practically ALWAYS  necessary to treat the animals because their living conditions are so poor.  Laws must be passed to demand more space for animals and to allow more natural living conditions to counter animals' boredom.  Practices such as tail-cutting, beak-removal and other inhumane standards must be banned.   All these things may have economic consequences for Germany's position in the global food-production economy, but maybe local and higher prices are better anyway.

There is a potential problem that grocery stores and consumers would import from neighboring countries where such laws are absent, which is why the laws need to be passed at the EU level. Heck, pass them at the international level, if possible! Otherwise, I guess companies could just relocate to a country where the laws are less strict, and nothing would really change for the animals.

Martin Luther King once said, "Injustice anyway is a threat to justice everywhere."

Power to the Bauer (farmer)

Contents: Women are leaders in small local agricultural production in much of the developing world.   

Do it for your children's health as well.

It was a grey, drizzly and cold day for a protest.

Charlie and me on the lawn near the protest.

Since the protest, Lars and I have really tried to buy much less meat and dairy products and to only buy fair trade or organic when we do buy these products.  We soon realized that we also have to pay more attention to items with eggs and milk, which we had forgotten, such as mayonnaise and butter. Finding organic cheese can also be challenging.  Where we live, there are only two stores that supply free range, organic beef, and another that supplies free range, organic chicken. We try to eat a meat meal on the weekend and eat alternative protein sources such as beans, lentils and vegetables during the week.  It is especially hard when we go out to eat because they are really no restaurants here promising free range and organic meat dishes.  

Just this week I tried to make my first dish with Seitan.  This pictures below are from our meal.  The Seitan (soy substance similar tasting to meat) dish is called Seitan Gulasch with creme fraiche on the side, seasoned  potatoes and a chickpea-Parsley salad to go with it.  I actually didn't like the texture of the Seitan, but the taste was ok!   Lars liked it, which is a positive.