Since the first Thanksgiving dinner in 1621, Americans
have continued the tradition of sitting down to their tables every third
Thursday in November in order to give thanks for all they have in life.
Immediately after the prayers and thanksgiving, knives are probed into a
dead, cooked turkey and the remains of the carved carcass are dispensed
to those sitting around the table. Fortunately, Americans are becoming
wiser and wiser. Each year more and more individuals are not only
acknowledging the health and environmental benefits of a vegan diet, but
they are adopting this lifestyle in increasing numbers.
Not only does a vegan diet contribute to decreased
instances of cancer, heart disease, and other life debilitating
diseases, but it also financially condemns those industries that thrive
on the death and destruction of so many living beings. Those turkeys
that so many Americans place on their Thanksgiving dinner tables have
been raised in conditions so deplorable that most people would not be
able to tolerate the truth behind their meals. Over 95 percent of these
birds are raised in conditions so confined that they will never be able
to fully expand their wings. Blindness runs rampant in factory farms due
to excessive amounts of uncleaned manure, which in turn, create ammonia
that burns the birds' eyes. Pushed to the brink of insanity, the birds
often peck each other. In order to avoid this, many birds have up to
two-thirds of their beaks cut off, without anesthesia. Left in pain and
agony, some birds are never able to eat again and eventually starve to
death. When it comes time to enter the slaughterhouse, fully conscious
turkeys have their throats cut and are heartlessly thrown into
containers to bleed their lives away. Millions of birds a year do not
fully bleed to death before they reach the scalding tank. Do any of the
farm workers care? No. The animals are burned alive.
In addition, a vegan lifestyle helps contribute to the
preservation of the planet by making better use of our energy, water,
and land. The land that is currently being used to feed our cattle and
other farm animals could be used to grow foods that feed our peoples.
More than 70 percent of US grains and 33 percent of the entire world's
crops are fed to farm animals. If everyone adopted a vegan diet and
allowed the animals to multiply at natural rates, we would have enough
food to feed the entire world! No longer would another human die of
starvation. In addition, the animals we raise for food consume more than
50 percent of all the water used in the US and one-third of all raw
materials. As well, animal excrement is produced at a rate 130 times
greater than that produced by humans. This excessive manure is the major
contributor of water pollution in the US and is directly accountable for
85 percent of soil erosion.
It may have been necessary for our ancestors to include
meat in their diets, but meat was not all they ate, nor was it ever
their main course. When the Pilgrims and Native Americans sat down at
the dinner table that very first Thanksgiving so many years ago there
were plenty of mouth-watering, plant based foods there; the idea that
first Thanksgiving was to celebrate a plentiful harvest. Therefore,
dishes of fruits and vegetables, grown by our farming forefathers and
the Native Americans who showed them how to survive in their newfound
land, were abundant.
Animal Rights Online presents to you the ingredients for
a Thanksgiving meal you can be proud of. Your vegan meal, free of any
association with cruelty and death, will speak loud and clear of your
thanks for life and, more importantly, the preservation of it.
Happy Thanksgiving!
Go on to Recipes
Return to 21 November 1999 Issue
Return to Newsletters
** Fair Use Notice**
This document may contain copyrighted material, use of which has not been
specifically authorized by the copyright owners. I believe that this
not-for-profit, educational use on the Web constitutes a fair use of the
copyrighted material (as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright
Law). If you wish to use this copyrighted material for purposes of your
own that go beyond fair use, you must obtain permission from the copyright
owner.
