ColumnIf we are going to be enraged about the killing of one lion, then we need to start being enraged about factory farming. 

In the last week we have seen the rage that has ensued over the killing of Zimbabwe’s famous lion Cecil. When someone is able to spend almost double the average American salary for the chance to kill an animal, there are many questions to be asked, and “why?” is just the beginning.

Many people have expressed disgust in the treatment of an animal in this way. #CatLivesMatter comes to mind. In fact the Internet has banded together, in scary proportions, to speak out against the dentist Walter J. Palmer, the man charged with the killing of Cecil. He has even received death threats.

This begs the question: citizens can be fueled with outrage over the killing of one lion, even causing them to physically protest, and yet everyday most of us go about taking part in an industrial meat processing system that’s inherently flawed, both in terms of the health of the animals involved and our own.

As Vox put it, “eating chicken is morally worse than killing Cecil the lion.” Certainly, there are differences between the big game hunt of a lion and the food we put on the table. Cecil the Lion was killed for the sake of fun, while in our modern day food industry, chickens, pigs and cows are killed so that people can put them on the plate in front of them. But, it is still worth raising the question: what makes one animal’s life more valuable than another?

I had a friend who worked in nonprofit development who once told me about a workshop she had gone to. Someone had presented on what makes for successful fundraising. The example given was a starving child. If you tell potential donors that an entire country is starving, and show them a photo of that town, a few of them might give a little money to help the cause. If you tell them that a village is starving, and show them a photo of that village, a few more will give money. But if you show them a photo of one individual who is starving, there are so many more who are likely to give. The point emphasizes how much an individual connection means in changing our mindset.

The killing of Cecil the lion is easy to protest and be angry about because it is one animal. Cecil has a face. But factory farms? There are too many animals for our brains to even begin to comprehend. They’re not animals; they’re just numbers. And if it’s just numbers, and our chicken comes to us on a styrofoam platter wrapped in plastic, barely even looking like an actual animal, maybe it’s not so surprising that most of us fail to question the system in place.

This is not to say that the killing of Cecil isn’t important. It’s extremely important. Illegal poaching is a serious issue. For example, in South Africa, between 2007 and 2013, illegal rhino poaching has increased by 7,700 percent. But caring about one issue shouldn’t turn us away from another. It’s all about balance, and while we are up in arms about Cecil, we should also be up in arms about what’s happening here at home, an issue on which we can have a daily impact.

Around 11 billion animals are killed for meat in the United States. Around 8.5 billion of those are chickens. Nearly all of these animals are mistreated, living in cramped quarters with little to no quality of life. But factory farming isn’t just a question of animal rights, it’s also a question of health, and for anyone that isn’t moved by the animal welfare argument, make it personal: the meat system is making you sick. Not only is the industrial meat system’s overuse of antibiotics (80 percent of antibacterial drugs sold every year in the U.S. go to livestock) leading to a very scary situation of antibiotic resistance, factory farms are big contributors to pollution and the environmental degradation of the community around them.

The response to the killing of Cecil the lion is a reminder that people do in fact care. But the question is if we are caring and concentrating on the right things. Our everyday actions have an impact, and we need to start challenging the status quo and taking some responsibility for the food that’s on the plate in front of us.

Related on EcoSalon

Animal Cruelty and the Horribly Misguided ‘Art’ of Tattooing Pigs

Antibiotic Resistance and the Industrial Meat Industry: Foodie Underground

USDA Allows China to Process Chickens for US Consumers

This is the latest installment of Anna Brones’ weekly column at EcoSalon: Foodie Underground, an exploration of what’s new and different in the underground movement, and how we make the topic of good food more accessible to everyone. More musings on the topic can be found at www.foodieunderground.com.

Image: Farm Sanctuary

The post Cecil the Lion or Factory Farming: Which One Should We Care More About? Foodie Underground appeared first on EcoSalon.

Column Even if you don’t buy them, novelty food products like pizzas surrounded by pigs in a blanket are destroying our health and our food culture. 

My friend Brendan sent me a link a couple of weeks ago to the announcement that American fast food chain Carl’s Jr. would be serving hamburgers with hot dogs and chips inside (it’s called “The Most American Thickburger”). Brendan and I have a mutual disgust, yet obsession, with industrial novelty foods; it’s like watching a train wreck, what you see is so obscene and yet you just can’t turn away.

Which is probably why he knew I would fall off my chair when he sent me a link to Pizza Hut’s new pizza surrounded by pigs in a blanket. I just didn’t know what to say. A pizza with a crust made of pigs in a blanket. Yes, someone thought that was a good idea. Thanks for making me hate the world, Brendan.

Cringe in disgust all you want, but there are people out there actually buying this stuff, and a lot of it. If they weren’t, companies wouldn’t be making it. Nowadays, there is practically a new novelty food product coming out every week, making it not so novel anymore. Novelty foods have become the new normal, and they’re killing us.

As more and more novelty foods (hotdog and chips hamburgers, cronut sandwiches, waffle tacos, etc) flood the market, they become normalized. Certainly no one is ordering a pigs in a blanket pizza every single night of the week (or at least I very much hope not), but menu items like this have an affect on our overall food culture. As novelty food products become expected on a regular basis, overall calories and portions increase across the board. No one is satisfied with just a mediocre hamburger anymore, they need a hamburger with four patties. In an effort to beat out their competitors, food companies are forced to come out with crazier, and crazier combinations to pull people in at the supermarket and in the fast food restaurant, a continuous battle of one-upping each other by figuring out who can come out with the grossest, yet. Given all the health ramifications, this is the kind of the thing that should be illegal, or at the very least, highly regulated.

By being wowed by such items, we are destroying our health and our food culture one pig in a blanket at a time.

The problem lies not only in the content, but also in the quantity. We have created a culture where we’d rather eat ten awful things than one good thing. That’s our real eating problem. Instead of indulging in one item made with quality ingredients, let’s say, a homemade cinnamon roll for example, we stuff ourselves with several low quality items – sugar-free, low fat, packaged raspberry dream flavored muffins – and aren’t any happier or healthier because of it.

“Oh, she’s against having fun with food,” you say. Sure, everyone needs a guilty pleasure every once in awhile, and we all have them. Maybe you might even want to try a pizza surrounded by pigs in a blanket just once. But there’s a difference between novelty and the norm. I’m not arguing for a culture of upscale, fancy food, but could we at least have one with real food?

If we are going to solve our problem of public health – and it’s a problem that isn’t exclusive to the United States, as our fast food chains and industrial food culture spread around the world, plenty of countries are dealing with the same issues – we have to seriously think about how to curb this kind of food mania. Maybe it’s restrictions on the food market, maybe it’s taxes, maybe it’s subsidizing healthy food, because there is a correlation between food prices and health, maybe it’s simply holding these companies responsible for the true cost of their food products.

Part of why we are unhealthy is that in the U.S. we are subsidizing those commodities that keep us unhealthy. Let’s look at it this way: in 2012, the U.S. government spent $11 billion to subsidize and insure commodity crops like corn and soy. The year before, in 2011, it spent only $1.6 billion to subsidize and insure “specialty crops” – the government word that’s used to refer to the stuff we should be eating, like fruits and vegetables. That hamburger might not look like a piece of corn, but think about how much corn goes into feeding the beef industry in the U.S. every year. It’s a lot, and it’s highly inefficient; for corn-fed animals, the efficiency of converting grain to meat and dairy calories is in the 3-40 percent range depending on the product.

Industrial food culture is dependent on industrial agriculture, and if the proliferation of these novelty food products is increasing, it’s because the ingredients are cheap, but we don’t pay the real costs. Because along with that hot dog and chips burger is a laundry list of environmental, social and health costs. At the very least, we have to call these companies out for what they’re really doing. They’re not feeding us, or entertaining us, or making it easier to put food on the table.

They’re just making us sick.

Related on EcoSalon

Why We Have to Live Without Fast Food: Foodie Underground

Surprise! It’s 2015 and Fast Food is Still Bad for You: Foodie Underground

Fast Food, Fast Fashion, It’s All About Choice: Foodie Underground

This is the latest installment of Anna Brones’ weekly column at EcoSalon: Foodie Underground, an exploration of what’s new and different in the underground movement, and how we make the topic of good food more accessible to everyone. More musings on the topic can be found at www.foodieunderground.com.

Image: Aaron Olaf

The post What’s the Problem with Novelty Food Products? They’re the New Normal: Foodie Underground appeared first on EcoSalon.