A Canadian judge ruled that an animal rights activist was not breaking the law when she offered water to pigs outside an Ontario slaughterhouse en route to their death.

Anita Krajnc, 49, founder of animal rights group Toronto Pig Save, was charged with criminal mischief in June 2015 as she offered water into to a trailer full of pigs awaiting slaughter.

Krajnc approached the driver of the vehicle, asking to give the pigs water. The exchange was captured on video. The drive told Krajnc not to give them any water, to which she replied, “Jesus said if they are thirsty, give them water.”

The driver responded, “No, you know what, these are not humans, you dumb frickin’ broad!” As Krajnc ignores the man and put the water bottle into the trailer, the driver threatened to slap the bottle out of her hands and call the police.

The prosecution alleged that the “unknown liquid” provided by Krajnc put the animals at risk of being rejected by the slaughterhouse, since Krajnc was not employed by the farm or authorized to feed the animals. But the animals were processed on schedule, despite her efforts to offer hydration and compassion in their final moments.

“The judge recognized compassion as a virtue in this case, and common sense prevailed in the finding that Anita Krajnc was not guilty for showing mercy to terrified, thirsty pigs on their way to slaughter,” PETA President Ingrid Newkirk said in a statement.

While the decision is a victory for Krajnc and animal activists everywhere, the judge was quick to dismiss the defense’s position that pigs are nonhuman persons, a status now widely accepted about other animals including dolphins. Pigs are highly intelligent animals – some research points to them as smarter than dogs. But they’re not afforded the same liberties as house pets. More than one billion pigs around the world — 100 million in the U.S. — are killed every year for food.

Find Jill on Twitter and Instagram

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OK. I’m adopting a pig. Multiple pigs, maybe.

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Modern Farmer recently profiled Andy Feehan and Wim Delvoye, two artists best known as the guys who tattoo pigs. Living, breathing, oinking pigs. But it’s not animal cruelty. It’s art!

Feehan, who started tattooing pigs back in the 1970s, explained that his original intention was to bring awareness to the plight of pigs in captivity.

There are currently more than 65 million pigs on factory farms in the U.S. They are intelligent creatures; as intelligent as dogs if not more so. And gestation crates that confine pregnant sows are some of the cruelest measures used in captivity.

“I wanted to extract them permanently from the pig factory,” Feehan said in Artlies magazine in 2000.

Delvoye started tattooing pigs in the 1990s, inspired by Feehan. “He decorated swine with everything from images of daggers to Disney princesses, and has showed live tattooed pigs at exhibitions,” explained Modern Farmer. “Eventually he took the experiment a step further, establishing an ‘art farm’ in Beijing, where pigs were raised exclusively to be tattooed with his artwork. The pigs were killed and their flattened skins sold to customers who display them as works of art. The industrialization of his work became a commentary on art-industry demand.”

I love pigs so much that I haven’t (knowingly) eaten any part of one since I was a teenager. It seems to be the best way to show my love. You know, by not forcing them to suffer before I gnaw on their cooked flesh. I love tattoos, too. My right arm is covered in them. But here’s where Feehan and Delvoye get the combination so terribly, terribly wrong.

“I believe the manner in which I had the pig tattooed was as humane and painless as possible . . . My intention was, in addition to making them art, was to save their lives,” Feehan wrote in an email to Modern Farmer.

But that’s kind of like putting a pig in a cage on Main Street to bring attention to the animal’s suffering; it doesn’t free the pig, it just turns her into a spectacle. And when we sensationalize animals (or humans), we stop relating to them. “It probably just reinforces the prejudice that animals exist for us to use — if not for meat, then for art,” author and animal rights activist Peter Singer explained to Modern Farmer. “It may be better for the pigs he tattoos than the fate that would otherwise have awaited them. Taking these pigs out of meat production will just mean that other pigs are bred to suffer. ‘Art’ is no excuse for failing to show respect and concern for animals.”

We don’t need tattooed pigs to explain their plight or show the similarities between pigs and humans (there are many!). What we could use, however, are more people with tattoos of pigs on their bodies, so that we can always be reminded that we are who we eat—suffering, humiliation and all.

Find Jill on Twitter @jillettinger

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Image:

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When did bacon become a seasoning?

In case you missed it, bacon is now so much more than just the cured meat of a dead pig. It’s also a flavoring. Like cinnamon. Or chocolate. Sometimes, it is even paired with cinnamon or chocolate.

There are bacon candy canes.

Jack In The Box restaurants were selling Bacon Shakes a few seasons ago. That’s basically: a smoothie with bacon in it. If that’s too heavy, you can swill back a bacony soda. Or Bakon vodka.

There’s bacon in chocolates.

And in cookies.

The Food Network posted an article called “50 Things to Make with Bacon“, including a peanut butter and bacon sandwich with banana slices.

One of the Food Network recipes is for “bacon oatmeal.” Because there’s nothing better than turning a healthy breakfast into the one that causes the heart attack. And forget having a pancake breakfast with bacon only on the side of your plate. Every bacon lover knows you also put the greasy stuff inside your pancake batter (recipes #45, #47).

According to LiveScience, sales of bacon in 2013 reached nearly $4 billion just in the U.S. Of course that’s an all time record high. “And since the introduction of the Perfect Bacon Bowl, anything you can put into a bowl — cereal, pasta, rice, soup — can now be served in a container made of hot, crispy bacon.”

I get it. People love bacon.

But this needs to stop.

We don’t need any more burgers with bacon or bacon with burgers.

We don’t need to wrap slices of bacon around any other food. Or chop it up and add it into foods where it has no business being.

There will come a time when humans will look back at America’s bacon obsession in horror. In shock.

It’s not just because pigs are seriously intelligent. Or that they’re capable of showing love, curiosity, compassion, joy. Although, all of those things are worthy enough reasons to stop this bacon insanity. All of those are reasons to see pigs as much more deserving than being carved up into strips.

More than 65 million pigs—right now!—are wasting away in filthy, dank, dark and otherwise horrific factory farms across the country. If they’re breeding sows, they can’t turn around. They’re in awful gestation crates that would be considered unacceptable methods of torture if we used them on our worst criminals.

And think about the toll 65 million 200+ pound animals take on our environment. On our health. If you’ve ever gotten sick from a salad or a piece of fruit, or even from drinking water, you may have factory farm runoff to thank. “Pork products are known carriers of foodborne pathogens, including E. coli, trichinella, listeria, salmonella, and pork tapeworms. One study of 256 pork samples taken from 36 different grocery stores found that up to 63 percent of the samples were contaminated with Staphylococcus aureus bacteria,” reports PETA.

According to recent research, diets high in meat are more likely to cause an early death. Researchers for the National Cancer Institute have linked meat to an increased risk of prostate cancer. A study from Yale University found that meat-based diets can cause stomach cancer and esophageal cancer as well as lymphoma. “Cured” meats such as bacon, sausage and hot dogs are also linked to a higher risk for pancreatic cancer, which is almost always fatal.

Conservatively, it takes 1,630 gallons of water to produce a pound of pork.

Conventionally raised animals, including pigs, are fed diets high in genetically modified corn and soy. The production of GMO grains involves heavy spraying of herbicides and pesticides, which pollute the air, water and soil, as well as pose risks to human health.

Pigs, like all conventionally raised animals, are also fed high amounts of antibiotics, which make pathogens resistant to treatment with antibiotics.

And then, of course, all those pigs have to go poop. In just the U.S., factory farm animals produce nearly two trillion tons of animal waste per year. The waste is a high pollution and contamination risk that we’ve barely begun to feel the repercussions of.

No, you’re not just eating bacon, or bacon flavored whatever.

You’re eating GMOs, and antibiotics, and fear and anguish. You’re eating away our water supply. Our clean air. Our healthy fruits and vegetables. You’re eating the poop that gets into our water supply. You’re breathing it too. You’re eating the destruction of our nation’s land—land that could be farming low impact foods and empowering small, family farms to thrive. You’re eating pigs who deserve a better reason for living.

So, please. Please stop putting bacon in everything.

Find Jill on Twitter @jillettinger

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Image: Zanthia, the impulsive buy

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 ColumnA virus threatens a spike in bacon prices. Shouldn’t we be more concerned about the food system that got us here in the first place?

Let’s talk pigs.

There’s currently a virus taking a toll on hog farms in the U.S. and Canada. Since last spring when it was first detected in Iowa, porcine epidemic diarrhea, or PEDv, has killed about 1 million baby pigs. While that’s a small percentage of the approximate 66 million pigs in the U.S., there has been much talk of rising pork prices. Because you know what pigs mean: Bacon. And if there’s anything we should get really concerned and riled up about, it’s a rise in bacon prices.

Meanwhile in Germany, farmers protested a proposed trade agreement between Europe and the U.S. that would lift restrictions on American meat sold in European countries. A gathering of pigs outside of Angela Merkel’s office building to underline the commitment to sustainable as opposed to industrial farming.

The lesson? We are talking about these kind of things in the wrong way.

We support an industrial food system that, in this case, keeps animals in tight quarters, limiting hygiene and health, and when a widespread virus hits, we question whether or not the price of food will increase. It’s not the increase in the price of bacon that we should fear, it’s our industrial food system that gets us into this position in the first place that we should be questioning.

The pig industry is a dirty business. Nowadays, most of the swine we consume are raised on Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations. In fact, to call these places “pig farms” is a terrible use of the term. These are pig factories. Between 1997 and 2007, the number of hogs raised in factory farms grew by one third. That comes out to about 4,600 additional hogs per day.

Besides affecting the health of the animal, these factory farms have a severe impact on the environment. Manure spills from these factory farms, that often seep into waterways, often release more sewage than the equivalent human sewage of a metropolitan area.

But we turn and look the other way, happy with our “bacon on everything” menus. Even John Stewart is reminding us to think about where our beloved bacon with a capital B comes from. If you think pigs are raised in comfy stalls with lots of hay, think again. Breeding sows often only have enough room to lie down and stand up. Pigs can live up to 15 years, but often they’re slaughtered at six months.

How did we get here?

By eating, and eating without thinking.

Everything we put in our mouths has an impact. The more cheap meat you consume, the more factory farms will grow. In the end, a rise in the price of bacon could be a good thing; we should all be eating less meat and thinking more about where it comes from.

Concerned about your price in bacon? You should be more worried about how that bacon was made.

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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: LaurelF

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