Chicken Contacts

I have to start by saying that I'm not into animal rights or activism or anything crazy like that. I enjoy eating all kinds of dead creatures. I think PETA is 1 part poopy doo and 1 part necessity to maintain homeostasis in our society due to the wack jobs on the other side of the coin. I look at ducks and think YUM. I look at fish and think YUM. I love all god's creatures as much as the next person but have no problem tearing them apart and chowing down on a daily basis. Such is life. What I don't like though is knowing that living creatures were tortured before meeting my dinner table.

Last night, Hubby was reading a marketing article for a class in business school. It was written in the sixties and was about chicken farmers. Apparently, because of the chicken pecking order debacle, farmers decided they needed to find a way to keep more chickens alive. For those of you that don't know, pecking order isn't just a casual term, it's a real thing that comes from actual chickens. It's how they establish dominance in a flock or whatever that's called. Anyway, the dominant chickens will peck at the weaker ones to show them that they are on the bottom of the proverbial totem pole. Sometimes, the weaklings will get pecked to death and farmers are required to replace them which interrupts the egg production because the pecking order is disturbed.

Well these genius farmers figured out that if they chopped the beaks off the chickens, they couldn't kill each other as much and therefore wouldn't force the farmers to replace dead chickens as often. Brilliant! Ya, except for the animal cruelty and all. So, then a few smarty pants farmers were watching some chickens that were starting to lose their eye sight and realized that the blinder the chicken, the easier they were to handle and less violent they were among the flock. Wow, if only all the chickens were blind.

Hmmmm....whatever can we do to blind the chickens? Ah...someone had a brilliant idea. Guess what it was. You don't know? Well I gave it away in the title. Contacts. Yes, someone decided that they should create tiny little contact lenses for the chickens that would reduce their eye sight by 60-70%. Well aren't they considerate? NOT!

I know just about everyone has heard of some of the different icky things that the chicken we eat go through before gracing our supermarket and dinner tables. You know what I mean, like inhumane conditions where chickens are stacked in cages a dozen thick. When they're slaughtered, it's not done in a clean facility or manner. Now the latest rumor going around is that they're pumped full of salt water so we pay more for what we're getting and it's less and less healthy.

How true all this is, I can't say. I don't know. I just know what I've heard. And to be perfectly honest with you, I usually just do what everyone else does and ignore it like I never heard it. Life is easier if I don't have to take this stuff into consideration when I'm doing my weekly grocery shopping. I DO try my best to go organic whenever I get the opportunity but chicken is rarely available at my local Safeway if not for conventional.







Well, I think I might just have to change my tactics here. Organic free range = torture and chemical free, especially with this new clean body I'm creating here.

How about a story about a lovely little moment I had today? Ah....I don't feel like it.

Here's my daily check in then:

1. Blog. :)


2. Burn calories. Nope. Went to happy hour instead. A couple glasses of wine and some chips and hummus. It was in the tracking though so I'm still totally within calories for the day.


3. Water. Um....doubt it. I think I probably drank 30 if I'm lucky.


4. 3 squares and a snack. Yes. Actually, I'm proud of myself today. They had an omelet bar at work today with cinnamon rolls, bacon, sausage, hash browns, potatoes, and fruit. I knew it was going to happen and was totally prepared. I had egg whites with mushrooms, green onion, and tomatoes and some fruit and that was it. Nothing else. Not even tempted by anything else. Yay me!


5. Meditate. Yes. :)


6. Guitar practice. Not yet.


7. Read. Yup. Almost through my book and ready to start some text books. Yeehaaaa!


8. Thank Yous. Oh ya and it feels sooo good.


9. Vitamins. Yes.


10. Tracking progress. Yes. All is well in the world as far as calories go.

UPDATE: I just found the videos that you see above and watched them and a few others. Apparently, this disgusting shit is true and still happening today. I thought it was left back in the 60's. I guess not. It seriously made me cry to think that my lovely Pollyanna could be treated like all those chickens.