Channel Five News in the UK has been exposing how the standards of Freedom Foods Farms are not so righteous as the consumer is told. These are farms given a mark of approval by the RSPCA and are supposedly not as gruesome as the rest of the modern mechanised animal production machinery.
And as always we see that there is no escape from the fact that cruelty is involved in getting meat to a plate.
And it is also worth remembering that even if these standards had been met the animals still end up terrified at the same slaughter house having their lives taken away.

From news.five.tv

Five News has uncovered more evidence of chickens being kept in horrifying conditions at an RSPCA ‘Freedom Food’ farm, this time in Somerset.
Last week, Five News reported on the appalling conditions chickens were being kept in at a farm in Norfolk. The farm was endorsed by the RSPCA’s ‘Freedom Food’ label and is now facing an investigation into their handling of chickens.In Jason Farrell’s latest investigation he has uncovered another farm failing to meet the relevant standards set by the ‘Freedom Food’ label.
Video Blog Watch how Jason Farrell uncovered this latest investigation.
Click here to watch the video blog.

An egg related story here at meatismurder. It appears as if China is now able to produce fake eggs. Please see related details of animal egg production here

Egg Piracy in China

During a recent raid on a wholesale centre in Guangzhou city, the capital of China’s Guangdong province, a large quantity of fake eggs was seized.

Their wholesale price is 0.15 yuan (S$0.03) each - half the price of a real egg.

Consumers have a hard time telling a genuine egg from a fake one. This is good news for unscrupulous entrepreneurs, who are even conducting three-day courses in the production of artificial eggs for less than S$150.
A reporter with Hong Kong-based Chinese magazine East Week enrolled in one such course.

The artificial egg can be fried sunny-side up or steamed. Although bubbles appear on the white of the egg, those who have tasted it say the fake stuff tastes very much like the real thing.

But experts warn of the danger of eating fake eggs. Not only do they not contain any nutrients, a Hong Kong Chinese University professor warned that long-term consumption of alum could cause dementia.

Here is a review (from Osocio) of the KFC campaign by PETA, and their attempt to get seen during the ad break of the Superbowl.

Kentucky Fried Cruelty

PETA is speaking up against the way Kentucky Fried Chicken (KFC) is handling its chicken.

PETA was willing to pay up the $4.2 million to get these commercials on during the Superbowl. They could have reached nearly 100 million viewers. Fox however refused to air them. Now the movies live a viral life as “banned commercials”, saving PETA a lot of money and reaching at least a part of the intended audience.

In the ads we see Colonel Sanders, the founder (and logo) of KFC condoning and even indulging in the mistreatment of chicken. PETA has gathered quite some graphic evidence of this treatment going on in real life, not by Col. Sanders of course, he died in 1980, but by employees of KFC.

The third video in the row is titled “Torture Camp” and has the most explicit violence in it.

The campaign website (kentuckyfriedcruelty.com), a spoof of the original KFC website, provides all the information needed to support this cause.

They start of in good PETA style by getting some celebrities’ support.

And then they provide you with everything you need to protest or spread the word. Leaflets, banners, billboards and ads. You can download about everything from their website or order them as prints, ready to use. They also provide you with the necessary code to embed their videos and banners on your website or blog to spread the word online.

A banner:

The depth of the site shows they were prepared to receive the after superbowl surfer and provide the honestly interested with all the information they could wish for. Big pro’s go to the fact that they have done everything to make it easy for people to share this story. The design of most of the posters and banners on the other hand, leaves a lot to be desired.
Of the three videos I like “Torture Camp” best. Just because the other two don’t hit you in the stomach like this one does. Getting banned from the Superbowl shouldn’t be a problem for these three little gems, as I mentioned earlier, I predict they’ll live a ‘happy’ viral life.

Time for some pictures on meatismurder. Often so much more succinct than words.

It’s a dark day. The British public are shown on television for a week during prime viewing hours on a mainstream channel by public figures how terrible the conditions are for intensively farmed chickens and yet sales of these animals continue to rise. It appears that all the program achieved in the short-term at least was to act as an advert for carcasses. Hopefully in the long-term it’ll be part of the background drip of conciousness that is starting to expose people to the horror of the mass production food industry that they accept so readily.

Sales of intensively reared chicken appear to have risen despite a TV campaign to get customers to purchase free-range poultry instead. The campaign was led by chef Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall on his recent Hugh’s Chicken Run shows for Channel 4.

Directly after the series was aired, Tesco said sales of standard chickens increased by 7% and free-range by 3%. Sainsbury’s free-range sales have gone up by 50% but there were also more of its Basics label chickens being bought. Conditions compared The campaign two weeks ago aimed to persuade shoppers that intensively reared chicken meat damaged animal welfare. During one of the programmes, Fearnley-Whittingstall set up his own intensive chicken unit. It was created alongside a free-range operation to compare the conditions the birds were raised in.

The British Poultry Council, which represents poultry producers, said chicken sales had risen across the board. It put the increase down to the reassurances farmers gave about the way intensively reared birds were treated.

Source at BBC
Viva - Broiler Chickens

The British national papers have entered into the Christmas spirit and are reporting how poorly treated turkeys are. So if you are a meat eater consider the miserable existance and horrified death of the animal on your plate this Christmas day.
The old meatismurder argument prevails of course - if people stopped eating the corpses of these individuals the need to inspect living conditions could be negated and the horrorified hand-wringing could be a thing of the past.
Read an Animal Aid report about turkey farming here
See the life-cycle of factory farmed turkeys (US) here

From the

 

Most of the 17 million turkeys reared in the UK are subjected to poor welfare standards, the RSPCA warned.

The poultry industry’s minimum standards are not good enough, according to the animal rights charity.

It says birds reared in the UK often are kept in cramped conditions which hampers their movement.

In addition, the majority of them are kept under very low lighting levels. This enables the birds to put on weight more quickly - but also puts them at risk of eye problems and even blindness, the RSPCA said.

Turkeys are typically reared in stark surroundings without access to things to perch on, investigate or peck.

From the

 

UK-reared turkeys ‘poorly treated’

MOST of the 17 million turkeys reared in the UK are subjected to poor welfare standards, the RSPCA warned yesterday. The poultry industry’s minimum standards are not good enough, according to the animal rights charity. It claims birds are often kept in cramped conditions which hinder movement

Also from the
 

So it may come as a shock to cast an eye over the images of abject misery captured in that Norfolk barn late on Wednesday night.

Scroll down for more…

Cramped and unhappy: Turkeys destined for Christmas dinner live in appalling conditions

Covered in the filth of their own faeces, the bedraggled and half-blinded creatures could barely lift their heads, let alone run around.

Lying here and there were several completely immobile birds, barely alive if not already dead.

Those strong enough to stand upright were practically bald, with open wounds and weeping sores on their heads, backs and wings as a result of cannibalism provoked by the stress of their conditions.

A case of animal cruelty headed for the courts? Not a bit of it. In turkey terms, these pitiful specimens are living in the lap of luxury.

All of which begs a disturbing question: as nine out of ten British families sit down to their turkey roast on Christmas Day, how much do we actually know about the animals we are eating?

The shocking reality is that most of the 10 million turkeys which will be served up this Christmas have existed in conditions that make that Norfolk barn look like a five-star hotel.

The Norfolk blacks have a few yards in which to hobble around, a carpet of straw to keep them relatively clean - and may even catch the occasional glimpse of daylight.

For the eight million battery-farmed birds, which make up 80 per cent of the seasonal turkey market, life is more squalid and death more drawn out than even the most devoted carnivores may care to think about.

These birds spend their entire lives in a space only marginally larger than the roasting tray which is their ultimate destiny.

Rest is difficult, because they continually bang into or climb over each other.

Excrement piles up, causing ammonia burns to footpads and hocks.

Unable to ‘exercise’, some become so fat they can hardly stand. Bored, they peck at the feathers of their neighbours or even become cannibals.

Farmers try to stop them by shortening their beaks with a red-hot blade.

All of this happens under cover, in vast windowless sheds so dimly lit that birds become blind.

A shed may hold up to 25,000 turkeys. But why does it matter if they’re going to die anyway?

Ask most Britons that question and they will tell you it matters a great deal.

We are, after all, a nation of animal lovers. And through the efforts of celebrity chefs, such as Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall and Gordon Ramsay the welfare of poultry is higher up the agenda than ever before. Remainder of article