Getting fat for Kill Turkey Day

Tiffany Hsu, Los Angeles Times (Nov. 20, 2012); CC Liu, Wisdom Quarterly

Face it, or don't eat it. Or there's kind Tofurky. By eating it one is complicit it its torture and gruesome murder. Americans will buy 581 million pounds of turkey flesh for Thanksgiving this year but will trash more than a third of it (keepitsimplesurvival).

 

American tradition means eating dinner at lunch set up to look like a big family supper near Plymouth Rock, which means inviting the neighborhood Native American family to sit at one end. In the center is a big dead bird. This is sad enough, but it gets sadder:

A third of all Thanksgiving turkey meat won't be eaten.

SAD: Standard American Diet

Americans will buy 581 million pounds of the fowl, but 204 million pounds will end up in the trash can, the Natural Resources Defense Council reports.

Some 204 million pounds of meat will end up in the garbage after the holiday feast, according to an NRDC blog post.

The waste is especially appalling given that the resources required -- including feed, water and transportation -- to produce each pound of turkey are equivalent to fuel enough to drive a car 11 miles and take a 130-minute shower.

Natives never wasted any part of an animal.

Overall, that equates to greenhouse gas emissions equivalent to 800,000 car trips from New York to San Francisco and enough water to supply New York City for more than 100 days.

Over the full year, Americans chuck out $165 billion in uneaten food, according to the NRDC.

And turkey prices are not getting any cheaper. They are up 7% from a year ago, pushed by the severe summer drought... More

(EcoVeganGal) Glimpse of the 2009 Vegan Thanksgiving Potluck in LA.

• GoVeg.com
• Pledge to be Vegan for 30 Days
• 15 Vegetarian Thanksgiving Events
• Cruelty Free: VeganLosAngeles.com 
• The Importance of Compassion in Buddhism

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Sarah Palin and the Slaughtered Turkey.

Alaska Governor Sara Palin sitting with a dead bear carcass. Killing an animal to use the dead body for decoration is disrespecting life in you want my opinion.

On Thursday, Alaska Governor Sarah Palin appeared in Wasilla in order to pardon a local turkey in anticipation of Thanksgiving. This proved to be a slightly absurd but ultimately unremarkable event. But what came next was positively surreal. After the pardon Palin proceeded to do an interview with a local TV station while the turkeys were being SLAUGHTERED in the background!! Seemingly oblivious to the gruesomeness going on over her shoulder, she carries on talking for over three minutes. Watch the video below to see for yourself. Be warned, it's kind of gruesome.James: Yes it's gruesome but it should be gruesome because we're talking about slaughtering another living being. People should be able to stand watching the animal that they are about to eat on Thanksgiving be killed. If you want to eat meat then I think you should be prepared to kill the animal yourself because someone has to do that for you for every scrap of meat that you eat. If you don't think that you can do it like I didn't then you might want to become a vegetarian.

This ironically occurred while yesterday a hidden video caught workers at a turkey farm throwing the animals against the floor, kicking them and abusing them in other ways. I hardly even remember what Palin said during this video with the brutality occuring in the background.

A reporter asked Palin if she was okay with the backdrop. The Alaskan Governor answered, "no worries." As the bird's head was removed, the man looked over his shoulder at the governor and reporters and flashed a toothy grin.

I understand people having to eat meat because their survival depends upon it but now many of us can survive and live well without meat. In closing, I leave you with the words of the great Mahatma Gandhi: The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated.

---End of Transmission---

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