Thanksgiving for the Turkeys

One of my goals in the work I do is to “take veganism out of the box” and encourage people to see that “vegan food” is food that everyone is familiar with – it’s vegetables and fruits and nuts and seeds and beans and mushrooms and herbs and spices. People have a notion that vegan food is somehow alien food or food that’s in its own food group – but it really is everything you already cook with and already love.

And this is the case – even on such holidays as Thanksgiving. There’s a notion out there that you can’t eat in a way that reflects your values AND honor traditions at the same time - as if these two things are mutually exclusive. When non-vegetarians think of the idea of being vegetarian on Thanksgiving, they’re usually aghast. They can’t imagine what vegetarians eat if they don’t eat birds! I’ve also heard the accusation that vegetarians are flying in the face of tradition, that it’s culturally blasphemous to not eat turkeys on this day. Well, I beg to differ.

Now, I know some people have spent much time trying to determine what exactly was served on that first Thanksgiving in order to justify eating certain things on this holiday. But, for me, I don’t care what they ate in 1621, because it doesn’t matter.

THE FIRST THANKSGIVING
Everything historians today know about the First Thanksgiving is based on two passages written by colonists. One is a letter dated December 1621, by Edward Winslow in which he wrote: "Our harvest being gotten in, our Governor sent four men on fowling, that so we might after a more special manner rejoice together, after we had gathered the fruit of our labors.” That is the basis of what we know about that first Thanksgiving, and you’ll note what he says: “Our harvest being gotten in,” after gathering the “fruit of our labors” they sent “four men on fowling,” not because they were starving or needed it or didn’t have food but so that they “might after a more special manner rejoice together.” What they were rejoicing was the harvest – the abundance of fruits and vegetables – the bounty of the harvest – the cornucopia – the “horn of plenty.” And just to cap it off, they went out to hunt birds.

In a second account of the First Thanksgiving, a man named William Bradford wrote a book twenty year AFTER the actual event and just mentioned that the colonists killed wild turkeys during the autumn; he doesn’t say specifically that wild turkeys were killed for the First Thanksgiving or any similar event thereafter. Though his book does give clues to what WAS on this first menu, his book disappeared for many years (it was stolen by looters during the Revolutionary War) and didn’t reappear until 1854, so it didn’t have any influence on how Thanksgiving was celebrated for many years – until a woman named Sarah Josepha Hale came into the picture.

A WOMEN'S MAGAZINE HOLIDAY
Sarah Josepha Hale, who lived from 1788-1879 a writer, an editor, a champion of women’s rights, a promoter of child welfare, and a fund-raiser for civic causes. She is perhaps most well known as the author of the popular nursery rhyme "Mary Had a Little Lamb." As early as 1827, Hale, who became the editor of a popular magazine, began calling for a national celebration of Thanksgiving and so began a 40-year quest to make this happen.

Now remember, Bradford’s book about the First Thanksgiving was recovered in 1854, and around that time, Hale, in her magazine, began writing romantic accounts of the First Thanksgiving, taking liberties to appeal to her readership and including recipes for roasted turkeys, bread stuffing, and pumpkin pies - all the things that today's holiday meals are still likely to contain – and none of the things that would have actually been on the table of the first Thanksgiving. They wouldn’t have had flour-based bread or pie or cranberries or sweet or white potatoes, and they didn’t eat with forks.

So does that mean we shouldn’t have sweet potatoes and rutabagas and mashed potatoes and pumpkin pie and cranberry sauce or flour-based biscuits or any of the things that WEREN’T on the table of the First Thanksgiving? NO. Does that mean we shouldn’t eat with forks!? NO! I point this out merely to emphasize that we selectively choose what to celebrate and what to include on our dinner tables and how we want to celebrate – we selectively choose this all the time, especially when it comes to this holiday. Much of what informs our consciousness about this holiday is myth – a romanticized notion rather than informed facts, which, by the way, is fine. It’s fine to use myth to create our rituals and traditions. The point I want to make is that when we eat turkeys and pumpkin pie and cranberries on Thanksgiving, if we think we’re being true to some sacred tradition based on a real event, we’re not. We serve what we serve because that’s what we were taught, that’s what we’ve enjoyed, and that’s what we’ve always known. Our desire to feel connected to something bigger than ourselves, something older than ourselves is greater than any desire to perfectly replicate the original source of our tradition. Does that make sense? We can have whatever we want at Thanksgiving, but let’s not justify the use of something like dead turkeys at Thanksgiving with any kind of rational explanation or historical reference. It’s just not there.

This is why it’s just as traditional NOT to have turkeys on the table as it is to have turkeys on the table at Thanksgiving. We shape our traditions out of our ideals. Sarah Josepha Hale shaped this tradition out of her ideals, and she selectively chose what to include on her menu, and we can do the same. We can create a beautiful feast that reflects our values. They are not mutually exclusive.

CONSTRUCTING OUR PLATES
I think one of the reasons people think vegans and vegetarians eat only side dishes or salads is because we’ve all been taught from Day 1 that meat is the centerpiece of a meal. This is a cultural, social, familial construct. It’s all taught. There isn’t a Meal God in the sky determining how we should eat and how we should plate our food – it’s all taught.

Many, many cultures all around the world do not plate their food this way. Meat is not the center of their plate. But it is here, so when people in our western culture think of a plate without meat, they think of a plate with a big empty space where the meat should be and then just some token side dishes – because that’s what their experience has been. This is why I say that changing our diet, changing from an animal-based to a plant-based diet is as much about changing the way we THINK about food as it is changing the way we actually eat.

So, for the main dish, I think what makes people feel that the meal is complete is if we have a focal point, a centerpiece, something that fills that blank space. Right? And for this main dish, we have many beautiful options. We can have stuffed acorn squash, filled with rice and nuts and celery, onions, squash, apples, etc; we can have butternut squash risotto– any number of seasonal dishes that also create a beautiful presentation. Hollow out a pumpkin and serve the pilaf in the pumpkin on the table – it’s gorgeous! I have a number of Thanksgiving recipe packets on my website. As far as side dishes go, this is generally what’s on our table every year: Mashed Potatoes, Mushroom Gravy (chunky and smooth versions), Bread Stuffing, Cranberry Relish, Corn, mashed rutabagas, Sautéed green beans, roasted Brussels sprouts, Corn Bread or biscuits, and Green Salad. All of these things are familiar to everyone – wherever you are on your path. As far as desserts, check out The Joy of Vegan Baking for delicious, traditional goodies!

On behalf of the turkeys, I hope that you enjoy creating new traditions and celebrating old ones while still honoring your values.

The Ugly Reality of Mutilation

THE UGLY REALITY OF MUTILATION
The word “mutilation," whose root means "to cut up; to cut off," is a disturbing one, but I’m not using it merely to disturb. I’m using it because it aptly describes what we systematically do to billions of live animals on a regular basis - because we can. To my mind, to mutilate someone physically, to harm them physically is the ultimate violation of their rights as an individual, but as we know, animals don't have rights - even over their own bodies. If it’s too painful for us to contemplate having the animals we love terrorized and cut up, I think we have to ask ourselves “what’s the difference for those animals for whom nobody is grieving?” It’s the same for them. It's not about us. It's about their suffering. It’s about them.

HENS
The most commonly known type of mutilation is "debeaking": the act of searing off a segment of a hen’s beak – while she is a chick. I say “she” because you should know by now that male chicks aren’t raised – they’re discarded, ground up, thrown out – cause well, they’re males. And males don’t lay eggs.

To prevent economic losses from the frustrated birds pecking at one another and creating injury and death, it is perfectly legal and perfectly acceptable and perfectly widespread to cut off the beaks of the animals. This doesn’t stop the animals from pecking, of course – but it lessens the injury and thus lessens the economic losses.

This procedure is often called "debeaking," which is a bit of a misnomer, because their entire beak isn’t removed. Some call it “beak trimming,” which I don’t like because it sounds as if the chick is going to the hair dresser. Whatever you call it, it is a painful procedure which involves cutting through bone, cartilage, and soft tissue with a searing hot blade. As the bird grows, their beaks are often so mutilated and still sensitive that it makes it difficult for them to eat and of course preen themselves. And sometimes, the birds’ beaks are seared a second time because the beaks can grow back – the first time is in their first week of life and if there’s a second time, it’s when they’re between 12 and 20 weeks of age.

Visit http://www.eggindustry.com/ for more information.

TURKEYS
Turkeys are also raised in confinement in large sheds that are as large as football fields. As with the closely confined battery cage hens, the birds will become frustrated and exhibit stress-induced aggression. To minimize damage to the flesh and to the pocketbooks of the operators, baby turkeys (called poults) also undergo the painful procedure of having not only a portion of their beaks removed but also their toes. The babies are hung upside down, while the tips of their front three toes are exposed to microwave radiation, which kills the tissue. Often their toes are just cut off with scissors, and their snoods – the little piece of skin on the top of a turkey’s head – is pulled off (they say they do this to prevent damage from frostbite or fighting). Sometimes their rear toes are also cut off with scissors – of course all of this without anesthesia.

Visit www.upc-online.org

PIGS
When piglets are only a couple weeks old, they’re mutilated in many ways. First comes the castration. The piglet’s scrotum is cut open by a worker, who pulls out his testicles while the piglet screams and writhes in pain. Just imagine for one second if this were a puppy or a kitten. It’s unfathomable. Next, their ears are notched. This is actually very common practice across the species. With scissors, a portion of each piglet’s ears are sliced off – just to make identification patterns. In addition, workers cut off piglets’ incisors with pliers that are similar to wire cutters, without the use of painkillers, in order to prevent them from biting each other – or chewing on themselves – out of boredom and frustration. Finally, their tails are cut off to reduce tail biting, another habit that arises from boredom and frustration in stressful conditions. The pain is severe and continues for many days.

Visit www.pigspeace.org

CATTLE – BRANDING, DE-HORNING, EAR-NOTCHINGI think the most obvious way that cattle are mutilated – something you’re all familiar with, and that’s branding. Branding – often done twice a year – is done by a rancher to register and identify his animals. All ranchers brand cattle, and most ranchers brand their horses too. The red hot steel tool, heated with a propane torch, is pressed into the side of the animal. Another method used is something called “freeze branding” which causes the hair to grow back white when it does grow back. This is no less painful than branding with a hot iron. This is done to “beef cattle.” It’s not done with dairy cows because they are always kept close by so they can be milked several times a day.

While the animal is restrained for the branding, this is also when they castrate the calves, cut off parts of their ears, and cut a slice of skin off their wattle, the fatty portion of the animal’s neck. I’ll say once again: all this is all done without anesthesia.

In what is called “ear marking,” portions of the ear are removed or cut, and they also cut the wattle so that when their skin heals, it hangs down in a certain identifiable position. All of this is done for identification purposes. Some ranchers use plastic tags secured to the cow's ear instead of the knife cut. I’ve helped removed these tags that are inserted without anesthesia or antiseptic, and the remaining hole is often bloody and crusty and raw.

Something else that’s done to cattle when they’re enduring all of this – when they’re just calves – is dehorning and disbudding. Neither of these practices are regulated, and neither is done with anesthesia. Disbudding is the removal of the very early growth of what will become the horn if left to grow. The most common and most painful method is to use a hot iron. Dehorning is the removal of the horns after they have formed from the bud. Methods of dehorning include the use of wire, guillotine shears, or dehorning knives, or saws. Dehorning adult cattle is not advised – because their horns are connected to their sinus cavities, serious damage can occur, but it is done nonetheless.

They remove the horns of cattle (females can have horns, too) for the same reason they cut off the beaks and toes of birds: to reduce the damage to the “flesh” caused by the cattle fighting or coming in contact to one another. The industry says “Horns are the single major cause of carcass wastage due to bruising, and trim associated with bruising for carcasses from horned cattle is approximately twice that for carcasses from hornless cattle.” In other words, the more the animals have “bruising” on their flesh, the less money for the people in the industry.

DAIRY COWS
Though dairy cows aren’t branded, it doesn’t mean they don’t have pieces for their bodies removed. To increase the comfort of the workers who milk the cows – who attach the milking machines to their udders – a large portion of the cows’ tails are cut off. So the workers aren’t annoyed or inconvenienced. It’s called Tail Docking.

If you’ve EVER spent one moment watching cattle, you’d know that they are constantly bothered by flies. Their tails are used to swat away flies and is the only way they are able to do this. The defenders of tail docking say that the risk of workers contracting Leptospirosis, which can be spread through the urine and can penetrate broken skin, is increased when the potentially urine-soaked tails hit the workers. But recent reviews of the science conclude that the available data do not support claims that tail docking reduces the risk of Leptospirosis - OR improves the dairy worker's comfort or safety. Experts discourage tail docking, and even the American Veterinary Medical Association criticizes this practice, and they don’t usually go against practices in the meat, dairy, and egg industries.

By the way, the procedure is typically performed without anesthetic and is accomplished by the application of a tight, rubber ring that restricts blood flow to the bottom 2/3 of the tail, which atrophies and detaches or it’s removed with a sharp instrument.

There’s another reeeeally disturbing practice that I couldn’t believe when I first heard about it. In fact, I wouldn’t have believed it if I didn’t see it with my own eyes. Have you heard of a fistulated cow? A fistulated cow is a cow who has had a hole cut into her side for scientific research. Then a plastic device – essentially a window – is inserted so that her digestive system can be observed. Fistulated cows are pretty common in animal ag/large animal vet programs/ag schools, and students are encouraged to stick their arms in and feel the stomach, etc. At agriculture fairs, this is essentially an attraction for visitors. But industry defends this as essential for understanding the health of the species. A cow with a window into her digestive system. Anyway, thought you might be interested in that.

GOATS AND SHEEP
I mentioned before that pigs and cattle have pieces of their ears removed and are also ear-tagged. The same goes for goats and sheep. Goats also often have their horns and buds removed, an incredibly painful procedure. The reasoning behind this is similar to that used in the cattle industry – to reduce damage to the flesh but also to adapt the goat's head to fit into a milk stanchion. They cut off their horns – which serve many practical purposes for the goats – to make it easier to get them through the milking line. Goats and sheep are also castrated without anesthesia, and goats also have their wattles cut.

Sheep raised for their fur – which humans turn into what they call wool – endure something else entirely. You may have heard of something called mulesing. This is the name for the removal of pieces of skin from around the tail of a sheep. It’s common practice in Australia, where most sheep are raised for their fur. Defenders say it is a way to prevent flystrike (which is the incidence of maggots eating at their skin, and you can learn more about that on by doing some research on the lack of necessity of this cruel practice. Performed with large metal shears, no anesthetic is used.

Visit http://www.peta.org/ for more on the campaign against mulesing. After striking a deal with the Australian wool industry, it’s supposed to be phased out by 2010. We’ll see.

DOGS
Dogs kept as research tools in laboratories have their vocal cords severed (and I’ve even heard of people doing this to their own dogs). This is merely so that the researchers don’t have to listen to the dogs barking – ya know – communicating – all the time. Other ways we mutilate the animals we are supposed to love is by cropping the ears and tails of certain breeds of dogs – a cosmetic surgery – this is major surgery - that has no medical or practical purpose other than to continue this tradition and to meet the standards for certain breeds set forth by the American Kennel Club.

CATS
A hideous procedure that has gotten a lot of attention lately, thanks to activists and politicians who are banning this practice in many cities and states, is the declawing of domestic cats. Declawing is not a painless procedure, and it’s also not done for medical reasons. The cat's claw is not a toenail at the end of the toe as in other animals. It is movable digit attached to muscle as a finger might be. To declaw a cat is to cut off half of their toes. This is just another way that we just remove body parts for our own convenience.

WILD ANIMALS KEPT AS PETS
Finally and related to this is the barbaric act of keeping wild animals as pets. Aside from all of the ethical problems with this, people who do keep wild animals often have their claws and sharp teeth removed. The injustice of that is so striking to me – these dignified animals with their strength and dignity just cut off. It’s like the bear baiting of many years ago – when a declawed and detoothed bear was chained up and essentially mauled by a dog – for entertainment purposes. Also, if you don’t know about the bears in China confined in small cages practically no bigger than their own bodies just to extract the bile from their gallbladder – well their claws are removed. In addition, the bears are subjected to painful methods of bile extraction whereby a steel catheter is inserted into the abdomen. This is known as the "free-dripping" technique.

For more on the farming of bears for their bile, please visit http://www.animalsasia.org/. It’s’ a fantastic organization that has been so incredibly effective at rescuing these bears and trying to ban this practice.

Unfortunately, I think I’m probably leaving out some examples, but there you have it. The choices we make about animals' bodies comes down to human greed, gluttony, convenience, and vanity – not necessity.