Despite the fact that the origins of the Thanksgiving tradition have nothing to do with turkeys, the charming gobbles of 37 million baby galliformes are silenced around this time of year. (Yes, they are babies. They average 16-18 weeks, or 5 months, of age when they are butchered.)



As Harvard-educated psychologist Melanie Joy explains, violent ideologies are the product of an invisible system. Although enabled by well-meaning friends and family, the institutionalized bloodshed of tens of millions of individual toms and hens to “give thanks” is an undeniably violent, counterintuitive ideology. It stays entrenched by remaining invisible, unnamed, and unquestioned.

Despite the onslaught of images of happy living turkeys, including those aimed at children, we’re totally sheltered from what it takes to turn living turkeys into headless, legless, internal organ-less carcasses. This is because most couldn’t stomach or tolerate it. The only footage we see of animal factories are illegally obtained by activists, which are then discredited as being altered or portraying an isolated incident.

So why, pray tell, don’t they just show us their own footage of how turkeys are intensively confined before being beheaded?

As Craig and I once did, you may make an effort to purchase meat with humane labels and acknowledge your own disappointing hypocrisy in continuing to either frequently or infrequently consume the products of CAFOs (Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations) because they are so pervasive and much more affordable.

But please think about it. Would you recoil any less at the idea of slitting a turkey’s throat just because of the conditions he or she was briefly raised in during life? You owe it to yourself and the turkeys to find out. Take a moment to watch how they are killed under the most “humane” of circumstances. As Khaiti Kahleck of LTD Farm explains, “The muscles as they move as they die are very strong. And it’s almost startling to feel that energy as a life force leaving.” Even more startling is the idea of such a needless betrayal of our feathered friends.