McDonalds McRib: The Factory Farm Connection

Every once in awhile, the sick horrifying conditions at factory farms are swept out from under the rug and shown to the public.  Even if you don’t give a fuck about the tortures inflicted on these animals, how can you eat the byproducts of these factories?  Factory farm animals are fed excrement and the rotting flesh of other livestock, among other things.  If that’s what they’re eating, and you eat them, then that’s what YOU’RE eating.

Smithfield Foods is the factory farm that supplies the pork for the McDonalds McRib.  Last year the Humane Society did an undercover operation at Smithfield Foods.  Among other niceties, the pigs are crammed together so tightly that they suffer from “open pressure sores and other ulcers and wounds.”

No doubt there are hundreds of other factory farms that are just as putrefied as Smithfield Foods.  But Smithfield Foods pretends to be different, claiming that their animals are raised under “ideal” conditions.  And McDonalds has publicly praised Smithfield Foods for its humane treatment of their animals, and even presented Smithfield with a “supplier sustainability” award.

Other abuses discovered by the Humane Society include — from the linked article:

Animals were crammed into cages that were “coated in blood from the mouths of pigs chewing the metal bars....A sick pig was shot in the head with a captive bolt gun and thrown into a dumpster while still alive; prematurely born piglets routinely fell through the gate's slats into a manure pit… and employees tossed baby pigs into carts as if they were stuffed animals.”

Mmmm, it’s what’s for dinner.  Belly up to the counter.

I have nothing against McDonalds or any other fast food chain.  They’re wealthy because jillions of people like their products.  Nobody is being forced to eat there.

If you go there — just remember what you’re eating.