Yesterday I was going through the grocery store picking up a few things. This is a common activity for me and it usually is not part of an epiphany. This time I had a revelation as I picked up free-range chicken eggs. I looked at the price of $3.99 a dozen for “cage free” with the thought in mind that I will pay the extra two dollars for the chickens not to be treated to torturous conditions in order for me to have eggs, it came to my mind that most people don’t even think about the source of their food.

As a result of investigating the difference of the eggs, I am painfully aware that the USDA has no standards for labeling eggs “free range”. There are even factory farm products that can be labeled “organic” although the cows never see the light of day and the chickens are stacked one on top of the other. Therefore, the family farm co-op source of dairy products is the source I trust most.

When I used to talk to a friend of mine about my objection to eating meat because of the cruelty of killing animals for food, she would shrug her shoulders and say “My meat comes from the supermarket wrapped in nice cellophane packages. I don’t kill anything to eat.” Is this the opinion of most of the civilized world?

The recent incident of the cruelty to a downed dairy cow having been rammed with a fork lift to make her walk to her death, because she was no longer a producer certainly brought this front and center. The public outcry was loud although not very long. It may cause some needed reforms in the factory farm industry. We can only hope so.

Did the news of the cruelty make the general public, the consumer any more conscious of what is happening in the factory food industry? Many of the same people who are so conscientious about their pets, seeing to it that they have doggie day care, kitty sitters and the most nutritious of food and who would never consciously be cruel to any animal are supporting the cruel factory farms with their dollars.

Can you imagine a family in America keeping chickens in their back yard in cages too small for the bird to stand upright and stacked with other chickens on top of them & all of them forced to produce while defecation of the birds above drop on them? I can’t! The neighbors would call the humane society if nothing else. Michael Vick is doing time in jail for practices that pale by comparison when farm animals are the victims. Yet we allow this practice of the inhumane treatment of millions of animals to go on without a word and we support it by buying cheap meat, eggs and milk in the market place.

Sherry Henderson, Editor