A Thanksgiving celebration doesn't have to include turkey. Take pleasure in a healthy feast that won't contribute to animal cruelty. Eliminate turkey from your holiday dinner and enjoy delicious entrees instead, such as lentil roasts, stuffed acorn squash, mashed potatoes with mushroom gravy, green beans, cranberry dishes and pumpkin pie.
On modern turkey factory farms, 5,000 or more sensitive birds are forced to sit and stand jammed together in filthy litter breathing burning ammonia fumes and lung-destroying dust. The turkeys develop respiratory diseases, foot ulcers, breast blisters, and ammonia burned eyes. They are dosed with drugs, vaccines and antibiotics to prop them up until marketing time.
To combat stress-induced aggression caused by overcrowding, factory-farmed turkeys are brutally debeaked. The hot debeaking blade cuts through the sensitive beak tissue causing lifelong pain and suffering in the mutilated, disfigured bird.
Like all animals, turkeys experience pain and suffering, yet they are specifically excluded from state and federal animal protection laws. The Animal Welfare Act does not cover turkeys or other animals raised for food, and the Humane Slaughter Acts excludes all poultry. As a result, turkeys are subjected to intolerable cruelty at factory farms and slaughterhouses.
It is time to re-think the old habit of eating a dead bird for Thanksgiving. To take part in a new holiday tradition, check out Farm Sanctuary's Adopt-A-Turkey Project at www.AdoptATurkey.org.
Elizabeth Ferrari
Soddy Daisy, TN 37379