It happens that the smell of seared pork and cooked chicken doesn't always come from a barbecue grill or oven. Sometimes it's straight out of the barn. That's because every year, hundreds of thousands of chickens, pigs, cows, and other animals are burned alive in barn fires.

In March, hundreds of animals, mostly pigs and cows, were killed in barn fires in Michigan, Ohio, and New York. A couple of months later, as many as half a million hens went up in smoke in a fire at an egg factory farm in Roggen, Colo.

A law that requires mega-farms to install sprinklers or a smoke-control system is being doused with cold water by big business operatives. As predictably as the now-silenced rooster who used to crow in the morning on the old family farm, the farmers reject every attempt to reduce the hardships and torment of the animals Paul McCartney waxed lyrical about in "Glass Walls," his video about modern meat production.

It's a full-fledged fight over fire extinguishers, similar to the recent battle that factory farmers waged to preserve the right to use a mechanical winch to drag collapsed cattle into the slaughterhouse, rather than put them out of their misery where they lay.

The burning-barn issue is this: The National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) recently amended its "NFPA 150: Standard on Fire and Life Safety in Animal Housing Facilities" -- which currently requires automatic fire sprinkler and smoke-control systems in facilities that house animals such as lions and tigers -- to include other facilities that house animals as well. The new regulations will cover nearly every single farm in the U.S. -- but a shameless coalition of meat-, egg-, and dairy-industry organizations is now appealing the NFPA's decision.

Since we can't count on the meat, egg, and dairy industries to protect animals from the most egregious forms of cruelty, what can we, as consumers, do? Opting out of paying someone to allow animals to die in a barn fire or at the slaughterhouse seems pretty reasonable. Cheap meat is the problem. The answer is to replace meat recipes with vegan meals.

Via Huffington Post.com.

Written by Ingrid E. Newkirk

On Dairy Day in Albany—when dairy industry representatives flood the New York capitol—State Sen. Tony Avella, a friend to animals and member of the Agriculture Committee, joined PETA in calling on Agri-Mark, Inc., maker of Cabot and McCadam cheeses, to end animal abuse on its suppliers' farms.

Cow Care Inaction

Three months have passed since PETA alerted Agri-Mark to the cruelty to cows documented during PETA's undercover investigation at one of Agri-Mark's suppliers, Adirondack Farms, LLC, and asked the company to require all cooperative members to implement basic and reasonable reforms that would prevent such cruelty from continuing and improve cows' lives.

Nearly 60,000 supporters have joined PETA's call so far, but Agri-Mark remains silent and apparently hasn't done a thing. Indeed, one manager who jabbed a downed cow in the ribs with a screwdriver and used a skid steer to drag her approximately 25 feet and electro-shocked another cow on the face repeatedly was left working in a supervisory capacity at the facility!

Cruelty in Every Cup

The dairy industry flacks—including those pimping McCadam cheese, made just down the road from Adirondack Farms—were hoping to celebrate Dairy Day by cozying up to lawmakers but were instead reminded of the cruelty of their dirty business as Sen. Avella displayed video footage from PETA's investigation. The exposé showed cows who were jabbed with poles and a calf who thrashed in agony while her horn buds and surrounding tissue were burned off without pain relief as smoke rose from her flesh.

What You Can Do

Please help Sen. Avella and PETA make sure that Agri-Mark gets the message to implement PETA's recommendations to end the most egregious abuses of cows on its cooperative members' farms immediately.

She was perhaps the only person to work with more saturated fat than Paula Deen. Norma "Duffy" Lyon, dubbed the "Queen of the Butter Sculpture," died of a stroke this week.

For more than four decades, Lyon sculpted cows and other figures from butter, often requiring 600 pounds of the fatty stuff for one sculpture. Like the cartoonish "Happy Cows" California dairy commercials, Lyon's cow sculptures looked placid and content. But the cows whose milk was used to create the sculptures were almost certainly anything but. Bearing that in mind, here are a few ideas for butter sculptures that Lyons should have made if she were aiming for a little more verismo:

• A day-old female calf as she is torn away from her mother while a farmer stands ready with a milking machine to steal the baby's food
• A cow with a painfully swollen udder caused by the abnormally huge amount of milk she has been genetically manipulated and drugged to produce
• A day-old male calf as he is dragged away from his distraught mother and shoved into a tiny, dark crate to be raised for veal
• Or, my personal favorite, a cow made entirely of Earth Balance spread, contentedly nuzzling her calf and wearing a banner that says "Go Vegan!"

“How about this, I keep my milk and you use clay?”

 
We hope future lardists will consider a more animal-friendly medium. 
 

Written by Michelle Sherrow

If you wouldn't brand a cat or cut off a dog's legs, you should also think about putting down the hamburger for World Week for Abolition of Meat. 
 

Razvan Antonescu/cc by 2.0

 
Cows have personalities as distinct as those of cats, dogs, and humans. They develop social circles, form friendships, and even hold grudges. They grieve the loss of loved ones and shed tears, especially mother cows whose calves are taken away within hours or days of birth.  

Like all living beings, cows value their lives and don't want to die. Cows have been known to go to extraordinary measures to escape slaughter, including jumping off of a ship and swimming to shore and leaping a 5-foot-tall gate. At the slaughterhouse, they hear their friends bellow as they are jabbed with electric prods and hear them cry out as their throats are cut. A slaughterhouse worker told The Washington Post that cows are often still conscious when their legs are cut off. "They blink. They make noises. The head moves, the eyes are wide and looking around. … They die piece by piece."

 
Please take a moment to think about what your money pays for when you purchase animal flesh. 

 
Written by Michelle Sherrow

For all of us who get googly-eyed just thinking about a basket full of chocolate that's all ours, Easter is a great time of year. And when we fill our baskets with delicious vegan chocolates, we get all that melt-in-our-mouths goodness without any animal having to die for it. (Chocolate bunnies, of course, are fair game.)

Why should you leave the milk out of your chocolate bunny? Cows used in the dairy industry are often forced to produce 10 times more milk than they would naturally. Their babies are generally taken away from them shortly after birth, and the males are raised for veal. Worn out cows are sent to slaughter.

With the bounty of yummy vegan chocolates available from companies like Rose City Chocolatier, Allison's Gourmet Vegan Bakery, and Chocolate Inspirations, there's no need to steal milk from a calf. Harbor Candy Shop has created a delicious assortment just for PETA, available in a pre-assembled Easter basket.  

So we can go ahead and get our hands messy devouring all our treats (mine don’t last very long), and still have our consciences clear. Happy Eater, I mean Easter! 

Written by Michelle Sherrow

There may be a crazy number of flavors at West Hollywood's Millions of Milkshakes, but this afternoon, everyone was lined up for the one-and-only "Pamela Anderson":

The Dancing With the Stars (DWTS) cha-cha-challenger ducked out of her busy rehearsal schedule today to personally introduce a heavenly vegan vanilla, pineapple, and coconut creation named in her honor. Pamela, who never turns down an opportunity to shake things up for animals, insisted that the concoction be completely dairy-free in order "to prove that one can create a truly delicious treat without having to rely on any animal products in the process."

Since I couldn't make it to Millions of Milkshakes in person, I know what I'll be doing Monday. I'll get some Tofutti and blend my own "Pamela Anderson," and then I'll lean back and toast DWTS' most compassionate contestant as she wows millions of viewers again. Sound good?

Written by Karin Bennett