Some people don’t eat animals because they don’t want to support factory farming. Others are worried about protecting their health or the environment. Nicolas Cage has a much more, shall we say, X-centric reason for why he leaves certain animals off his plate: They have undignified sex.
No, I am not making this up. Here’s what Cage told the U.K. tabloid The Sun: “I actually choose the way I eat according to the way animals have sex. I think fish are very dignified with sex. So are birds. But pigs, not so much. So I don’t eat pig meat or things like that. I eat fish and fowl.”
While this is great news for pigs and cows, I have to wonder where Nick got the idea that there is anything dignified about the way birds live on factory farms. Turkeys are bred to grow so top-heavy that they can no longer reproduce naturally, so female turkeys are artificially inseminated. “Breeder broiler” chickens are kept alive longer than most chickens who are raised for their flesh (most of whom are killed when they are just a few weeks old), so the males are deprived of food to prevent their bodies from getting too large for their organs to support. How do farmers do this? By shoving plastic rods through their beaks to prevent them from gaining access to females’ feed troughs. Yeah, real dignified.
As for me, I’m not particularly concerned about how birds, bees, or even educated fleas do it. I’m more worried about making sure that animals have a dignified life—and death.
Written by Alisa Mullins
