Counting Animals

How many turkeys do we kill for Thanksgiving?

The Thanksgiving season is upon us and, horrifically, upon turkeys. We will see their carcasses everywhere — sliced and served on the lunch plate, or dressed and stuffed on the dinner table. They will be talked about at the water-cooler and laughed about on late-night TV. There will even be turkey-flavored potato chips and turkey-infused vodka. What must be the scale of an annual ritual concerning one species of birds that they will so invade our lives for a week or two? Exactly how many turkeys do we Americans kill for Thanksgiving? To find out the answer and take a look at the graphical data, click here.

The fish we kill to feed the fish we eat

The majority of the fish we eat are not ones caught in the wild. They are farmed—confined and raised in overcrowded indoor tanks or sea cages—under the more decorous name of aquaculture. Yet, we kill billions of wild fish. Some of them end up on our dinner plates. But, most of the wild fish we kill die at our hands because we want to turn them into feed for the caged fish we eat. Just how many wild fish do we Americans kill to feed the farmed fish and shellfish we eat? To find out the answer and take a look at the graphical data, click here.

Do you know someone who buys meat only from a small local farm?

If you are an advocate for the animals we use for food, you may have had conversations with friends, colleagues or neighbors in which someone says: “I buy meat only from a small, local, humane farm.” One common reaction of animal advocates is skepticism, but for lack of available data, it is not easy to ascertain the percentage of purchased meat that can be described as “local” or “humane”, even if one were to set aside philosophical objections to describing any meat as humane. But, we can indeed estimate what percentage of meat comes from animals raised on small farms with welfare conditions likely, but not necessarily, better than on large factory farms. Click here to see the graph of historical data on the fraction of bovines, pigs, chickens and turkeys sold out of small farms.

The forgotten mothers of the chickens we eat

Chickens have mothers, a fact easy to forget as we ponder our supper-time decision on whether to eat them baked, broiled, roasted or fried. These mothers, called broiler breeders by the industry, are used to lay the eggs which are incubated and hatched into the chickens we eat. They suffer more than their offspring, but their welfare rarely gets the attention warranted by the grim lives we force upon them. They spend their lives desperately hungry, anxious and maddeningly frustrated. Why are they hungry? Click here to read more and view the graphical data on these mothers.

A child raised to weigh 500 pounds by age 10?

Well, most of us would consider it morally gross to intentionally raise a child to weigh well over six times her natural weight. But, that is how we raise the chickens we eat. Subjected to intense genetic selection, drugged on growth-promoting antibiotics, and fed to grow beyond what their legs can support, the chickens we eat today are nothing like their ancestors. Click here to watch a 30-second animation depicting the sharp changes in the rate of growth of chickens since 1920.

Factory farming and the price of meat

Everyone agrees that factory farming in animal agriculture reduces the cost of producing meat to the meat industry. Naturally, when criticized for the abuses of factory farming, the industry claims that the rise in factory farming has been essential to keeping meat as cheap and affordable as it has been. But this claim is a valid one only if the cost savings from increased factory farming and other efficiencies in the industry are actually passed on to the consumers. In this post I argue that the evidence suggests otherwise. My analysis is based on a detailed look at the farm, wholesale and the retail price data for pork and for chicken meat. The affordability of meat is one of the more widely accepted of arguments the meat industry makes in defense of the barbarity of factory farming. My purpose in disputing this argument is simply to show how surprisingly little the industry has to justify the suffering caused by its standard practices. To take a look at the graphical data and read the accompanying commentary, click here.

Animals we use and abuse for food we do not eat

We waste a lot of food in the United States. Sometimes, this thing that we call food is actually the remains of a sentient and cognitively agile animal who wanted to live but who we killed anyway to serve as our food. There is something deeply wretched about inflicting lifelong pain and misery and finally death on an animal for food we are not going to eat. In this post, for each category of animal products used as food, I plot the percentage of the edible weight of animal products that enters the retail market as food but which is not eaten and is just thrown away into our landfills. To take a look at the graphical data and read the accompanying commentary, click here.

More cows harmed for cheese than for milk

In the popular imagination, dairy is still largely associated with the fluid milk we drink. However, the per capita consumption of fluid milk has dropped by almost 30% since 1970 simultaneously as the per capita cheese consumption in the US has increased by 177%! So, are cows still being used largely for the fluid milk we drink or for the cheese we eat? In this post, I try to answer this question by first looking into the number of pounds of raw cow's milk required to make one pound of each dairy product. Given current consumption patterns, it turns out that more of a cow’s milk is consumed today as cheese than as any other dairy product. Cheese consumption today is the largest enemy of cows and calves in the dairy industry! Read the full post and take a look at the graphics by clicking here.

Meat consumption and demand both in decline

We have known for sometime that per capita meat consumption in the US has been on a steady decline. In fact, the latest projections by the USDA indicate that per capita meat consumption will continue to drop through 2013! But, consumption is not the same as demand. For example, when prices rise or incomes fall, the per capita consumption of a product may drop but not necessarily the demand for the product. Animal advocates are interested in reducing per capita meat consumption, but they are even more keen on actually reducing the demand for meat. In this post, I examine if it is not just the per capita meat consumption but the demand itself that is also in decline. Find out the answer and take a look at the graphics by clicking here.

Electoral politics and the meat industry

The election season is in full swing which makes it a good time to examine who the meat industry wants elected and whose influence the meat industry is trying to buy. In this post, I look at which candidates are receiving the support of the meat, egg and dairy industries, as measured by the contributions they receive from Political Action Committees (PACs) aligned with these industries. I also look at whether this support is less likely for candidates with a history of taking the side of the animals in legislative matters, as measured by the scores assigned to members of Congress by the Humane Society Legislative Fund. To take a look at the graphical data and read the inferences that follow, click here.