Hold the Veal Crate, Please

Vegan or not, it's important that we support the Prevention of Farm Animal Cruelty Act (PFACA). The bill was introduced to the House of Representatives last month by Reps. Diane Watson and Elton Gallegly of California, and has since picked up support in the House from states such as New York, Tennessee, New Hampshire, and even Texas.

Specifically banning battery cages, gestation crates and veal crates, the bill would prohibit the Federal government from purchasing food products from farms where animals are raised inhumanely. While this isn't an across-the-board ban, it's effects would be incredibly far reaching. The U.S. government spends over one billion dollars annually on food for the National School Lunch Program and the Armed Forces, among other programs. According to VegNews magazine, the government purchases over 100 million pounds of beef a year on the school lunch program alone. Yikes! One can imagine that enforcement of the proposed standards would effect nearly all the major factory farms in the U.S.

Why should we care? While we may disagree on whether farm-raised animals belong on our plates at all, it is hard to imagine that anyone wants to eat an animal who spent its short life stuck in a cage or a crate without the ability to turn around or even stand up. The passage of this bill will send an important message to farmers- the U.S. government will no longer ignore cruelty in the face of cost-efficiency.

The meat and dairy industries will undoubtedly be lobbying against this bill in full force, so it will need all the support it can get. Please ensure that we get a step closer to humane farming practices by contacting your representatives and letting them know you support the bill!

Rainy Day Double Feature

I was home sick on a rainy Tuesday, so I settled in with Netflix for some guilt-free vegging. Up first was Julie and Julia with Amy Adams and Meryl Streep. I love Adams, and I worship Streep, so I was willing to overlook the film's focus on all things buttery and otherwise unvegan. Until the lobster scene.

For those unfamiliar, Julie, played by Adams, is blogging her way through Julia Child's cookbook and arrives at a recipe where she must boil lobsters alive. She agonizes over it, dreads the impending task, loses sleep, and generally worries about becoming a "lobster killer." She finally does plunk the little guys into a boiling pot, after the lid pops off and she screams at a protruding claw, of course. By the time dinner is served and heralded as a success, her moral dilemma seems to have been forgotten.

What bothers me is not that Adams' character boiled lobsters alive. The film is based on a true story- that's what happened. What bothers me is that we are supposed to view her hesitation to boil live animals as cute, silly, and, ultimately, unreasonable. The direction prompts us to laugh at her, but leaves no room for exploring the validity of her misgivings. Her momentary compassion, if you can call it that, for the lobsters is meant to be a joke which simply carries us over to the more legitimate end of the scene- the dinner party with dead lobsters served on a plate.

Don't get me wrong- I am well aware that a bubbly film celebrating French cooking is not going to delve into the deeper ethical issues involved in boiling lobsters and boning chickens, and I did not expect it to. It does, however, point out a deeper issue in our cultural psyche, and one that really bothers me. I feel that our innate ethical qualms about what we do to animals are all too often dismissed or made light of on the altar of culinary tradition. We are taught to worship the rich tastes of butter and beef, and to believe that whatever means taken to procure them are irrelevant. The mature gastronome, in our society, is one who understands where our food comes from and doesn't care. And the animal advocate is squeamish, unreasonable, self-righteous, and a culinary philistine.

The "lobster killer" scene in Julie and Julia reinforces this unfortunate paradigm. Her parting words to her victims "Hello...goodbye...I'm sorry" are meant to be childish. And, like a child is "supposed" to, she toughens up and purportedly learns that it wasn't so bad. Well, Julie, Julia, and lobster killers everywhere, I will have to respectfully disagree.

That said, Amy Adams is still adorable, even when she is killing lobsters or leaving sticks of butter next to pictures of Julia Child. So to conclude, the lobster incident was a disappointing but unsurprising moment in an otherwise sweet little film.

Up next was Iron Man.


Um, can we talk about Iron Man and how no one had quite imparted to me how totally awesome it is, and how I now want to watch it every day and fantasize about being Paltrow's "Pepper" to Downey's dashing "Stark"?

Bad-boy corporate harbinger of doom turned self-made selfless superhero? Hot. Good thing I saw it just in time for the sequel to come out! Until then, I'll be on my couch sipping hot cocoa and waiting for Mr. Downey J to call.