Rights For Animals

        Have you ever seen an animal being abused their whole life before slaughtering it or peeling their fur off in a horrible way? There are many slaughter farms in this world where they abuse animals to death. Animals are abused at the factories they are raised in before they are sent to the slaughterhouse where the abuse gets even worse before there deaths (Dominion). Animals have feelings like human beings do, they don’t need to be abused their whole lives, and then die abused. There are many tragedies happening in animal slaughterhouses that humans are unaware of. There are better ways to slaughter an animal for meat and to take their fur off for clothing without them being abused.

In the film Dominion, the people show how animals are treated before they are sent to the slaughterhouse, and how they are slaughtered. Yuval Noah Harari mentioned, “Animals are the main victims of history, and the treatment of domesticated animals in industrial farms perhaps the worst crime in history” (233). Workers pick up the baby pigs and slam them the ground so hard to the point where pigs start to bleed. The pig sits in his place for five days covered with dirt, and urine. When it comes to slaughtering the pig the worker starts kicking and punching the pig and after that, he kills the pig by shocking them with an electrical gun in his head. The chickens are thrown in a cage their whole lives and then they get boiled alive in hot water. When the chicken produces eggs and hatches the workers keep the female chicks. The male chicks get dropped into a blender as he is as waste and they don’t need the male chick. Baby sheep have their tails cut off with a sharp knife while they are awake and get abused when the workers are cutting their fur off with sharp scissors. When it’s time to slaughter them they get smacked with a big iron pipe, and they get shocked with an electric gun in front of the other sheep. The other sheep are shivering from fear because they know they are next for what’s going to happen to them. Baby Cows don’t get to have a life with their mothers. Once they are produced a few days later the workers take the baby cow away from the mother and load the baby cows on the truck, and the mother is sadly chasing after the truck to save her poor baby. The truck takes the baby cows to the farm and unloads the baby cows from the truck to a machine where their legs are tied up so they can’t move. The machine takes the baby cows to the worker and the worker for the farm slaughter the baby cows by tasing with an electric magnet. The workers with their hands tie up the rabbits’ hands and legs to the table, and they pull and snatch off the rabbit's fur aggressively and the rabbits are crying and screaming from the pain. 

There are no laws against abusing animals in slaughterhouses or factory farms in Australia. The government should start to get involved in this situation and make laws for the animals because animals need to have rights same as the human beings do. Animals are not supposed to be treated the way the farms are treating them right now. They have emotions such as human beings do. It’s ridiculous how workers abuse the animals and making them have miserable lives. Peter Singer has mentioned, “They are treated like machines that convert fodder into flesh, and any innovation that results in higher ratio ‘conversion ratio’ is liable to be adopted” (213). The workers think that animals are equipment’s they don’t feel anything, and they are only there for the food. That is incorrect animals are crying from the way they are tortured in factory farms and slaughterhouses. It’s also unnecessary for the workers to take the baby animals away from the mothers at a very young age. Animals can live and have beautiful lives such as human beings. They can get distance away from the farm instead of them trapped in cages and cells all day long not being able for them to move. We don’t need to take the animal babies away from their mothers at a very young age. The babies can stay with their mothers and grow up with them. If the baby cow is allowed to be raised with their mother then it will grow healthy and have a lot of nutrients and that way it will produce more milk for humans.

Animals don’t need to be abused their whole lives before slaughtering them. They can live a happy beautiful life just like normal human beings, and when the time comes for them to be slaughtered the workers at the farm should say some religious vows. Barbara Kingsolver mentions vows before slaughtering the animal, “By the same power that slays you, I too slain, and I too shall be consumed. For the law that slays you into my hand shall deliver me into mightier hand. Your blood and my blood is naught but the sap that feeds the tree of heaven” (222). It’s best if we slaughter the animals in private and not in front of the other animals. That way animals won't know what’s going to happen to them, and also they will not have a miserable life. There’s another way slaughtering them by leaving them to live to the end of their lives or when they are near death. Because that way they have already lived their lives and it’s time for them to be slaughtered. When the time comes for them to be slaughtered we don’t need to use a taser or put in a gas room, and neither for them to be boiled alive. Workers should grab a knife or a sword, and cut the animal's neck open. That’s the best way because that way they don’t have to suffer and feel the pain that they are going to go through. A better way to cut an animal’s fur to use it for clothing is in a gentle way or after slaughtering the animal you can peel the fur off of the dead animal’s skin. We only need the animal's fur, not the skin because the skin is not used for anything in particular. When the workers are cutting the fur off of the animal they don’t need to abuse the animal for the fur. The workers can do it nicely without them feeling pain and violence. The workers also don’t need sharp tools to cut out animal fur. They can use a special machine hair cut for animals. That is better than using sharp tools and hurting the animals. 

There are people out there who might disagree with the better treatment of animals. People think animals are not the same as humans and don’t feel anything. People also think there is no other choice because of the population. People won’t change their ways of slaughtering the animals because it’s faster and businesses swear by the phrase “Time is money”. That is incorrect. There are many choices to slaughter an animal in the old traditional ways such as Halal and the old Christianity way of slaughter. There will be a lot of food for everyone because not everyone eats meat. If people find more workers for the farms, then these workers will slaughter animals in an appropriate way, and they won’t waste time.

That’s the best way to slaughter animals. It’s the best way because humans will not stop eating meat, and they also need animals to fur for clothing. We can slaughter animals but in a proper way. They don’t need to be slaughtered in an unnecessary way or being abused. I hope one day workers at the farm will learn one day that what they are doing is wrong to the animals and start to treat the animals better. I don’t think anyone would like to see a living creature get abused and treated the way animal farms treat the animals.

Works Cited

Delforce, Chris, Director. Dominion. Performance by Dylan Thomas, Joaquin Phoenix, Rooney Mara, Sia Kate, Sadie Sink, 2018.

Harari, Yuval Noah. “Industrial Farming Is One Of the Worst Crimes in History.” Food Matters, Edited By Holly Bauer, Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2017, pp. 233-239.

Kingsolver, Barbara. “You Can’t Run Away on Harvest Day.” Food Matters, Edited By Holly Bauer, Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2017, pp. 218-228.

Singer, Peter. “Equality for Animals.” Food Matters, Edited By Holly Bauer, Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2017, pp. 212-216.

"Artisan Series / Il purcitâr" by Nicola Boccaccini is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 4.0

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"like a lamb to the slaughter III" by Emilia Tjernström [Arriving at the horizon] is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0

"PICT0038"dominion by Dror Feuer is licensed under CC BY-NC 2.0

Strawberry Farm

The interview I conducted with a local farmer explained how the farming industry is an intricate system with many parts and functions. The tools and skills a farmer uses and how they are used have a major effect on the farms production. Some of the tools farmers utilize include pesticides, irrigation systems, crop rotation, and the use of modern weather forecasts to increase productivity. All of these practices work together seamlessly to ensure the smooth operation of the farm. Farms are also connected to the environment around it.

           

 I visited the strawberry farm last week and I met a man named Jose Lopez who works at the strawberry farm. I went up to him and asked him what do they do to keep the crops healthy and when do they grow. Lopez told me they spray chemicals on the plants to keep the bugs and insects away. He told me the chemicals that they spray do not keep every insect away. It keeps away specific insects because they need some insects for the strawberry. Two insects that are essential for strawberry growth need bees and ladybugs because these two can pollinate the flower of the strawberries and they can also keep away other insects that are harmful to the strawberries. I asked him if the chemicals he sprayed on the plants can effect the soil underneath the strawberry plant? He told me not really because if it effects the soil then the plant wouldn’t grow and the strawberries would die. He also the only thing that these chemicals would effect is the insects and that’s good because they don’t want the insets coming near the strawberries. I asked Jose why do you spray or inject the plants? Jose told me that the strawberry plants take a very long time for them to grow and they have to deliver packages to stores at a certain date. They do that because the population is big in Gwinnett County and the stores need to sell the strawberries to the costumers so they could eat it. They water the crops by connecting pipes to the ground and if they know the weather is going to rain then they don’t need to use the pipes. The strawberries grow from early June to Late September but they grow a lot of strawberries so they could store the rest that’s left over. The fields of the strawberries have to be taking care of twenty four seven because a lot of things can happen. Like if the strawberries don’t get sprayed water everyday then the strawberries has a possible chance of dying. Jose also told me if the plants don’t get too much sun the also have a high chance of dying. If the weather is too hot they will poor extra water from the pipes so that the soil could stay wet and the strawberries would not die either.

“Your plants will produce some small babies and some big mommas, too. They’ll produce some iconic shaped fruit, and some wonky ones, too” (Smith Trimble). From this information Jose also said the good thing about strawberries is that they only grow their seeds once and the plant will start to produce its own babies every six months. That’s if they were organic they take that much time. The sprayed ones take two to three months at most.

I looked at the organic one and the sprayed one to see which one is better. The organic one taste better than the injected but it takes at least six months to grow and depending on the weather. Jose mentioned the ejected ones take to a month at most that could save them some time to grow more.. I ate both while I was at the farm and here are the positive and negative things about these two.  When I felt the organic one it was hard as a rock but when I felt the sprayed one it was hard but not as hard as the organic one. The organic food item taste better and has a lot of nutrition but it is small. The sprayed one is bigger then the organic one but it doesn’t have that much nutrition and it doesn’t taste as good as the organic strawberry. So Basically the organic one is healthier then the sprayed although the sprayed one doesn’t affect human beings. The organic one has more nutrition then the sprayed one. They spray the fruits to taste good or to have more nutrition they spray the fruits for money. Most people would pay more for organic fruits then the sprayed ones because its more healthier. Us humans can do something with growing food but its going to be better then mother nature.

            
The farmers put some poison around the fields for the gardens safety. They do that because they have to keep the animals like rats and snake’s away from the field. The rats can steal the crops and eat them and the snakes can make a nest between the crops or they can poison one of the workers. Lopez me a story of the workers who was working picking strawberries and a snake bit him. They took the man to the hospital and he was alright at the end but they have to be carful while they are picking up the strawberries. Strauss explains, “ You have to be in love with the miracle that is squash seed- no bigger than fingernail but able to produce hundreds of pounds of food in a single summer with only a little help from you, the gardener” (80). I took this sentence from Strauss because it’s similar to what I’ve seen. The farmers plant the seeds in the dirt, it grows in the late summer and the straw berries grow out. The workers come to the farm and pick up eight to twelve tons everyday. It’s everyday that they have to pick really big amount of strawberries. After they pick up the strawberries they take the strawberries to they truck and the truck delivers the strawberries to the factories. The factories take the strawberries, they wash them and then clean them. After that they put the strawberries in plastic boxes and they deliver the strawberries to super markets . For example Walmart Kroger’s and Aldi’s. From there people will buy these strawberries and eat them at home. 

           
 This is my interview with Jose Lopez and what we talked about the farm and how they take care of the farm. Taking care of a farm like strawberries is a really hard job and a lot of work. What I noticed is that they grow strawberries and inject them like that is they don’t do it for the people they do it for the money. I feel like that’s a wrong and bad idea because strawberries are one of the most important fruits that we need for nutrition. They should figure out a better way to make the plants grow faster and more organic because us human’s need to stay healthy. I feel like eating organic is better then eating injected food. That’s my opinion for the strawberries and what I think they should do to make they fruit have more nutrition.

           
      Works Cited

Daniel, Cruz. Personal Interview. 22 September 2019.

Smith Trimble, Kelly. “Post Store-bought Strawberries Versus Homegrown Strawberries.”Bonnie Plants. 23 Oct. 2018,www.bonnieplants.com/the-bonnie-blog/store-bought-strawberries-versus-homegrown-strawberries/

Strauss, Erica. “Zombies vs. The Joy of Canning: Motivation in the Productive Home”. Food MattersA BEDFORD SPOTLIGHT READER, by Holly Bauer, Leasa Burton, 2017, pp. 77-80.

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The Dish Of Jordan

Why do we eat what we eat? Why do people love eating their cultures food? Some people out there love trying other cultures food. Me as a person I love eating my culture’s food. It’s something special to me that I love eating once in a while. There’s a lot of history behind this dish that most people don’t know about. The ingredient’s of this recipe is hard to find because the world doesn’t know about it . I personally think that this dish should be known to the whole world for how good it taste’s. I love this dish because It tastes so good and brings old memories of what I used to do with my family with this recipe and I recommend people to try it.

The best dish in my country Jordan is called mansaf. This dish is one of the top best dishes in my country. It’s a traditional cultural recipe that we make and enjoy eating  and to represent the country. There’s a lot of countries in the Middle East that make this dish like Iraq and Syria but it is not as good as it is made in Jordan. It taste’s better in my Country because the dish is originally is made in Jordan.


This recipe is made out of yellow rice, yellow soup, beef on top of the rice and nuts on top of the rice. The main important part of the dis is the soup. The soup is made out of dry hard yogurt called jamid known in English as solid yogurt. . The Jamid yogurt is melted in hot water for 30 minutes and when it is melted the soup is already yellow we just add peppers and salt. The soup gives a big taste to the rice because the rice almost doesn’t have a taste unless we poor the soup on the rice. We make the rice turn yellow by adding sufflower and water to the pot so it could change the color of the rice.. We leave the pot on the grill for 30 minutes but when I used to live on a farm we used campfire in the desert. A sufflower is plant that is grown in the desert of the Middle East. This plant can be used for other things besides food, like creating medicine for people. Me and my family used to grow this plant on our farm  most of the time because instead of use going to pharmacies  we would make medicine with our own hands. We would melt the flower in boiled hot water with some salt and e drink it if we have a fever or if we have a bad scratch we would use it instead of alcohol .The beef on top of the rice is either made out of camel or goat. When we cook the camel me and my family kill the camel or the goat so that way when we cook it we cook it fresh. The goat is easy to kill we just tie its legs, say some religious words and then cut its throat with a knife. We let the goat dead on the ground for 15 minutes so it’s soul could come out of its body. Then we start taking out the fat, organs and other parts of its body for us to cook. The best par about that is we take the goats fur and make coats out of it for the winter. The fur of the goat has to be in a hot 100 degree boiled water for 24 hours so the fur can be clean and ready to be designed for a coat. After all that we clean the goats meat by  leaving the meet in hot water with olive oil and salt. You see we don’t use any type of olive oil, we use the olive oil that we made on our hand’s. My family has a lot of olive trees on the farm. They take the olive that is so black and the start squeezing it into the bucket with a squeezer. The reason why we take the black ones it’s because the black ones mean the olive is ready, if it is green then its not ready yet. When the meat is ready we put the meat inside the Jamid soup. The camel on the other side is hard to kill because we all know that the camel is huge. When we kill the camel we have tie his leg with a huge rope to to a big solid tree and put on his head a black bag. After that we grab a huge sword and cut it’s throat. When we cut it’s throat every single one of us runs away from him. The reason why run away from it’s because when the camel is dead it will start to kick and kill everything around it. We the camel is completely dead and it is laying on the ground we leave it on the ground for half an hour. After that we start cutting the camel taking out it’s organs, fat and the fur. We keep the meat of the camel and throw the rest away because it is not useful. Just like we cooked the goat the same thing we do with the camel meat except we leave it in the hot water with salt and olive oil for 32 hours. The nut’s are cooked normally in a pan with olive oil on the camp fire of the farm. The nuts are there for decoration but it makes a better taste for the rice when we poor the soup.

This dish was made in 1920 by Jordanian Desert Farmers. I knew it was created on that year from my grandfather. He told me his ancestor’s used to tell him and the others about this dish and on what year it was created. The same year when the food was created the government of Jordan made it officially the food of the country. They created this recipe so they could eat every time their hungry or to celebrate a holiday like Ramadan or Eid Adha. The desert Jordanian farmers took the yogurt and let it dry in the sun not even leaving one drop of liquid in the yogurt. The reason why the Jamid  yogurt is dry and solid like a rock Its because Jordanian farmers made the yogurt dry because there’s times when the goat cant make more yogurt. They saved a lot of yogurt by doing that and also the yogurt does not fungi too fast.


I love mansaf so much because every time I eat it I get flash backs of the old good days I had in my country. It let’s remember the days when I used to sit at night in the desert  and eating it with my cousins and family. I also love this dish because It’s so good and delicious. I like this dish home made by my father, it taste better in my opinion when it is home made. He has been making this dish for many years and he knows what use in the United States for this dish to make it taste the same as it is in my country. This recipe means the whole world to me from it amazing taste. I eat this dish because it represents where I’m from and it make’s me so proud of it’s beautiful taste. I’m from Jordan that’s why I’m proud of this recipe. Not every one know’s this dish but I recommend people to try it. It is so good and it is worth trying it. Not everyone has the same taste as mine but people got nothing to lose if they give it a shot.

This is the historical background of the mansaf and why I love this dish so much. People can always try different things to eat everyday. Enjoy other foods in this world even if you have never tried it that dish before. Always be proud of your culture for what foods they created.

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