Season of Suffering: Untold Tales of Animals on Your Plate   
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The images in the following program are highly sensitive and may be as disturbing to viewers as they were to us. However, we have to show the truth about cruelty to animals, praying that you will help to stop it.

Involved viewers, this is the Stop Animal Cruelty series on Supreme Master Television. When you think of a festive season, what images comes to mind? Perhaps you reminisce about past gatherings and happy times with friends, family, and loved ones.

Every year on the 25th of December, people from across the globe celebrate the birth of the beloved Master Jesus Christ. He is truly the embodiment of light, hope and benevolence. The joyous times may include a special holiday meal… but have you ever thought about where some of the dishes being served actually came from? The answer may shock you.

For billions of beings across the world, Christmas and the rest of the year are filled with pain, suffering, fear and sadness. Surely everyone agrees that Jesus Christ would have never wanted the innocent and meek to be subjected to cruel treatment like this, let alone on the celebration of his birthday.

Paisley the Pig

I was born in this place; it’s quite dark in here. I don’t know where my family is, they have all been taken away. We get beaten very often; even though we didn’t do anything wrong. The other day a man pointed to me and said that I would be a Christmas roast this year... I am not sure what he meant, but I hope it means that my life will become better.

Paisley does not realize that her life will end quite soon and she will be turned into a roll of roast ham for the holiday season. She will be viciously killed by having her throat slit open and then be dropped into a vat of boiling water. Can anyone eat ham knowing that a porcine friend lived their entire life in despair and then was murdered to produce meat?

During festive occasions many people eat sweets such as cakes, cookies, and other baked goods containing eggs. But at what cost to animal lives? Chickens trapped in egg production facilities are forced to lay more eggs than they could ever possibly imagine. By manipulating the lighting in the shed and their diet, farmers cause birds to shed their feathers which stimulate egg production.

A bird is thus induced to lay up to 290 eggs per year, which is 10 times the normal amount for a hen. When the hen ceases to reach her expected production amount, she is barbarically killed and her carcass is sold for consumption.

Hannah the Hen

I’m Hannah. These days I am laying so many eggs, yet they all get taken away and then I have to start all over again. It’s really uncomfortable. My home, called a battery cage, is essentially a prison – it’s very small and the cage wires cut my feet. The wounds never get time to heal; the wires just cut them again. I cannot turn around or flap my wings.

When I tried to show my unhappiness by plucking my feathers - the humans came and just cut my beak off. It was the most painful thing that has ever happened to me, I cried the entire day.

These gentle beings are artificially inseminated and turned into egg laying machines against their will. Crowded and utterly filthy conditions result in many terrible diseases running rampant through the battery cages such as bird flu.

In 2010, approximately 380 million chicken eggs produced by two factory farms in the US were recalled due to salmonella contamination. Salmonella, a type of bacteria, causes severe diarrhea, abdominal cramps, and fever. Some people develop Reiter’s syndrome which is marked by joint pain, irritation of the eyes, and painful urination and can last for years.

Other beings that will have no reason to celebrate this Christmas are dairy cows and their young. A dairy cow’s fate is quite bleak: though it jeopardizes her health and welfare, she will be kept pregnant via artificial insemination her entire life in order to maximize the milk that can be taken from her body. Being milked every day results in her udders being swollen and infected, and sometimes even causes bleeding.

When she gives birth, her baby will be torn away from her immediately. A newborn’s destiny is just as dark as their mother’s: to join a dairy farm if female or sold for veal if male. Calves that are seriously ill or otherwise deemed to lack economic value will be bludgeoned to death or just left to die.

Carla the Cow

My name is Carla. I hope you are enjoying your Christmas season. I wish I could also enjoy Christmas with my family, but I do not know where my parents or children are. They put something in me to make me have another baby as soon as they take my newborn. And they milk me all the time. My legs are so sore from standing – I do not have room to move around. My entire body aches. I have never been outside. There are so many of us in here; it smells so bad.

Finally, tired and worn out from her harsh life and all the hormones and antibiotics she has received, Carla will also be sent off to slaughter – her murder will begin with an electric shock or the shooting of a captive bolt gun into her skull which is meant to stun but often fails, followed by her throat being slashed while hanging upside down – possibly while she is still breathing and fully conscious.

Although banned in some countries and cities across the globe, the sickening production of foie gras unfortunately continues today. Making foie gras involves regularly forcing a pipe down a goose’s throat in order to inject a large quantity of food into his stomach.

This painful procedure is not only extremely stressful and traumatizing, but also damages his beak, scars his throat and esophagus and inflames his liver. Force feeding a goose results in his liver expanding up to 10 times its normal size. Knowing what foie gras is – diseased liver tissue from a tortured goose– there is no way one could possibly calls this item a “delicacy.”

Gary the Goose

My name is Gary; I wish I could spend a nice warm Christmas with my friends and family – instead of living like this. I know my time is coming to an end soon, because they are force feeding me even more frequently these days. It really hurts everywhere. My mouth, my throat, my stomach, my liver, my kidneys, everything is swollen up. It feels as if I am bleeding myself to death from the inside out. Maybe I am…

Through deep sea trawling, which has been likened to strip mining for its level of destructiveness, and other methods marine life like fish, lobster, shrimp and others are snatched in the billions from their homes every year, resulting in their painful death and environmental devastation. In large-scale aquaculture operations, fish are jammed tightly together.

Tuna in the wild can live for up to 40 years and swim 70 kilometers per hour. However, in the farms 2,000 tuna are confined to a 30 meter tank. Wild salmon are migratory and are used to swimming across oceans, thus claustrophobic confinement causes some farmed salmon to die from stress.

When the fish are to be sent to market, they are cruelly stunned with electricity or put into water saturated with nitrogen so that they cannot breathe and therefore suffocate to death. Other sickening methods of killing sea life include placing lobsters in boiling water, a practice so inhumane that it has been made illegal in some places, including Reggio Emilia, Italy.

Leo the Lobster

I am Leo the Lobster. I know some people think I do not have feelings, but it’s not true. I have a heart, eyes, hands and legs – maybe they just look different than yours. I am small, and hope to be protected, not violently cut up, stabbed or thrown into boiling water. Believe me, I do feel pain, being immersed in boiling water will hurt and kill me, just like it would do to you. I hope you will remember I have feelings. Have a Happy Christmas.

According to research conducted by In Defense of Animals, a US-based non-profit animal welfare organization, due to selective breeding and the use of antibiotics to unnaturally speed growth, today’s factory farmed turkeys are nearly double the size of their wild ancestors. They grow so large that their legs have difficulty holding up their bodies and they can barely walk about.

Teresa the Turkey

My name is Teresa, I have been living in this space with thousands of other turkeys since I can remember. I don’t know who my mother is: I was hatched by a machine. Life here is terrible, and many of my friends have gone crazy, because it’s too crowded and hard to breath.

When some start pecking due to frustration, the humans just cut off their beaks and sometimes also their claws. They say it was very painful, and still is. Why do humans do this to us? Every single second of our lives is filled with pain, anguish and fear. Please help us.

Turkeys are forced to lay many eggs which then get taken away. The eggs are hatched in incubators, and the poor baby chicks will never see their mother. Their fate will be the same as hers – death in the slaughterhouse – as the merciless turkey production cycle continues.

Another kind animal that will suffer tremendously due to cruel treatment this holiday season is an icon of Christmas, the reindeer. Reindeer are found in Scandinavia, Russia, North Asia, and North America. Some are semi- domesticated and are raised in herds. In certain Scandinavian countries they are sent to slaughterhouses for their meat.

My name is Rudolph the Reindeer. We used to always enjoy Christmas in peace and harmony until humans decided to make us a part of Christmas dinner. Please stop eating all animals, we are in agony. You have so many other choices. Please let us enjoy our lives; stop hurting and killing us. We did not do anything to you, why are you doing this to us?

Statistics say that one child dies of hunger every five seconds – while more than a third of the world’s cereal and up to 90% of soy is currently fed to livestock. Grain consumed by livestock is enough to feed two billion people. Eating animal products means the death of billions of animals, endangers our health, and kills our fellow human-beings.

During the Christmas season many of us will be enjoying days filled with peace and love; however many beings on our planet will sit silently in tremendous agony. Please remember that during these festive times and the rest of the year, all of us can very easily help our animal friends by simply making a different selection for our meals.

By choosing not to eat animal flesh, carcasses, organs and products; by not turning our stomachs into the graveyards of animals, we can all ensure a better life for all beings. If we follow an organic vegan diet, all will live in tranquility, harmony and abundance. In the wise words of Supreme Master Ching Hai: “If the lion is to lie down next to the lamb peacefully, humans must do it first.”

Thank you for joining us today for this edition of the Stop Animal Cruelty series. Coming up next is Enlightening Entertainment, after Noteworthy News. May peace always reign upon our Earth.


  The Animals You Eat: A Film by Jodi Ruckley 
 Pigs in Peril: Dutch Lawyer Hans Baaij on Porcine Welfare (In Dutch) 

 
 
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