Op-Ed
Imagine
hearing the cries of thousands of animals as you take a big bite of your meal.
Ever wonder where the food that many big companies such as McDonalds and Burger
King get their meat products. Not many Americans look at the real story behind
the process of where their food that they are about to consume comes from. Both
you and I know that animal abuse is the last thing that pops up in our heads
when we take a big of that nice juicy tender burger. They have to suffer
through the neglect and inhumane places where they are held just to provide us with
our food.
The blame
can’t fall on the factories but also the failure of government regulators to
join with the powerful meat industry to help the matters better. The meat
industry is morally untenable and often well hidden in modern society behind
large advertisements. Sue Coe an artiest that regulates the act of the cruelty
to animals through her artwork stated, “We need to educate the public about how
‘food’ is raised. I believe in the goodness of people, and I think people are
intelligent enough to make a choice. Open the doors to the slaughterhouses and
the factory farms. Let people see how sows are tethered in crates their entire
lives, standing on slats or concrete, not enough room to turn around. Pigs, in
a natural state, would spend 70% of their ‘waking hours exploring their
environment, making nests, rooting in the dirt and socializing” In an interview
back in 2005. Since she grew up living next to a slaughterhouse, as a child she
saw many terrible actions happening with the animals. Through her visual arts,
Coe continues to raise the public’s awareness of the abuse of living things
till this day. Through Sue’s work she wants to convey the message of what she
saw and felt so many off her views can feel the same way and realize the acts
behind what really is happening in these meat industries.