If you're anything like me, it's hard just to HEAR about animal abuse on farms that raise animals for food let alone SEE it in action in undercover videos. Whenever a video is released, I can't stomach watching even a single second of it and instead opt to read the write up. Quite honesty, I'm not sure who can watch them besides the owners of these farms who believe their actions are "acceptable" industry practices and the employees committing these gruesome acts as if they were doing nothing more than taking a walk in the park. Last month, a Mercy For Animals investigation of E6 Cattle Company in Texas, which raises more than 10,000 calves for use on dairy farms, resulted in some of the most disturbing video produced in the animal protection movement’s history. The investigation sparked national outrage, caused the live-cattle stock price to drop, fueled efforts to halt legislation to criminalize whistleblowers for videotaping animal cruelty and holding abusers accountable, and prompted countless consumers to consider for the first time the plight of calves born into the dairy industry.
And yet countless others couldn't bear witness to such suffering nor the horrific images in the video and therefore were unable to fully appreciate the whole story. Until now.
In this 12-minute short film by director Zohar Julius, he masterfully takes us through every important detail of the E6 investigation without resorting to heart wrenching, soul-shredding graphic imagery. At the same time, he shows us how the dairy industry and the veal industry are joined at the hip and why one can’t purchase commercial milk without supporting the abuse and killing of calves.
If you haven't been able to watch an undercover video in the past, I encourage you to check out this one. It is vitally important everyone understands where their food comes from...including the milk you put in your morning coffee. And if this doesn't inspire you to, at the very least, cut your dairy consumption down, if you can still put milk on your cereal for breakfast or make a grilled-cheese sandwich for dinner knowing what you know about the dairy industry, then please share this video with others who may be inspired to eat more compassionately. You owe the calves suffering at your hands that much.
And one final note: if you don't believe your milk is associated with a place like E6, please do your own investigation. Call up the company you buy your milk from and ask to visit their farm. I bet you a million dollars an invitation will not be extended to you. Then ask them to tell you what they do with the calves that are "by products." Get the name of the company they ship them off to. Keep asking questions until you can trace your milk back to the cow which it came from and the calf it should have gone to. And when they don't give you specific answers, when they toss out words like "bio-security" and "confidential" and "company policy won't allow us," sit back and ask yourself, "What are they hiding?"
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1IkwE8tHBAs&w=640&h=390]