Vegetarianism Scientific And Spiritual Basis

Author(s): Jashwant B Mehta
Publisher: Jashwant B Mehta

Page 29

of their close and stressful confinement. They are fed yellow colour, antibiotics, and hormones daily. Everything fed is for a specific production advantage such as the coloured dye for darker yellow egg yolks. The chicks are separated from their mothers at birth. Excess male chicks not to be raised as broilers are generally killed by crushing whereas the female ones are raised for egg production. Like poultry farms, there are also farms for raising Ostrich, Turkey and Turtles. Even snails are bred so that they can be converted into 'gastronomic delights.' As many as two thousand snails are packed into a one square meter tray without any nourishment for two to three days for their final journey to be killed for food. With the opening of the Indian economy, non-vegetarian foods are widely introduced in the country and market is bring created for exotic meats of animals such as that of turkey, oyster, snail, quail, partridge (tittar), migratory birds, ostrich, kangaroo, wallaby, pangolin, peacock, rabbit, hare, deer, porcupine, wild boar, bison, dolphin - name them and they are made available as novelty foods. One doesn't need much imagination to realize the conditions under which these poor creatures are specially bred, housed and slaughtered. For example, in America exotic meats served include those of ratite (cassowary, emu, ostrich, kiwi, rhea), bear, lion, zebra, alligator, rattle snake and squirrel brain.
(c) Fishing: The list of cruel and unnatural methods and materials used by the fishing industry is endless; for example, fish removed from water and placed on ice gasp for air for about fifteen minutes before they die. The treatment of shellfish is indeed most cruel. They are commonly boiled alive and sometimes living crabs and lobsters are cut up and the flesh is scraped out of the live creature. The Queen conch meat is removed by making a hole in the shell, inserting a blade and detaching the animal; this meat is then removed by freezing or boiling to avoid damaging the shell. Live mussels' beards are pulled off and steamed. Crabs are considered fresh if claws move when pressed between the eyes; they are often made immobile by twisting off and breaking their legs and pincers, then killed by boiling alive in salt water or court-bouillon (stock), but for better quality crab meat they are smashed between the eyes with a heavy object like a pestle. And, as sharks' fins are sliced off, they linger and die
Ibid