Thursday, November 22, 2012

Getting fat for Kill Turkey Day

Tiffany Hsu, Los Angeles Times (Nov. 20, 2012); CC Liu, Wisdom Quarterly
Face it, or don't eat it. Or there's kind Tofurky. By eating it one is complicit it its torture and gruesome murder. Americans will buy 581 million pounds of turkey flesh for Thanksgiving this year but will trash more than a third of it (keepitsimplesurvival).
 
American tradition means eating dinner at lunch set up to look like a big family supper near Plymouth Rock, which means inviting the neighborhood Native American family to sit at one end. In the center is a big dead bird. This is sad enough, but it gets sadder:

A third of all Thanksgiving turkey meat won't be eaten.

SAD: Standard American Diet
Americans will buy 581 million pounds of the fowl, but 204 million pounds will end up in the trash can, the Natural Resources Defense Council reports.

Some 204 million pounds of meat will end up in the garbage after the holiday feast, according to an NRDC blog post.

The waste is especially appalling given that the resources required -- including feed, water and transportation -- to produce each pound of turkey are equivalent to fuel enough to drive a car 11 miles and take a 130-minute shower.

Natives never wasted any part of an animal.
Overall, that equates to greenhouse gas emissions equivalent to 800,000 car trips from New York to San Francisco and enough water to supply New York City for more than 100 days.

Over the full year, Americans chuck out $165 billion in uneaten food, according to the NRDC.

And turkey prices are not getting any cheaper. They are up 7% from a year ago, pushed by the severe summer drought... More

(EcoVeganGal) Glimpse of the 2009 Vegan Thanksgiving Potluck in LA.

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