Vegucated

Heard a little about this documentary on Netflix from one of Kayla's cousins at their Christmas party and via a friend on facebook (this apparently has inspired her to order a vegan cookbook and try to eat vegan several times a week), so Kayla and I thought we'd watch it.

Like most of the Vegan-ish documentaries we watched I thought it was a good documentary. They discussed the China Study, "Where do you get your protein?" and they, of course, showed the sickening and disgusting footage of what happens in factory farms (as well as discussing the obvious environmental harm they place on our planet). The difference in this documentary, is that they do it through 3 randomly selected people that responded to a craigslist ad posted by the lady that came up with this idea.

They selected a lady with 2 children, a male and a younger female. All 3 were meat-eaters and loved cheese and dairy with their burgers. They all wanted to lose weight and that's why they responded to the ad. The documentary followed them (I'm not sure for how long, but I think it was mentioned) as they met a doctor, traveled to different places like Farm Sanctuary and also as they sat down with the sweet old dude from Forks Over Knives (pictured at the top right).

The "candidates" ran into some obvious emotional spots when they learned what the conditions of factory farms were, how the animals were treated, how the workers were treated and when they learned what "veal" really was... and more disgustingly (is that possible) what happened to male baby chicks. At one point, they even trespassed onto a factory farm and found, in a truck bed, multiple dead, rotting pigs with flies hovering all over them. At that point, they were very distraught and emotional... but would that last when they were back in reality? When they were back with friends? Family? When convenience and social pressures were around? You'll have to watch to see what happens to them.

All in all, there wasn't anything new that I learned from Vegucated but it's worth watching anyway.. especially if you have questions about the Vegan lifestyle. Or if you're considering it but not sure it's possible and you want to see how "average Jane and Joe" relate to the possible changes.

Side note: The most disturbing part of the video.. the part where I cried? That's when they showed live pigs being scalded in hot water then flipped, by machine, from the scalding hot water into basically a char broiler that spins them and sears the skin off their body. Absolutely inhumane in every sense of the word. Disgusting.

This video isn't from Vegucated, but it shows the condition these pigs have to deal with all over factory farms across the nation. It's not just pigs (as discussed) but cows, chickens, turkeys, and yes... even fish.

BTW: If you want a piece of worthless legislation to check out sometime.. they also make a good mention and mockery of our government when discussing the Animal Welfare Act and the current Food Guidelines as set forth by people like the FDA/USDA who have vested interests in what they tell you and your children (at school) what to eat.