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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsBurger King vows cage-free chicken and pork
The movement by U.S. food corporations toward more humane treatment of animals experienced a whopper of a shift Wednesday when Burger King announced that all of its eggs and pork will come from cage-free chickens and pigs by 2017.
The decision by the world's second-largest fast-food restaurant raises the bar for other companies seeking to appeal to the rising consumer demand for more humanely produced fare.
"So many tens of thousands of animals will now be in better living conditions," said Wayne Pacelle, president of the Humane Society of the United States, which has been pushing Burger King and other corporations to consider animal welfare in purchasing policies. "Numerically this is significant because Burger King is such a big purchaser of these products."
The decision by Burger King, which uses hundreds of millions of eggs and tens of millions of pounds of pork annually, could represent a game-change in the egg and pork supply business as a huge new market has opened up for humanely raised food animals. Already 9 percent of the company's eggs and 20 percent of its pork are cage-free.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/47172360/ns/business-us_business/
I applaud them, but the really huge problem is the treatment of cows, since beef is what they mainly sell.
Egalitarian Thug
(12,448 posts)for the sole purpose of killing and eating them, so there is a built-in cruelty, but going to the small effort of making this process as humane as we can is certainly a step in the right direction.
We have and work with horses and livestock, and knowing that none of our animals would even exist except that they provide their lives for us to continue with ours is a constant conundrum.
madokie
(51,076 posts)Burger king is coming to the town just over a ways.
thesquanderer
(11,990 posts)I hope they will ultimately extend it to beef, and based on the rest, it is probably their intent... but is probably more difficult due to the sheer amount of beef they require.
flvegan
(64,409 posts)but I do. Every step toward the positive is a good step.