Los Huevos que nos comemos

A todos nos gustan los huevos supergrandes, XXL, huevos enormes que «vaya», tienen una cáscara muy fina y luego el huevo apenas tiene color. Bueno, pues este tipo de huevos, a mi entender son los peores y los más baratos. Si quieres desarrollar una encefalopatía espongiforme, no deberías incorporar este tipo de proteinas a tu cuerpo.

Cada huevo lleva una numeración. El primer dígito nos dirá de qué tipo de huevo es.

Según el Instituto de Estudios de Huevo, la forma de la cria no influye sobre la composición nutritiva del huevo, pero vaya, parece sorprendente que los huevos que empiezan con un 3 sean enormes y los huevos ecológicos o camperos sean más pequeños, como un huevo clase M.

Intuyo viendo sólo el color de la yema (de un amarillo anaranjado potente en los camperos y de un amarillo limón apagado en los de jaula) que un huevo campero «por supuesto» debe tener una calidad de proteinas mucho mayor que las de un huevo industrial clase «jaula» (Código 3).

Además, si te interesan un poco los animales, verás como viven las gallinas de la clase 3 (Jaula).

 

CÓDIGO 3 = Cria en Jaula

La gallina es fácil de limpiar, tiene acceso a la comida y el agua contínuamente, la separan del estiércol. Lo que no dicen es que la hinchan a hormonas para que crezca a la mayor velocidad posible y que de la mayor cantidad de huevos posibles (enormes si puede ser).

Ahora la cruda realidad. Extraido de Fundación Altarriba

Fuente: The Farm Sanctuary, The Humane Society of the United States, PETA
Traducción: Fundación Altarriba

Se denominan «gallinas ponedoras» las que se destinan principalmente a la producción de huevos.

Su vida comienza en una incubadora en una granja de pollitos. Pero la mitad de los que salen del cascarón son machos, y los matan al cabo de uno o dos días porque no hacen falta. Cada año mueren millones.

© PETA

Los machos no sirven para el negocio de los huevos, y son demasiado pequeños para comerciar con su carne, así cada año se tiran millones de ellos a la basura para asfixiarlos, o se arrojan todavía vivos a unas trituradoras de alta velocidad llamadas «picadoras».

Este bebé sigue vivo, tirado dentro de un contenedor entre los cadáveres de sus compañeros. Todos han sido desechados por la industria.

Cuando las hembras están en edad de poner huevos, con unas 16 ó 18 semanas, se trasladan a la granja de gallinas, una instalación que en general consiste en varios edificios, cada uno de ellos de la longitud de un campo de fútbol, llenos de filas de jaulas metálicas, apiladas a veces hasta el mismo techo: es lo que se llama «gallinas de batería«. Estas jaulas tienen el suelo en desnivel, de forma que el huevo ruede hasta una cinta transportadora camino del siguiente paso de producción.

Para optimizar la producción de cada edificio, se encajan tantas gallinas en la misma jaula como sea posible, y cada animal dispone de una superficie similar a la de medio folio de papel. Las condiciones son reducidas e impiden al animal realizar conductas normales como anidar y asearse, ambas importantes para las gallinas.

© PETA

Las jaulas se apilan unas sobre otras, y los excrementos caen a las de debajo.

El amoniaco y el hedor de las heces contaminan el aire, y proliferan las infecciones y las enfermedades, como las graves y dolorosas que el amoniaco (ver foto central) produce en la piel al fijarse en las plumas.

Las gallinas que consiguen escapar de las jaulas caen sobre la pila de deshechos orgánicos, donde mueren.

Cada edificio puede albergar unas 200.000 gallinas, e incluso más, produciendo cada una de ellas una media de huevos superior a los 260.

Las estadísticas de 1940 indicaban una producción de 134 huevos por gallina y año, lo que nos da idea de las manipulaciones genéticas y ambientales que se han llevado a cabo para duplicar la producción.

Esta puesta intensiva es completamente antinatural, y provoca todo tipo de secuelas en los cuerpos de las gallinas.

© PETA

El hacinamiento extremo y las condiciones artificiales generan múltiples problemas, incluyendo daños y lesiones en las patas y las plumas por las propias jaulas.

Por si no fuera poco, añadimos la absoluta falta de ejercicio sumada a la superproducción de huevos, y tenemos osteoporosis y fracturas óseas.

Forzadas a una vida entera de pie, se les deforman las patas, el alambre corta sus dedos, que además se arquean y se convierten en garras al sostenerse en una superficie inadecuada.

© PETA

La osteoporosis es una afección común en estas gallinas, ya que sus cuerpos pierden más calcio en la producción de cada huevo del que pueden asimilar en su alimentación. Una revista del sector (Lancaster Farming) afirmaba que «… una gallina gasta al cabo del año en producir huevos una cantidad de calcio superior a la de su propio esqueleto». La falta de calcio les provoca fracturas óseas, parálisis y la muerte.

También por este apilamiento hay millones de aves que pueden sufren asfixia en las olas de calor, ya que no hay la ventilación adecuada. Y lo que es más, las heces y el polvo crean una atmósfera insalubre.

Picarse unas a otras de forma constante es una de las reacciones de las gallinas para combatir el stress. Para reducir los daños derivados de esto, la industria de los huevos ha ideado un proceso: cortarles un trozo de pico. Con ello, le seccionan también las terminaciones nerviosas del pico, que puede degenerar en anomalías del tejido nervioso.

© PETA

Se les corta un trozo de pico con una hoja al rojo vivo. No les dan calmantes, y algunas, incapaces de comer por el dolor, mueren deshidratadas y con el sistema inmunitario deshecho.

Pero aún hay otra cosa más. Algunas de estas fábricas de huevos provocan la «muda forzada»: se deja a la gallinas sin comer ni beber durante dos semanas, a oscuras, provocando que todas muden (cambien las plumas) a la vez, porque la muda hace comenzar de nuevo el ciclo de la puesta de huevos cuando la producción baja, y así alargan la productividad económica de estos animales.

Esta práctica, extremadamente cruel, se llama «muda forzada» porque hace que pierdan las plumas y un significativo porcentaje (25%) de su peso normal; de hecho, muchas (10%) mueren de hambre y deshidratación. La gallina de la foto fue rescatada de una fábrica de huevos con el cuerpo destrozado por este procedimiento.

© PETA

En comparación, las gallinas ponedoras de granjas más familiares, que no viven en jaulas, llevan una vida más normal. Tienen espacio para moverse y para aletear. Pueden socializarse y desarrollar conductas naturales como escarbar en el suelo y asearse.

Después de un año o dos, las gallinas dejan de ser rentables y se envían al matadero, son las «gallinas gastadas». Sus huesos frágiles se suelen romper durante el manejo o ya en el matadero. En general, acaban siendo ingrediente de sopas, caldos o productos cárnicos similares de bajo contenido en pollo, en lo que sus cuerpos pueden ir totalmente triturados para que el consumidor no detecte hematomas ni heridas.

Los productores de este tipo de huevos han encontrado en los mataderos avícolas y en los subproductos de gallina una nueva posibilidad para deshacerse de las «gastadas», incluyendo su inclusión en el pienso para animales de compañía.

Bueno, pues esto es lo que nos comemos tan ricamente cuando nos zampamos un superhuevo XXL. Quieres ver lo que tarda en crecer un pollo, mira este video.

 

CÓDIGO 2 = Cria en Jaula

Aquí las gallinas están dentro de la nave, pero no están en jaulas en batería, sino que pueden moverse libremente.

 

CÓDIGO 1 = Camperas

Las gallinas pueden salir al aire libre y que les de el Sol.

 

CÓDIGO 0 = Ecológicas

Las gallinas pueden salir al aire libre, que les de el Sol y además son alimentadas con pienso de agricultura ecológica.

 

Y para que veais el tratamiento que reciben los animales antes, durante y posterior a su sacrificio, bueno leerse lo siguiente extraido de United Poultry Concerns.

Formal Complaint, Whistleblower Tell of Deliberate Torture of Birds at Tyson Plant

Based on a chilling eyewitness account of sadistic torture and routine cruelty at a Tyson chicken slaughterhouse in Grannis, Ark., People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) is calling for prosecution of Tyson Foods and five of its employees on charges of cruelty to animals.

Virgil Butler, a Tyson slaughterhouse employee for more than five years, contacted PETA to alert the group to the extreme animal abuse that he had witnessed, including birds being blown apart by dry ice bombs and intentionally scalded to death by the hundreds, and large chickens having their legs broken to fit them into shackles that are too small.

Tyson Foods is the top supplier of chickens to KFC, against which PETA launched an international campaign last month in an effort to persuade the company to eliminate the worst animal abuses.

«Almost two years ago, KFC assured us it would ‘raise the bar’ on animal welfare, and yet we find that its key supplier is now accused of horrendous cruelty to animals. We want cameras all KFC and Tyson slaughterhouses and unannounced inspections, not preannounced visits,» says PETA Vegan Outreach director Bruce Friedrich. «The abuse Mr. Butler says he has witnessed is beyond appalling.»

Among the improvements that PETA wants Tyson and KFC to implement are: replacing crude and ineffective electric stunning and throat-slitting with gas killing; phasing out the forced rapid growth of chickens, which causes metabolic disorders and lameness; increasing the space allotted per bird; and adding minimal enhancements, such as perches in order to provide chickens with some semblance of their natural environment.

---

Signed statement of Tyson employee, Virgil Butler

January 30, 2003

My name is Virgil Butler. I worked at the Tyson plant in Grannis, Arkansas from July, 1997 until November 12, 2002. I worked on the night shift in the Receiving department as a live-hanger as well as on the kill-floor.

I personally witnessed many acts of cruelty toward the chickens by employees of the plant on a nightly basis:

One of the most recent problems that I observed was the night shift superintendent, Richard Frasier, turning down the stunner and ordering the employees to leave it down. This machine is the device that is supposed to stun chickens before they are killed. Turning it down results in the chickens missing the killing machine and evading the killer behind the machine, so that they end up being scalded to death by water in the scalding tank. The scalding tank loosens up the feathers so that they can be picked out. The chickens are supposed to be dead before they reach this point. I, as well as Ed Taylor (my immediate supervisor), Troy Shepmann, and Aron Harris (fellow employees) argued this action with Richard, who refused to stop doing this. We were not given a reason behind Richard’s decision.

The expected percentage that the killing machine was supposed to kill by slitting throats was 86%. On an extremely good night that percentage was accurate. The remaining chickens would miss the blade altogether. Most nights the percentage would fall to the high 70’s. Some nights, even worse.

I was responsible for trying to slit the throats of the chickens the machine missed on the nights I worked the killing room. Our line runs 182 shackles per minute. It is physically impossible to catch them all. Therefore, they are scalded alive. When this happens, the chickens flop, scream, kick, and their eyeballs pop out of their heads. Then, they often come out the other end with broken bones and disfigured and missing body parts because they’ve struggled so much in the tank. Sometimes, when we had a line broken down, they would be left hanging upside down in the stunner in the water to drown. In the stunner, the water is cold and salted to better conduct the electricity. I have personally seen them hang in this position for hours.

One night in early spring last year we lost hydraulic pressure. Perhaps 300-400 chickens missed the stunner because the line slowed down so much that the birds could avoid it while those who were stunned were able to recover by the time they reached the killing machine-which was only working sporadically. The live birds were left hanging upside down in the scalders while the machinery was being fixed. We could have quit hanging more chickens at this point and let the line run empty while the killing machine was off-line. Instead, we were ordered by Richard Frasier and Ed Taylor to continue to hang the chickens, while Aron Harris was required to kill all of them by hand. This could not be done by one person, even at half the speed and it was clear to everyone there that birds were going by untouched. Several hundred chickens were scalded to death by this decision.

Most of my fellow employees were extremely abusive to the chickens. Our job was simply to pick the chickens up off of the belt and hang them upside down into the shackles. This could rarely be accomplished without problems, due to several reasons.

We were extremely shorthanded, due to the horrendous working conditions. This led to a high turnover rate with inexperienced, frustrated, workers under pressure to keep the production numbers up. If production fell, it would mean overtime work, so the belt speed was turned up. This resulted in the belt becoming overloaded in the area where the chickens awaited shackling, which ended up smothering hundreds of chickens a night. I heard Richard Frasier say, «I would rather smother a few hundred goddamned birds, than to lose time because of empty shackles.» (This was said in late July, 2002 when temperatures in the hanging cage were exceeding 100 degrees in the middle of the night.)

The absence of climate control is another cause of unnecessary suffering that results in death to the chickens. The heater in the «cage,» which is the area where birds are hung, worked less than half of the time I worked there. Many times the temperatures would be well below freezing. This resulted in the chickens freezing to the belt last winter and the winter before. They froze to death this way inside the building, where the temperature was below freezing. I and my co-workers complained about this to Richard Frasier, but to no avail. He would just turn and walk away. The reverse of this problem happened in the summer time, where there is no adequate air conditioning. Most of the time, it doesn’t work at all, and blows hot air. This results in the chickens dying of heat stroke, heart attack, and suffocation.

When the plant breaks down or when there are too many chickens on the kill schedule for the shift, they are left over for the next shift. For the night shift, this is not as bad in the summer time as it is in the winter, because the chickens are forced to sit out in the cages on the trucks. In the summer on day shift, though, when they leave birds, they sit from 3:30 p.m. until 9 p.m. under a tin shed roof with no water and no food. I have seen hundreds die of dehydration from this practice. This could be remedied by simply stopping the catchers from catching any more until the problem in the plant is resolved or by not scheduling as big a kill to begin with.

These uncomfortable conditions, coupled with the unrelenting pressure to keep the shackles filled at all costs, lead to much frustration and outright rage among the employees.

I have witnessed Troy Shepmann build dry ice bombs (made by putting dry ice and a small amount of water in a plastic Pepsi bottle and screwing the lid down tight) and putting it on the belt with live chickens during break time. This results in a high pressure explosion that rips the chickens’ bodies apart and scatters them all over the room. This occurred numerous times, but the one I remember the most was one night last June when he made a small dry ice bomb by shoving a piece of dry ice up a live chicken’s rectum, then plugging it with a wooden cork. It built up enough pressure inside the chicken to blow it apart.

I have also seen Aron Harris rip the heads, legs, and wings off of live chickens, or just stomp them to death on the floor because he was aggravated. This occurred on a regular basis for about the last year and a half that I worked there.

I have also seen George Watson, a forklift driver, run over the chickens on purpose, then laugh about it. These kinds of incidents were ongoing and repetitive–just a part of a regular night’s work.

Other problems that came up when I worked there were a result of mismanagement. One, in particular, happened several times when we would get orders for bigger birds. The worst was in the week ending on September 14 of last year. In this instance we were given thousands of chickens to hang that were above the size limit we were used to. The shackles were not designed to fit the oversize legs of the chickens. They were too small for their legs to fit into. In the process of hanging the live birds, we were forced to break their legs to get them to fit into the shackles. This was unnecessary. The shackles could have been spread out to fit the larger-sized birds. It would only have taken about an hour for two maintenance personnel to accomplish this. However, Richard Frasier decided that it wasn’t necessary and didn’t want to lose the production time to do it.

According to published plant progress reports, most of the chicken run by this plant is destined for shipment to Kentucky Fried Chicken. We processed deboned thigh and leg meat and boneless, skinless split breasts. Most of the deboned meat is shipped to a further processing plant where it is made into chicken nuggets for KFC.

I am writing this letter because I want to see something done about this cruelty. I don’t wish to be a part of the nightmare any longer and am willing to speak out about this to anyone at any time.

Thank you,

Virgil Butler