So the AVA (The American Veal Association) has made a bit of an announcement… They are Phasing out the method of chaining their calves by the neck inside their lonely crates by 2017. They are of course chained and crated in order to immobilize them and create tender veal.

2017? Phasing out?!? This is a pathetic announcement in my honest opinion. It is truly so hard to stop chaining them by their necks that it is going to take 9 or 10 years?

GoVeg.com calls this a “historic change”, and I guess it could be considered a baby step, but one baby step that will take a decade to hit the ground.

These insanely slow baby steps are becoming more common news. In the past year, Smithfield Foods, Maple Leaf Foods, and Cargill Meat Solutions have all pledged to phase out the use of those horrible gestation crates. Again with the phasing out! The fact that they are phasing it out at all, is them admitting that it is a cruel practice, and therefore these methods should not be phased out, but stopped in their tracks.

Some fast food joints are hopping onto that baby step bandwagon as well. It took SIX years of negotiations with PETA to get Burger King to give in and pledge to purchase 20 percent of it’s pig meat from suppliers that do not use the gestation crates, and 5 percent of it’s eggs from suppliers that do not use battery cages (a 5 to a filing cabinet drawer-sized cage). It did not take long for Wendy’s to jump in sign practically the same deal.

20 percent? 5 percent? It took six years for them to sign up?! Again, pledging at all is the admission of cruelty, and deciding that they are only going to be 80% as cruel to pigs and only 95% as cruel to chickens does not exactly impress me. More than anything, it angers me. If you even buy a small fry from these guys as a vegetarian, then they will feel like they have done enough.

-Mr. SoVeg