In some parts of the world millions of turkeys are killed and eaten for festive November and December holidays, such as Thanksgiving and Christmas, so now is the time to think about turkeys. There is still time for many more people to learn, understand, and be inspired to change their traditions. If you are planning to consume the dead flesh of a bird for your holiday meal, please read this post with an open mind.
Turkeys are ancient birds, who evolved in North America more than twenty million years ago (long before the human animals evolved into Homo sapiens), and they are intelligent, social beings. Many people believe that turkeys are stupid, but that is false. The truth is that the human practice of domesticating the turkeys (which began about two thousand years ago), led to overfeeding them, which causes them to be grossly overweight and in much physical pain — so they are slow, but not stupid.
In More Than a Meal: The Turkey in History, Myth, Ritual, and Reality, Karen Davis, Ph.D. (of United Poultry Concerns) writes, “Sanctuary workers such as myself, who have spent years in the company of turkeys and chickens bred for the meat industry, know that these birds have not been… reduced to minimal intelligence…. Rather than showing that chickens and turkeys are stupid, the fact they become lethargic in continuously unstimulating commercial environments shows how sensitive these birds are to their surroundings, deprivations, and prospects…” She then describes their “learned helplessness” and “apathy and atrophy of body and spirit” when they are “reared motherless on factory farms, in buildings in which the dimensions of time and space are reduced to monotonous extensions of toxic waste devoid of comfort, colors, and novelty, and which are filled with thousands of sick, dead, and dying birds stretching along a floor farther than the eye can see…” (pp. 130-131)
Once you have learned about the intelligence and sentience (able to feel pain and pleasure through the senses) of turkeys, then you begin to understand that they are suffering tremendously on factory farms. And, after the turkeys are killed, the vibrations of their depression, fear, anxiety, and anger continue to resonate in their flesh. When people consume that cooked flesh, those negative emotional energies (along with toxic violent frequencies from the act of killing), go into the human body.
Thankfully, there is another way. Holiday traditions can be revised to be more peaceful. The first step is contemplating the beautiful and majestic turkeys, and thinking about how they are feeling beings, just like human beings. They want to live just like we do. After cultivating compassionate thoughts for the turkeys, the next step is deciding to create a peaceful holiday meal. There are many ways to celebrate the festive traditions without eating animal flesh and fluids. A sweet little google search will bring thousands of delicious vegan recipes before your eyes!
I pray that this little post will influence many more people to learn and understand about turkeys, and thus to change their holiday traditions.
Turkeys: source unknown; appears on many websites.
