Hey, Jack, can you make me a snarky custom badge to give yourself the last word instead of actually having to engage with a lowly commenter and articulate your argument beyond “I’ll just leave this little ol’ video riiiiight heeeerrrre…”? Yay, mature discourse!

Since everyone is throwing their opinions around, I thought I’d throw in my experience. During my high school years, my dad was the director of purchasing for a national restaurant chain. I accompanied him on a number of business trips. I’ve been to slaughterhouses and meat processing plants. I’ve seen cows, chickens, turkeys and pigs tied or grouped up and slaughtered by machines, and I’ve seen how their bodies are stripped to the bone. It’s gruesome. There is nothing pleasant about their lives or deaths. I cried like a baby every time I saw them die because I’m a pansy-ass girl. I couldn’t eat anything for a day and a half the first time. I couldn’t eat meat without getting physically sick for months after each visit. And yet… I eat meat now. For several reasons, mainly because bacon is fucking delicious and I don’t have the time/money/willpower to support a vegetarian lifestyle (I wouldn’t go full vegan because dairy cows can have pretty decent lives, plus, milkshakes!). And because no matter how much I cried, the animals still died on schedule. I completely understand why some people choose a meat-free lifestyle and I support them, but I don’t think it makes them superior to meat eaters.  So, anyway, that’s my experience with the meat industry. I have no sympathy for fish.

Really? We’re going to use Taco Bell for a discussion about animal cruelty? Isn’t a company that spreads their beef out as far as it can go and probably not using the best cuts actually doing better for the animals by letting each animal’s death be put to as much use as possible, rather than being wasted? If you’re a vegan, I get it. You don’t approve of eating meat. But the fact is that most of us do, and most of us enjoy it, and most of us have no intention to stop. I’m not cool with the way some farms treat their animals, and when I know enough to make a decision at the supermarket, I’ll support a farm that is more humane, but often I don’t have that information, and I end up buying what meat is there. I don’t feel bad about it. I eat beef. I eat pork. I eat chicken. I eat turkey. I eat many different breeds of fish. I’m rather open-minded about what I’ll eat. The act of eating meat is not in itself a moral failure in my eyes. I haven’t the means to raise and slaughter my own meat so I leave it in the hands of professionals who I often have no choice but to trust that they are being humane in their practices. This is the sacrifice of the self-aware meat eater. Regardless of the ethical debate of eating meat in and of itself, this is very interesting by Taco Bell, to publicly address the accusations and throw out their own numbers which, while compared to the numbers in the lawsuit look good, aren’t very flattering on their own. They’re confident enough that they’re risking another false-advertising suit by running this. That’s balls, and I respect that. But then, I don’t go to Taco Bell for a quality dinner. Hell, I don’t even go to Taco Bell for quality Americanized Mexican food(and having been spoiled by Americanized Mexican food, I usually tend to prefer it to the real deal). I go there for something quick to sate an illogical craving. The same reason most of us go to any fast food restaurant. Even the restaurants that we may swear have the best this or that ever don’t seem like especially smart choices to make on a regular basis. I love Five Guys burgers and cajun fries, and I do buy into the hype enough to believe their food to be more “pure” than most fast-food restaurants, but I still don’t believe it to be healthy or an especially good choice very often.

This isn’t clockwork orange you don’t have to watch the video. Or you could turn it off or hit the back button. But information should be open and available. Watching this video made me sad. But, like Michael Jackson says : I’m Starting With The Man In The Mirror I’m Asking Him To Change His Ways So Keep On keeping on…