Bacon bacon bacon

Ok. It's literally things like these that I just never knew about. That's why I didn't care if I splurged on some bacon every once in a while. I think if everyone knew the tortuous conditions that animals are raised in for slaughter, they'd resist the bacon, as well.

These are gestation crates. They are where sows (female pigs) are kept during pregnancy.

Via Wikipedia: "A gestation crate, also known as a sow stall, is a 7 ft by 2 ft[2] metal enclosure in which a female breeding pig (sow) may be confined during pregnancy, and in effect for most of her adult life.[3]
Between 60 and 70 percent of sows are confined in crates during pregnancy in the United States,[4] each pregnancy lasting four months, with an average of 2.5 litters every year.[5] Sows, who can weigh 600 lbs,[6] spend most of their three or four years of adult life in crates,[6] giving birth to between five and eight litters. As the sows grow larger, they no longer fit in the crates, and must sleep on their chests, unable to turn, until they are slaughtered.[7] The crates are usually placed side by side in rows of 20 sows per row and 100 rows per shed, the floors of the crates slatted to allow excrement to fall into a pit below."

These have been banned in Florida and Arizona. They will be on the ballot to be banned in California in the November 2008 election, if you want to vote on it.

If I had known that my bacon was lineaged from pigs kept in feces-ridden gestation crates where they couldn't even turn around, I wouldn't have ever eaten it. It's like eating bad karma. How the hell did these conditions ever become normal? And why didn't I know about it until today?