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Have Your CAK And Eat It Too
Monday, June 23, 2008 at 12:44PM 
Is it just me or has the world gone crazy?
According to a recent report by Sonja Barisic of the Associated Press, Kentucky Fried Chicken franchisees in Canada have been pressured by People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PeTA) to buy their chickens from suppliers that kill the animals by a "more humane method" than slitting their throats.
KFC Canada President Steve Langford has stated that KFC is working with PeTA on overhauling methods of poultry slaughter because "the ethical treatment of chickens is important to us."
Seriously, how long can it take to slit a chicken's throat ... and how long can the animal feel pain afterwards? Is there any way to measure these things?
(Really? Hmmm ... so what exactly is in those buckets if not fragments of dead chickens that have been dredged through the Colonel's special seasonings and fried in hot oil so that they could be sold for profit and consumed by human beings? Where precisely does ethics enter this picture?)
But such happy news for Canadian poultry! Over the next eight years KFC Canada will phase in the use of a method known as "controlled-atmosphere killing" (CAK) for all chickens purchased by its restaurants.
(Did you notice that word "killing" ... ?)
With CAK, instead of the chickens being conscious up to the time they are removed from their crates and their throats slit, they will remain in their crates where oxygen will be "removed" from them. Then they will have no choice but to breathe "inert" gases such as argon or nitrogen. According to PeTA spokesman Matt Prescott, the birds "do not suffocate but die painlessly."
(Did you notice that word "die" ... ?)
Will they pile up all the chickens' little eyeglasses and shoes and tooth fillings before gassing them? Because to me it smacks of what happened at Auschwitz and Dachau, except that it's poultry instead of people.
And trust me: I am a lifelong carnivore and no stripe of an animal rights activist. Doing this to chickens just sounds evil to me.
How about this: Do we know it will be safe for humans to eat the chickens that have died from being gassed? Is there concern for the ethical treatment of humans?
Oh, I forgot! That's not nearly as important as the ethical treatment of animals. HAHA! Silly me.
By the way, just wondering ... how does anyone presume to know what a chicken will experience when it is being gassed to death? I mean, can we be certain that a chicken suffers less under those circumstances than when its throat is slit quickly and (I assume) cleanly? And can one honestly assert that it matters either way?
Seriously, how long can it take to slit a chicken's throat ... and how long can the animal feel pain afterwards? Is there any way to measure these things? I doubt it, but we have to be talking about less than three seconds here.
So many questions.
In the end, folks, the result is the same: the chicken is dead and it gets eaten. Chickens are not being "abused" because of the method currently used to kill them so that humans can eat them. After all, the majority of them exist solely to be used as food and the only way that can happen is if they die first.
As a final absurdity, at the insistence of PeTA, KFC has "agreed to add a vegan faux-chicken option to its menu."
(Don't you know diners will show up by the droves at KFC, clamoring for that "faux" chicken? Is that by any chance a euphemism for a hamburger? Or, wait ... a veggieburger? Put bacon on mine, please.)
Sure hope Chick-fil-A doesn't go that route. Can you see the cows now, painting their billboards? EeT mOr Fo CHiKiN ...
Faux chicken ... KFC would be wise to serve that up on some PeTA bread.
Reader Comments (21)
I won't pass a KFC without thinking of you now.I wonder if the gas will add a new dimension of flavor to the other special ingredients? Great post. See...there is something new to learn every day.
Ah the absurities of our time. I agree that gassing them sounds much worse than slitting their throat. Don't people gasp for air and choke when they don't get enough oxygen, even if they are getting an inert substitute? I'm sure chickens would do the same. That sounds like suffocation to me, no matter what they say.
@ Cheryl ... yeah, LOL ... but that "learning" can be a tricky thing if it leads to foolishness like this! I don't frequent KFC anyway but I sure won't now.
@ Ruth ... my husband said the same thing ... he said, "Yes, they WILL suffocate!" I mean, if you slowly lose the ability to breathe, that is suffocating! It can't be pleasant.
Hahaha..."EeT mOr Fo CHiKiN"...you crack me up.
I do agree with you wholeheartedly, though. They're ANIMALS! Animals MEANT for food!! Sheesh.
Next thing you know they'll be making little chicken hotels for those that lay eggs, complete with down pillows and comfortable mattresses, because God forbid they go through any discomfort to deliver us eggs. Oh, wait, down pillows. Make that faux down pillows.
Great post Jenny. Having been present for our chicken killings I can tell you it's quick. But did you know that the chickens that we see on our store shelves are electrocuted? Yep, that's why you often see pools of blood in the meat because their blood flow was stopped and it pools. Oh and they drug them up to the beaks with antibiotics because the crowded conditions are disgusting and unhealthy. The chickens would get sick without antibiotics. This is why for years we raised our own. PETA people attack the wrong issues and are often very misguided. If they want to do a service, take care of the disgusting chicken factories. (Oh and I have to wonder how many of them have taken drugs or have had any other medical interventions that were a direct result of animal testing. Just a thought).
Gassing chickens? I am with you. Sounds worse and unhealthy for the end user,.. us humans. And when will people stop humanizing farm animals. They are ANIMALS. I see this all the time with new people buying my sheep. Oh we can't leave them out in the rain!!!
Ok off my rant box....
@ Angi ... faux down pillows ... NOW who's cracking us up, LOL! That's hysterical. Most definitely faux down because we want don't want any shivering geese.
@ Windyridge ... great points you raise. I did not know that about electrocution and THAT sounds truly grisly to me. I am all for killing the chickens as quickly as possible but hey, they are killed so humans can have food. Humanity and ethics enter into it very little, if at all. They do not have souls and God made them to be food for us and therefore I believe He built into them a very scant awareness of what happens to them in the end. C'mon, people. And you're right; the antibiotics part is worrisome. To say the PeTA folks are misguided is being very kind.
I love animals. I really do. But we had a farm when I was growing up. Chickens are the second stupidest creatures alive, right next to turkeys. The only reason they're second is because chickens--unlike turkeys--will actually seek shelter when it's raining. That's about all you can really say in their defense.
I don't know about animals having souls, or what sort of awareness God put into the animals about their evenutal fate. All I know is that I don't cry when I pass a KFC, or on Thanksgiving. I give thanks that those stupid creatures have finally been put out of their misery.
I love animals too, RJ ... and you make an excellent point. I believe God, as the creator of all that lives, gave these creatures just enough brain to stay alive until they become food. That's their purpose and as I know God is merciful, I don't believe He made them in such a way that they suffer very much at all when they meet their inevitable fate.
I've always thought PETA had good intentions (we know where that can lead), but completely misdirected actions (you know what that makes them) I too agree with Windyridge. I've toured a "chicken factory" with my kids' 4-H group and talk about torture! Where was PETA then? And the hen we saw were laying chickens, not the meat variety!
Hey Keli, Andrew was in 4-H as well, and raised chickens! I remember shuddering at his description of how the animals were slaughtered after the county fair was over and we wanted to eat them. But it was quick and merciful. As to the conditions they are made to live in by those who profit from them, I do feel sorry for the chickens. But PeTA, as you say, is not doing anyone -- least of all the chickens -- any good by going to war with KFC.
I love animals, too. All animals. I saw a documentary on the treatment of the chickens that KFC uses. It was awful! The guys who were supposed to be slaughtering the chickens were actually "playing" with them... like throwing them against a concrete wall and watching them walk around in a daze & other horribly cruel stuff. This may have been a couple of isolated cases, I don't know.
I'm a vegetarian anyway.
@ Darla ... what you describe is reprehensible and I think clearly that particular man is a sadist who should be criminally prosecuted. I think the torture of defenseless animals is unspeakably cruel and whoever does it is messed up in the head.
I just don't think it's necessarily KFC's fault if/when suppliers of chickens to the food industry employ nutcases and then fail to supervise and reprimand them for inappropriate behavior. Maybe PeTA should go after those suppliers, but I wonder if the reason they don't do that is that they'll get more press going after KFC.
I'm not a vegetarian by any means but I don't eat at KFC either. Bottom line, the chickens deserve to die quickly, with as much mercy and respect as possible.
Now KFC is cmpletely ruined for me. First, they take all the yummy trans fats out of the cooking process, and now they try to take all the suffering out of the chickens by filling them with inert gas. How am I supposed to enjoy gassed chicken carcass without any trans fats?
Has anyone here tried Tofurkey? I've never seen Tofurken.
@ Tim ... ehm, on second thought I may never eat chicken again! Unfortunately that will have zero effect on how "they" send chickens to their demise in the future.
Those other options don't sound any good to me either ... maybe Darla's is the best idea after all. But then, who will undertake for the ethical treatment of vegetables?
KFC's mashed potatoes and cole slaw are worth going in for. Although I shudder to think about what those poor spuds and cabbages went through before meeting their demise...
Hi Jenny. I agree with you... KFC should not be singled out by Peta in animal abuse cases. I'm sure there are so, so many things that go on behind closed doors in other establishments, well, I just don't even want to think about it! You know what I mean?!
But, then again, I guess we, as humans, would starve to death if we eliminated everything in our lives that were deemed "unethical" or "not up to standards". Right? And we certainly can't do that! Ha ha! Ethical treatment of vegetables??? Ha ha... don't even give anyone that idea! That's all we need! Have a good day Jenny!
Call me naive, but I heard chickens LIKE having their throat's slit. It's like crack to them or something. How dare PETA try to deprive them of this immense joy...
Sorry, but whether PETA is right or wrong about which method of killing animals is better, they're right about one thing -- animals, all of us, deserve to be treated as kindly as possible. And some of these responses, frankly, don't seem very kind.
Wouldn't the throats have to be slit to let the blood out even after gassing them to death? Oh well, I suppose this just makes some chicken lover happy.
Seriously speaking though, they do struggle and squawk way too much if their throats are slit first.
Faux chicken,how can you have "faux"chicken? maybe it'll be like freaky fungus,we'll all get high on them. This sounds crueller than the other that's put me right off KFC Kentucky Faux chicken.
Very interesting post. Proof that this is, for many people, a gray area. I eat meat, but I die a little inside when I read about animals being killed for food. Who knows what's humane? Not me, that's for sure.