Thanks Bill--great post! I've been a vegetarian for more than 20 years and am convinced it's the way to go for people who don't support cruelty to animals.

The best site for veggie alternatives is www.VegCooking.com.

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Why I am a vegan:

Slaughterhouses are perhaps the most violent places on the planet. Animals are routinely sent kicking and screaming through the skinning and dismemberment process, every one bleeding and dying exactly like they would if they were human beings.

Farms today treat animals like so many boxes in a warehouse, chopping off beaks and tails and genitals with no painkillers at all, inflicting third degree burns (branding), ripping out teeth, and hunks of flesh.

Animals transported to slaughter routinely die from the heat or the cold, or freeze to the sides of the transport trucks or to the bottom in their own excrement. Dairy cows and egg laying hens endure the same living nightmare as their brethren who are raised for their flesh, except that their time on the "farm" is longer. They are still shipped to the slaughterhouse and killed, at a fraction of their natural life span.

There is simply no excuse for anyone who considers herself or himself to be an ethical human being, let alone an "animal lover," to be supporting these kinds of practices, all of which are routine and universal throughout the industries which turn animals into eggs and meat and dairy products.

If I can't watch it happening, I want no part of it. I enjoy watching fields tilled and love picking apples and tomatoes and carrots and other vegetarian products. If slaughterhouses had glass walls, as Paul McCartney is so fond of saying, we would all be vegetarians.

Every time I sit down to eat, I make a decision about who I am in the world: Do I want to add to the level of violence, misery, and bloodshed in the world? Or, do I want to make a compassionate and merciful choice?

There is so much violence in the world, from war torn regions of Africa and Europe, to our own inner cities. Most of this violence is difficult to understand, let alone influence.

Veganism is one area where each and every one of us can make a difference, every time we sit down to eat. I find it empowering that I can make an option for peace and compassion every time I eat, simply by not encouraging violence and misery against animals.

Visit Meat.org to see how meat is made.

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Bill Maher is right. Most of us rightly want to decrease violence in the world. While speaking out against the war and the issue of what constitutes as torture is important, in addition to that, each of us have the power to spare sentient being from pain and death by not eating them. If you haven't seen video footage of what animals go through before they end up on a kaiser roll, look at the video at www.goveg.com.

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i'm aware of the kind of waste and cruelty that goes along with raising animals for food, but i doubt i'll be able to stave off my appetite for animals...other than not buying butterball chickens, what else is there?

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One of the best decisions I ever made was to stop eating animals exactly 3 years ago...just before Thanksgiving. My food is more diverse, delicious and healthy. Best of all, by choosing to go vegan I've saved the lives hundreds of animals and not contributed to needless violence against innocent beings. Happy Thanksgiving indeed.

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Thank you.

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Bush has probably pardoned more turkeys than people, well at least people that weren't his people. Actually that isn't that funny. Sorry.

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After seeing chicken and turkey "processing" at non-Kosher slaughterhouses, my wife and I have limited our purchases to certified Kosher birds. Any informed comments on the more humane aspects of Kosher treatment???

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With all the great vegetarian alternatives, including Tofurkey, Celebration Roast, and Garden Protein's veggie Thanksgiving feast, there is no reason to spend the holidays sitting around a dead, diseased bird. Thanks for speaking out for turkeys, Bill!

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I too am a vegetarian -- I am one for many reasons cited in the article and in others' comments.

People who would torture defenseless animals just for fun are sick monsters, period. (What kind of person gets his jollies sexually assaulting turkeys, for God's sake?)
And contributing to this torture by eating meat is not alright with The Universe in any way either, I am certain.

I feel so helpless when I hear of people being tortured or killed by America in my name. What personally can I do to help stop this?
But we CAN do something small about the slaughter of animals, at least: Don't eat meat.

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Although there certainly seems to be a case for extending the Humane Slaughter Act to birds, the comparison of the killing of them to the killing of humans is ludicrous.

Rights stem from moral agency, that the being is capable of making, and being held responsible for, moral choices. When you can credibly make a case for any given animal to be considered good or evil, then you can talk about animal rights.

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Great article, Bill! Choosing delicious alternatives to animal flesh is not only much kinder to turkeys, but also infinitely better for our own health. A vegetarian Thanksgiving gives everyone something to be thankful for.

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Just a 'technical' holler - the video links in the article don't work. I end up back on the same page.

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but personally, I cannot give up that particular part of my omnivorism – call it a fault, if you must; I need to exercise my canine teeth once in awhile.

However, what I wish for those like me to understand, for how we treat animals, is what the philosopher, former Jesuit, and devotee of Buddhism, Alan Watts, put forth as a compromise in a chapter of his book, "Does It Matter?" ("Murder In the Kitchen," pp. 27–28): That is, if we are to kill something, be it plant or animal, to be eaten, we should honor that living thing by giving it the best life it can have while it exists, and then dispatching it in the most rapid and painless manner possible. After all, it is, quite literally, giving its life for us.

How we do this in a compartmentalized society with industrialized agriculture I do not know; but what I do know is that we can certainly do better than to sodomize turkeys before they are slaughtered. After all, they are living things, too, that can feel pain – and, judging by what we've seen lately in the public arena, some of those turkeys are likely smarter than some of the people we call "leaders." At least, the turkeys do no harm. . .

I'm afraid that the lack of reverence for life exhibited towards the animals we eat is spilling over, more than ever, into everyday life; and that this is a fault of human nature that, unless understood and checked, will ultimately be responsible for our demise. We exist, but we have not yet learned how to live.

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Well, not exactly pardoned, but Bush did see to it that the big turkeys, he and Cheney, are immune from prosecution for any crimes they have or will commit. Indeed, in Bush's last days in office (hooray!) I expect he'll have to pardon two or three hundred of his cohort to keep them quiet. It must be a worry to him that, according to law, he can't pardon himself. I wonder if Bush might resign on the last day so when Cheney takes over HE can pardon Bush.

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My family and I will be enjoying an animal-friendly feast, too. I stopped eating meat 15+ years ago, and I don't miss it a bit!

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Everyone should educate themselves on this issues. Corporate pig farms are even worse, considering the environmental effects (which are tremendous).

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Will you marry me? Umm, wait a minute, I forgot. You aren't into marriage. And neither am I, for me it's a case of "been there, done that" .... twice.
But seriously. Thank you for all you do for animal welfare, especially the lending of your unlikely voice to the call for a vegetarian lifestyle.

Now comes the confessional part. I have been a "partial" vegetarian for more than twenty years, for which I do give myself some credit. My Grandparents were farmers in Arkansas and I grew up in the L.A. area with parents who took it for granted that a meal was not a meal .... breakfast, lunch or dinner .... without meat at it's center. Even if lunch was a bologna sandwich (and I join you now in ....eewwww).
So now I still eat fish, and .... this is the hard part to admit .... free range organic chicken and turkey, on occasion. I simply can't watch the videos. I watched the one picked up by all the mainstream TV media outlets several years ago, shot by the undercover Peta team (genuine heroes), of the "loading" of chickens into trucks, on their way to slaughter, and the images haunt me to this day. These chickens were being taken from a factory farm, but it sowed this seed in my consciousness: Say the free range chickens and turkeys I eat are indeed raised with the kindness and care claimed by the organic farmers in question, as I'm sure many are. How many of the same farmers make certain that when it's time for slaughter, the birds are afforded the same humane conditions, in both transport and the actual act of killing them?

So every year, as I feast on my free range organic turkey at Thanksgiving & sometimes Christmas, with my family, I wrap myself in a tryptophan fueled blanket of denial. I am, after all, already enduring the contempt and in some cases, barely concealed wrath of some family members, because I cook and bring my own turkey, politely declining to partake in their Butterballs.
But I realize that it isn't enough. So your article has inspired me to once again, as I have done every holiday season for several years now, make the vow: this is the last time. I'm going to make it stick this time, I feel certain that I'm finally ready. I'm already so close, I have a vast array of vegetarian recipes that I love, at my fingertips. And I'm lucky enough to live in a place that has as many Natural Foods markets as supermarkets, complete with take-out buffets.

In the meantime, here is the ultimate irony. As I write this, my free range organic turkey is in the oven, for tomorrow. To take to the family gathering where I will as usual, endure the contempt of a couple of family members and the thinly veiled anger of a couple of others for my "deluded snobbery", and the acceptance of my "eccentricity" by the more open minded. And the "solidarity" of one cousin who respects my choice and joins me in the "only free range organic" corner. But who still believes that if you're invited to a dinner with meat as the centerpiece, "honoring" the animal who's life has been taken, is enough.

So thank you once again for the inspiration. Tomorrow will indeed be my last time .... hey, it's already in the oven. I won't even compromise for the family Christmas dinner this year. You are one of my heroes, for all that it probably makes you uncomfortable to hear that.

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Oh, you are trying to ruin my thanks-giving? Not even.

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-Tofurky IS really very tasty. Comes already stuffed-and there are many other kinds.
Can keep them in your freezer just like 'real' turkeys.

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Grain is GENOCIDE.

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Many thanks to Bill Maher for his thorough and concise piece on the ethical treatment of animals.

A writer for the now defunct Animals’ Agenda once pointed out that to argue that one should go veg for health reasons is kind of like saying, “Rape is wrong because you might catch venereal disease.” No. In both cases, the moral reasons are the real reasons to abstain.

Because we live in such a narcissistic society, it’s not surprising that Americans are won over by the health arguments first. I commend Bill Maher for focusing on the ethical treatment of animals first and the health arguments last.

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You don't have to buy a Butterball cruelty turkey to have a bird on the table for Thanksgiving. One can go to a local farmer who is raising animals humanely, slaughtering them with dignity and respect in a clean environment, and if you're lucky, you can even get a much tastier heirloom turkey instead of the bland white-meat thing most Americans know as "turkey". An heirloom bird raised by a neighbor is not only pretty neutral for the environment (especially when compared to a "Tofurky" trucked from 2000 miles away using diesel fuel) but is delicious and good for the local economy, too.

People in our family are allergic to most vegetarian protein sources (various members are allergic to peanuts, tree nuts, lentils, peas, soy protein, garbanzo beans, and a few other beans, and one is on a low-cholesterol diet that limits eggs and dairy products). It's just not sensible for us to go vegetarian. So we've gone local instead, eating only free-range/grass-fed heirloom-breed animals and animal products (eggs, milk, etc.) Our impact on the environment is much lower than if we were a Tyson/Butterball/Hormel/Horizon/Ranchers Select-eating family. It's the best we're going to do given the limitations we live with.

Not everyone is going to go vegetarian. Not only does meat taste good, but humans have been omnivores at least as long as we have known how to make and use hooks and spears. You can be an omnivore without being a consumer of the animal-industrial-torture complex.

It's helpful to those of us who are not going to go vegetarian, for one reason or another, to discuss such alternatives so that people can become educated. It's not all or nothing; as with so many things, it's a continuum. Militant vegetarians would do well to remember that we're not all going to join your religion, and even a few vegetarian meals a month reduce a family's footprint on the earth... but the militant lectures often keep people from even trying, because going vegetarian or vegan or macrobiotic seems so "out there" in its intense doctrine and all-or-nothing attitude.

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