Do you enjoy eating VEAL? do you know what veal is? It is the
meat of a baby calf that has been starved to death so that the meat is
pale pink, almost white. It is served in most Five Star Hotels, and
can be bought at certain supermarkets . The VEAL calf industry is
among the worst of all kinds of intensive animal agriculture. It is
literally a fate far worse than death.

Male calfs are taken from their mothers one or two days after
birth. They are chained inside tiny crates barely larger than their
bodies and are kept in total darkness. During their brief lives, they
never see the sun or touch the earth. They never see or taste grass.
Their muscles ache for freedom and exercise. They long for maternal
care.....

About 14-16 weeks after their birth, they are slaughtered. The
Calfs home is a VEAL crate, a wooden restraining device that is so
small (22 inches by 54 inches) that the calves cannot turn around.
Designed to prevent any movement, the crate does its job of atrophying
the calves' muscles, THUS PRODUCING TENDER "GOURMET" VEAL.

Imagine if you had to sit in one position for months without
being able to move at all. The calves also suffer from open sores
caused by the constant rubbing against the crates. There is no bedding
on which they lie, simply hard wood. They will never walk again. In
fact, they will never stand again except when they go for slaughter -
and by then they are so weak their limbs have become useless. These
are little babies who will never see even one year of life. Have
never romped and played, have never seen another calf or anyone- just
a big bottle of forcible feed mush which is shoved into their throat
every few hours and injections that pierce their skin regularly to
make them fatter and keep them alive. They cough all the time and
their faeces comes out in painful streams dirtying their nether parts.

The calves are fed a high fat liquid feed intentionally lacking
in iron and other essential nutrients. This diet keeps the animals
anaemic and creates the pale pink or white colour considered
desirable in VEAL. Craving iron, the calves lick urine-saturated
salts and any metallic parts of their stalls. Farmers also
withhold water from the animals, who, always thirsty, are driven to
drink the disgusting slop the feed is.

Because of such extremely unhealthy living conditions and food,
the calves soon develop chronic pneumonia and constant diarrhoea.
Consequently, they are given massive doses of antibiotics and
other drugs just to keep them alive. The antibiotics are passed onto
the consumers in the meat.

That's not all that's passed along. Most international veal
production companies give calves 'clenbuterol' , a dangerous
and illegal drug that speeds growth and increases anaemia in the
calves, producing more expensive white meat. Calves treated with
'clenbuterol' can be sold for slaughter at 12 to 13 weeks of
age, rather than the standard 16 weeks. Even trace amounts of
'clenbuterol' can cause severe illness in humans, including
increased heart rate, tremors, breathing difficulties, fever and even
death.

In 1996 the EU voted to ban the VEAL crate across Europe, but
the veal industry said they would suffer economically, so it will
be phased out and removed in the year 2007 only. Yet the trade
will continue to thrive in various other countries.

People who eat veal basically are eating the pale and tender
meat of a very sick baby cow who was tortured to death. They are also
eating antibiotics and hormones that kept the baby alive long after
its body had given up. The meat is so white because there are NO
nutrients in it. It is senseless food eaten by the senseless and
savoured for its colour and chewability rather than any intrinsic
merit.
Surely, if a person is paying soooo much money for the meal, he must
want something in exchange: Apart from drugs and cancer????