You’re Butter Than This, BTS! Stop Promoting Tortured Chickens
South Korean band BTS has partnered with McDonald’s internationally – including in Australia – to release the BTS Meal, which includes chicken nuggets made from the flesh of tortured birds.
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A PETA exposé into Australia’s largest chicken producer, Baiada—which reportedly supplies chicken flesh to McDonald’s and other companies—found widespread cruelty in its breeding facility and slaughterhouse. Baiada’s slaughterhouse has closed-circuit television cameras, but that didn’t stop workers from using chickens as punching bags.
It’s clear that BTS doesn’t care about chickens who suffer and whose throats are slit for McNuggets.
Chickens Deserve Better
Chickens are arguably the most abused animals on the planet.
The vast majority spend their entire lives in filthy sheds with tens of thousands of other birds, where intense crowding and confinement lead to outbreaks of disease. They’re bred and drugged to grow so large so quickly that their legs and organs can’t keep up, making heart attacks, organ failure, and crippling leg deformities common. Many become crippled under their own weight and eventually die. When they are only 6 or 7 weeks old, they’re crammed into cages and sent to the slaughterhouse where their throats are slit.
Chickens are inquisitive, intelligent animals who, according to animal behaviorist Dr. Chris Evans of Australia’s Macquarie University, “are good at solving problems.” He explains that chickens are able to understand that recently hidden objects still exist, a concept that small children are unable to master. Discussing chickens’ capabilities, he says, “As a trick at conferences, I sometimes list these attributes, without mentioning chickens, and people think I’m talking about monkeys.”
In nature, chickens form friendships and social hierarchies, recognize one another and develop a pecking order, love and care for their young, and enjoy dust-bathing, making nests, and roosting in trees. Chickens raised for their flesh are unable to engage in any of these activities.
What You Can Do
The best thing that you can do for chickens is to stop eating them. Even if the label says “humane meat,” animals are still subjected to cruel industry standards, including severe crowding and a terrifying death.
Slapping some BTS marketing on the box certainly doesn’t make the meal a kind one for animals.
But here’s the good news! You can eat all the foods you enjoy already, without the cruelty, on a vegan diet. Check out this huge list of chicken-free chicken in Australian supermarkets, including vegan nuggets!
