My Thanksgiving discoveries
Years ago, when I first arrived to the U.S. from Israel, I didn’t know much about Thanksgiving. The impression I got from the people around me and the media, was that the focus of the holiday is food, more specifically the turkey. I confess, as someone who is very fond of birds, viewing turkeys as food, and knowing that over 46 million of them are killed for Thanksgiving each year, made me feel a deep aversion towards the holiday. It has been that way ever since.
I hate listening to NPR radio and hearing ideas on how to “prepare” turkey, or answering questions about turkey cooking with employees of Butterball, which multiple undercover investigations into their factory farms, revealed horrific abuse of turkeys. I find it ironic and detestable that holiday decorations and cards are adorned with images of turkeys who’re the victims of this holiday. And the grotesque pardon ceremony–really, who needs to pardon whom?
Here’s what I discovered about turkeys: according to people who spent a great deal of time with them in sanctuaries, they’re sensitive, social and intelligent creatures. Mother turkeys protect their young and risk their lives to save them. When threatened, the mother sounds a warning cry to her babies that means run for cover. She may also attack, or pretend to be wounded to distract predators from her babies. 
Turkeys like to listen to music, especially classical, and they love to be snuggled and petted for long periods of time. Young turkeys less than a month old, learn from their mothers what to eat, how to avoid predators, the geographical topography of their home range, and important social behavior.[1] Wild turkeys have a very complex, social life, as the film My Life as a Turkey has documented.
It’s heartbreaking to know that all this natural wonder is brutally shattered by humans in a process that churns up those beautiful and smart birds into dead meat served on Thanksgiving plates.
On farms, thousands of these smart and sensitive birds are packed into dark sheds with no more than 3.5 square feet of space per bird.[2] To keep the extremely crowded turkeys from scratching and pecking each other to death, farmers use hot blades to cut off portions of the birds’ toes[3] and upper beaks,[4] and remove their snoods (flaps of skin at the base of the upper beaks),[5] all without any anesthetic. If that’s not appalling enough, lighting manipulations are used to optimize “production”, resulting in blindness.
Due to selective breeding, farmed male turkeys reach average weight of 41 pounds in a few months. They can hardly walk, nor can they mate, so reproduction occurs through artificial insemination (how ironic for birds who have a complex and unique mating ritual).
At the last stage of their miserable lives, at the “modern” slaughterhouses, turkeys are removed from the crates and shackled by their feet. Those beautiful creatures are hung upside down, struggle to free themselves as they are passed through an electric water bath intended to immobilize them. The killing lines move so quickly that many are not stunned. Automated blades then slit their throat causing them to slowly bleed to death. The Washington Post reported that according to Agriculture Department records, nearly 1 million chickens and turkeys are boiled alive each year in U.S. slaughterhouses, often because fast-moving lines do not kill the birds before they’re dropped into scalding water (used to defeather them).
To learn more about the crowding, disease, neglect, painful mutilations, breeding, and sexual violation (yes, that too) in all turkey farms you can read here.
Knowing that, I ask myself, how can this immense and large scale cruelty mark the spirit of an important American holiday? How come eating tortured dead birds is a symbol of giving thanks? Further, how has Thanksgiving, which started as a harvest celebration, digressed into an opportunistic business operation that causes so much suffering and death to tens of millions of sentient birds?
Those of you who love the companion animal in your lap or sitting nearby, I’m sure you’d be horrified to consider eating him or her. If you choose to eat a different animal, like a turkey, who has many of the shared characteristics that you’ve come to love in your companion animal, please tell me, how do you reconcile it? I urge you to rethink your tradition and habits, and make an ethical choice by not contributing to this suffering and carnage.
One last confession, there is one reason I do love Thanksgiving–the opportunity to meet people, enjoy their company along with their plant-based dishes, and share my vegan creations. This year you may not meet family and friends for the holiday due to the COVID pandemic (which is another important reason to stop eating animals and not support animal farming). However, we can always have a great vegan holiday feast. For wonderful plant-based recipes see links below.
I implore you, extend your thankfulness for life and our beautiful, diverse planet without harming any other animals we share this earth with. Go vegan!
Have a healthy and compassionate Thanksgiving everyone!
Plant-based Thanksgiving recipes
delish.com/vegan-thanksgiving-recipes
chooseveg.com/thanksgiving-instead-turkey
thebeet.com/a-plant-based-chefs-advice-for-hosting-the-best-vegan-thanksgiving-ever
ilovevegan.com/vegan-thanksgiving-recipes
nytimes.com/Our Best Vegan Thanksgiving Recipes
theedgyveg.com/vegan-thanksgiving-recipes
marthastewart.comvegan-thanksgiving-recipes
[1] Healy WM. 1992. Behavior. In: Dickson JG (ed.), The Wild Turkey: Biology and Management (Harrisburg, PA: Stackpole Books).
[2] Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, “Crop Profile for Turkey in Virginia,” Mar. 2006
[3] Owings WJ, Balloun SL, Marion WW, and Thomson GM. 1972. The effect of toe-clipping turkey poults on market grade final weight and percent condemnation. Poultry Science 51:638-41.
[4] Gentle MJ, Thorp BH, and Hughes BO. 1995. Anatomical consequences of partial beak amputation (beak trimming) in turkeys. Research in Veterinary Science 58(2):158-62.
[5] Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, “Crop Profile for Turkey in Virginia,” Mar. 2006
Good and necessary article!
Thanks so much Ralph, glad you felt that way!
Beautifully writing about this beautiful bird. This is so sad. I feel you. When I came to the US, as a vegan already I admit that I was very disturbed by the fact that the main reason for this holiday is the mass murder of the
Native Americans. Then, I realized the massive Turkeys industries and the big TG dinners sitting around the bird.
Lucky for me that I was able to enjoy all the delicious Vegan foods that were not only yummy but also food with awareness and compassion. A feast that respects all living beings wherever they are. Thanks for your blog Zahava ❤️
Many thanks Dorit! I do agree with you about the appalling history behind Thanksgiving. Celebrating the holiday with a dead bird, especially nowadays that turkey “production” facts are available for everyone to know, is dismaying and heartbreaking. And yes, your creative dishes are not only delicious, they are coming from a place of deep awareness and kindness. I do miss your wonderful food!
Thank you for this heartfelt and eye opening article, Zahava. You should be writing for the Vegetarian Times and other animal publications, as well as those that don’t cater to vegetarians. What humans do to animals is nothing other than barbaric.
Bev, I’m humbled by your kind words about my writing, thank you! If only we, the privileged species, could leave the animals alone, not only would they be better off, we would as well.
from your mouth to G-d’s ears
As always, heartbreaking and beautifully expressed. I will watch the Nature documentary; somehow I missed it, so thank you for letting us know. I’m not a great cook, so will “enjoy” our rather rubbery fake substitute knowing we saved a life.
Thanks as usual Deb! Hope you did enjoy your dinner, and indeed you’ve saved so many lives by being vegan for a long time! There’re many great Thanksgiving plant-based options, which I’m sure you know. We loved the Hazelnut Cranberry Roast En Croute, with homemade rum-pineapple cranberry sauce. You can try it on Christmas! It feels so good to save lives and nourish ourselves with full awareness and being respectful of our unspoken contract with nature and all its beings. I’m thankful for that!
Once again, Zahava, you’ve hit the nail on the head with perfect timing. I grew up thinking this holiday did revolve around that turkey roasting in the oven. Absolutely no thought was given to the lives or deaths of the birds themselves. We had no idea they were anything other than food for our table. It was just the way it was. I always felt that I “loved all animals”, but didn’t see the bigger picture. I feel so fortunate that I can now see the world through the eyes of the turkeys and other animals themselves. I personally will give thanks this year for my eyes having been opened to the wonders of the lives of all of these beautiful beings, and hope that others will make the easy transition to a plant-based life. I feel so much cleaner spiritually and physically now and my heart and soul are happy to know that I am not causing suffering any longer. “Amazing Grace” – I once was blind but now I see!
Thank you for writing this compelling and heart-wrenching piece! I wish this blog were plastered on billboards everywhere. I was listening to a radio interview with Pat Brown of Impossible Foods, and he said it is naive to think that we can persuade people to significantly change their diets to reduce meat consumption, but I still fervently believe that we can in fact change minds by telling stories about other species, as you did so powerfully and humanely about the wonder of turkeys! Even Ben Franklin called the wild turkey a “Bird of Courage.” And the photo you chose beautifully captures these extraordinary birds who deserve a far better fate.
Well written blog which presents these birds as beautiful creatures. I wish our holidays were not so centered around food. I can see that in the past when food was scarce that holidays would be celebrated with food but at our time maybe the focus should be more about other things that connect people through common activities that will leave lasting memories.
Another important chapter in your always very articulate, dedicated, informed and heartfelt writing. A timely example, in this case, of a “holiday” that should be refashioned to set an example for all the important ideas you present. I join you in encouraging everyone to consider the many implications of consuming animal based food (no matter how small you think it is, an egg or ice-cream cone), and its harmful effects on all non-human animals and the planet. Thanks for shining a light on dark places in our culture.
Thanks for sharing. I have gone bird-watching with a group that loves watching the birds. Yet how many of them realize they are EATING birds like chicken and turkeys. Most humans are completely unaware how they support senseless violence with every meal.
I have been reading many comments about vegans being ‘arrogant”, and the new phrase I now read is “whining”.
How interesting that those who speak for the voiceless and are compassionate are attacked with such negative
words. Humans do not want to know their food choices are inhumane and cruel, and resent being reminded of that fact. The abolitionists who spoke out against enslaving humans were certainly called “arrogant” and “whining”.
Thanks Rachel for your insight and words of wisdom. I often come across social media posts of birds, their chicks and nests. Most of those posting, and other bird watchers, eat turkeys and chickens, not even once reflecting on their own hypocrisy and cruelty towards those birds. Wild birds are so adored, while turkeys and chickens–sentient, social and intelligent birds–are needlessly destined to lives of misery and violent death, so the same “bird watchers” can have their flesh on their dinner tables. Thank you for speaking out on behalf of the animals!