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Coming Home to Roost

dorothy_greet
March 26, 2018

Friday seemed like a perfect name for my baby chick because I bought him on Good Friday. I picked him out at our local 5 and 10. He cost $.25. Friday was soft, yellow and fuzzy and fit right in the palm of my nine year-old hand. I lovingly took him home where he would live in the kitchen in a long box my brothers and I had found behind the neighborhood furniture store. I spent hours on my hands and knees watching him and talking to him. When I scooped him up, he hopped from my arms to my shoulder to my head, tickling me all the way with his tiny feet. Feeding Friday was pure joy, but my little chick was fast becoming a little rooster. My parents said we would have to take him to grandpa’s farm where he could be with other chickens. That day came all too soon. My heart was broken when we left him behind. The $.75 my grandpa paid me for this fine young bird did not ease my pain. I was afraid to imagine that Friday would become someone’s Sunday dinner. 

As memorable as it was, that heart-wrenching experience did not keep me from eating chicken with giblet gravy. Many years later in the midst of my own health crisis, I became aware that “the chickens are coming home to roost.” The connection between consumption of chicken and eggs and chronic diseases is well documented. (See PCRM graphic above) Undercover investigators report that both caged and cage-free animals suffer horrific abuse in dark, disease ridden, crowded conditions. (Dark Side of Egg Production https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GN5H9audCRQ&sns=em ) Daily, I read about poultry-waste pollution of water, land and air in my own state of Delaware where the poultry industry is big business. (http://www.capegazette.com/article/delmarva-poultry-industry-applauds-new-legislation/151330 ) And so I have eliminated poultry, eggs, meat and dairy from my diet. 

This is Easter week, traditionally a time of joy and new life. Families are pumped up with anticipation for egg dying, egg rolls, egg hunts and Easter baskets. I have always loved participating in these family and community events. But now I know “the chickens are coming home to roost.”  Instead of Joy, I feel overwhelming sadness for the damaging personal choices I and others have made over the years and continue to make. I am now working tirelessly to re-align my life with what I know to be true—OUR DEMAND for such animal products as chickens and eggs propels human disease, animal cruelty and environmental degradation. I hope others will join me in finding creative ways to celebrate the new life that is possible for suffering people, suffering animals and a suffering global environment.

  • Dorothy Greet invites you on a journey to amazing good health and vitality through Plant-Based Eating.

    A heart attack turned her life upside down at age 70.

    Now, with a Cornell Certificate in Plant-Based Nutrition, this retired clergywoman teaches free classes to community groups upon request.

    To contact Ms. Greet, email dgreet@aya.yale.edu.

    For more information on plant-based eating go to greetplantbased.blogspot.com.

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