Pigging out at McDonald's will be better in the future, now that America's top fast food chain has demanded that farmers let their pigs out of gestation crates by 2022.
McDonald's joined Wendy's, Hormel Foods Corps., and other pork power-brokers in demanding that their pork suppliers phase out gestation crates, which are 7-foot by 2-foot cages that hold pregnant sows before they give birth. In 2007, the largest U.S. pork producer, Smithfield Foods, announced that they would phase out gestation crates because of public opinion that the crates were inhumane, reported the Washington Post.
The goal of the cages is to prevent the animals from fighting with each other, but animal rights groups have noted that the cages don't allow the pigs room to move around and subject them to torturous amounts of boredom.
Pressure from an appalled public helped push McDonald's to make their decision, just as public opinion kept the golden arches from buying genetically engineered potatoes. In 2000, McDonald's petitioned their potato peddlers to stop using transgenic spuds as did Frito-Lay and others, reported the Wall Street Journal.
Read on: http://www.livescience.com/20845-mcdonald-seeks-pampered-pigs.html
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