Take a look at a bacon egg and cheese sandwich. You view it as a delicious breakfast or maybe lunch. Where do you think you got the bacon, egg or cheese? Yeah, a deli, or a grocery store, but where did they get it?

Wouldn't it be great to know that that egg was laid that morning at a local egg farm? That the barn is a small, nearby shop that doesn't keep millions of chickens in battery chickens. Unfortunately, there are only a small number of fresh farms, and the problem with those farms is that all of the food is more expensive.

We all have the idealistic image of a nursery rhyme farm with a kindly silver haired farmer in coveralls. In fact, most widely distributed food in America is the product of what is known as a factory farm. Often spreading for miles, the conglomeration of dozens of farms is filled with millions of chickens in battery cages. In addition to the chickens, there are hundreds of pigs and cows hung by there ankles with their arms tied up. There life dangling by a thread.

Many problems have surfaced since factory farming began. Aside from ethics, the farms contribute to many environmental issues such as greenhouse gases, air and water pollutants, and excess animal waste. The factories contribute largely to global warming because they put off particles such as methane and hydrogen sulfide. The fertilizers and pesticides the farmers use on their land to produce crops to feed the animals are running off into groundwater. This kills fish, decomposes aquatic habitats, and harms the drinking water supplies. Additionally, the farms use vast amounts of water that cut into the limited non-contaminated water we have. Another way factory farming is harmful to the environment is the amount of waste the animals produce. 'For example, a single hog excretes up to 17.5 pounds of manure and urine each day. Put 1,000 hogs together, and that's six million pounds of waste each year. On a factory farm containing 35,000 hogs, over four million pounds of waste are produced each week, and over 200 million pounds each year. Whereas on a sustainable farm animal waste can be a tool, in factory-farm amounts it becomes a major pollutant.')"The Issues, environment." SustainableTable.29Jan.2009. _) So this bacon, egg, and cheese you eat may seem SO delicious, but maybe it is doing more harm then good.

Many people have issues with the morals of factory farming. The farms have no concern for the animals; they just need to get the product made. Normally, I would not have a huge problem with getting the job done, but what the farmers do to the animals, how they treat them, how much they hurt them, the way they kill them. Everything about factory farming is unethical.

Let's go back to your bacon egg and cheese. We know that your egg was not laid at a local farm; it was laid in farm where each chicken is not even an inch apart from another chicken. All of the chickens live in battery cages, which are very small coops, stacked on each other. There are usually hundreds of battery cages in each farm, but in some farms, there have been thousands. These chickens and hens are stuffed into the pens where they have no room to move at all, and step in their own, and others, waste. In addition, the chickens rub against the cages. They undergo feather loss and they receive bruises and abrasions covering their entire body.

Now, let's look at the bacon. As warm, crunchy, sizzling, and delicious, it might be, it is one of the most beaten animals in a factory farm. The pigs are forced to reproduce more than 20 piglets a year. Once they are impregnated, the pigs are stuffed into gestation crates, which are very small metal coops. These coops made it so the pigs would not be able to lie down. Once they giver birth, they go through the same nasty cycle. After they give birth to enough piglets, they are considered 'useless' and they are slaughtered. The farmers hang them upside down by their hind legs and bleed them to death.

Now that we have covered the bacon and egg, it's time to talk about the cheese. Obviously, cheese comes from milk, and the milk comes from tortured, distressed cows. These cows are pushed to produce ten times the amount of milk than their body can but 'genetic manipulation and intensive production technologies.' (http://www.farmsanctuary.org/issues/factoryfarming/dairy/) In addiction, the pens which they are kept in, are not cleaned and carry many disease which can get the cow sick.

So next time you reach to grab your bacon, egg and cheese, think about every single cow, pig, and chicken that is being tortured for your own pleasure.