Adopt a Turkey and Choose Compassion

In 2009, I marked my official turning point in veganism by adopting a turkey from Farm Sanctuary. I plan to do this for Thanksgiving every year to honor my veganniversary.

I went vegan five years ago. I resolved to stop using animals as much as I practically could; I could never have guessed just how many ways I was using them! I also resolved to adopt a turkey every year for my veganniversary. Rhonda, Velma, Victoria, Skip, and Tulip are joined this year by Cecelia, one of twenty-four baby turkeys rescued from a factory farm and left at the Watkins Glen shelter.

Personally, I find Thanksgiving to be a difficult  holiday to celebrate. Of course I have much to be grateful for, but why must that gratitude be in the shadow of a painful tradition that kills millions of birds every year? I recently had to explain to someone that while I’ll sit at a table while others eat animals, I won’t when it’s a whole animal corpse. I haven’t eaten at a table with a dead turkey on it in five years.

This explanation was met with skepticism. After all, what’s the difference between a turkey carcass and a slap of beef; a roasting hen and a chicken nugget?

I hesitated to talk about this here, in a post about a new, cruelty-free tradition, but I feel it’s important. Vegan or non-vegan, we all desensitize ourselves every day to the realities around us that would bring us to our knees if we really stopped to see them for what they were. It’s part of why the advertising we cover in our Ad Nauseam series works so well. If a burger is “just” a burger – we can ignore the living beings that were slaughtered and ground up to make it.

It’s a bit harder to look at a whole turkey and see “just” anything but what that being was: an animal that was bred to grow quickly and to be slaughtered at a size that’s appropriate for our family get togethers each year.

I have been lucky enough to spend time with some awesome turkeys in the past few years. I wear my “friend not food” turkey pendant with conviction. I cannot unsee what I’ve opened my eyes to… the centerpiece on a majority of American tables will never be status quo in my mind again.

Adopting a turkey each year symbolizes something to me. It also gives me the opportunity to honor our animal friends – those who made it to sanctuaries and those who did not. In the five years since I went vegan, the alternatives available for holiday get togethers have increased; there’s a whole case of cruelty-free holiday roasts in the local Whole Foods’ freezer section, and for those who like to cook, there are countless vegan cookbooks on the shelves at the local bookstore. We are lucky, so lucky, to have the choices we have. Choose compassion. It’s never been easier.

Photo credit: This year’s adoptees at Farm Sanctuary