For as long as I can remember, Thanksgiving has been my least favorite holiday. While those around me would eagerly anticipate the time spent with loved ones and the copious amounts of festive food, I’d secretly (and sometimes not-so-secretly) dread both. It’s not that I don’t love my extended family—I do very much—or that I hate food; contrary to popular belief, even at the height of my anorexia, I still liked food. I just found the whole ordeal overwhelming, overhyped, and, especially in recent years, rather outdated.
I’m in recovery now and have a much firmer handle on my eating disorder and anxiety; however, I’m also vegan, which has made the backwardness and oftentimes covert cruelty of the holiday that much more on my radar. And after spending the last six weeks volunteering at a farm animal sanctuary, where two of the residents are social, sentient turkeys, I find myself dreading Thanksgiving this year to a far higher degree than I did even when my eating disorder was at full-throttle.
Every year, the United States slaughters approximately 223 million turkeys. Of that shocking number, 68 million are killed for food for the holiday season alone. Furthermore, the turkeys spend all of their short lives in filthy, overcrowded, and poorly ventilated facilities, where parts of their beaks and toes are deliberately broken off so the traumatized birds don’t injure each other. Due to these treacherous conditions, the air in the factories is often filled with ammonia, contributing to a whole host of health issues for not just the turkeys but the human workers as well.
Turkeys aren’t the only animals who suffer for Thanksgiving; we’ve all seen the roast ham, sausage stuffing, and gravy that typically accompany the dead bird at the center of the table. And how about the sides of cheesy mashed potatoes and buttery biscuits and the dairy- and egg-rich pies for dessert? If the barbaric practices of the meat industry sound awful, the production of dairy and eggs is remarkably even worse.
Just as the inherently racist roots of Thanksgiving are continually ignored, so is the overt animal abuse. We have the knowledge and means for the entire US population to celebrate Thanksgiving without it coming at the expense of the lives of millions of animals, and yet, very few of us are choosing a more cruelty-free route. Citing “tradition” and not wanting to “break the routine,” even members of my extended family, all lovely and relatively progressive people, are staunchly sticking with the traditional, animal-based feast.
It is, of course, quite frustrating, but as my mom regularly reminds me, a good way to inspire change is to lead by example. That’s why this year, my vegan parents and I will be celebrating ThanksLIVING, a term coined by farm animal sanctuaries that promotes celebrating life, rather than contributing to more needless death. At JP Farm Animal Sanctuary, for example, the amazing place where I volunteer, staff and guests take a walk with the turkeys around the premises, then the humans feed the birds a feast of all their favorite foods before dining on delicious plant-based appetizers. While we don’t have farm animals of our own to center the day’s festivities around, my family plans to spend our Thanksliving experiencing nature, giving thanks over a casual vegan lunch with a couple of my mama’s coworkers, and visiting with our extended family for dessert, which will also be exclusively vegan. If you’re in search of delicious plant-based picks to replace animal-based dishes at your holiday table, check out these fan-favorite recipes we’ll be whipping up for our feast:
Pumpkin Pie (with this crust)
Will you be celebrating Thanksgiving or giving Thanksliving a go this year? Let me know what you’re doing this holiday season to be kind to all kinds!