Hardee's Bacon Will No Longer Come From Super Sad Pigs
There are enough reasons to feel guilty about going to Hardee's. Several of their burgers approach or cross the 1,000 calorie line. Maybe Kate Upton's boobs got you there.
YouTube Padma can pig out on Hardee's with a clean conscience in 2022.
But now. . . er, wait, starting in 2022, Hardee's customers can rest a little easier knowing the bacon and other pork bits in their burgers came from more humane producers. Specifically, from hog farmers who don't use gestation crates on their sows.
What's a gestation crate? Prepare to get really sad.
Gestation crates are long, narrow cells for pregnant sows that provide almost no room to move. Their purpose is to keep the pigs from fighting, but many spend almost their entire lives in the two-by-seven foot enclosures, pushing out litter after litter until they are slaughtered. Some argue the tactic saves money, others say group housing works just as efficiently. Economics aside, it's pretty clear why people have a problem with the practice (Warning -- gross and sad):
St. Louis-based Hardee's parent company CKE Restaurant released a statement to the Humane Society of the United States, which -- as we wrote about in 2010 -- has been behind a huge national push against factory farming.
CKE Restaurants, Inc. supports the humane treatment of animals, having requested its pork suppliers to develop practical and sustainable alternatives to the use of gestation stalls and to transition to a group housing environment for sows . . . CKE will strive to completely transition its pork supplies to only utilize animals raised in group housing situations by 2022.
Hardee's is joining the ranks of McDonald's, Burger King, and even more recently, Oscar Meyer, in their pledge to give their multimillion-dollar business to more humane hog farmers.
And now, allow us to make up for that depressing video earlier (Warning -- banjo music):
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