Oprah on Animals and Food

Wow: the conventional wisdom is that any topic Oprah Winfrey’s multi-media empire is covering has made it to the big time: to a huge number of American living rooms, waiting rooms, and other rooms, and to millions more such rooms around the world, literally. (I usually only catch the Oprah TV show when I’m travelling: Kenya is a particularly good place to watch it, since it comes on just before dinnertime.) And on Tuesday, Oprah and reporter Lisa Ling turn their focus on how animals raised as food are treated. From the preview, it looks like Ling goes inside factory farms and gets to the realities behind labels such as “cage-free” and “free range.” This could be a big wow.

Looks like the program will also provide information on Proposition 2, which, if passed by voters in California in November, would make illegal some of the more notorious and standard cruelties of factory farms: battery cages for hens, sow stalls, and (veal) crates for infant male calves. Finally, on the show page, O Magazine offers ideas for saving the world by changing how and what you eat. Among the six recommended actions: eat less meat, buy local, and choose organic. Interesting and relevant indeed. Wow (again). Stay tuned.