Yesterday I learned that I am probably the victim of deceptive packaging and advertising. I buy organic milk and free-range chicken eggs, more for humane reasons than for health reasons. I am not vegan, though I would like to be, and am giving it thought--it is a difficult thing to accomplish--but I have been a vegetarian for about 25 years. I have discovered that the large organic dairy whose milk I buy may not really treat the cows that humanely. The cows are given more space, they do eat organic grains, and they are not shot with hormones. But it is likely that their calves are still removed from them too early, and that the male calves may be put in veal crates, one of the ugliest practices in the food industry.

Then I learned that the "free-range" chickens may not be free-range at all--that they are simply kept in less confining quarters, are not starved, and do not have their beaks cut off like factory chickens. But, according to some sources, their male chicks are still either gassed or stomped to death.

Using soy milk (something I sometimes do anyway) and buying local yard eggs are the solutions to these problems. But almost every packaged product we buy contains whey or other milk products or eggs. And thousands of creatures were mutilated, starved, stomped on, gassed, confined in tiny quarters, and had their throats cut so that the bread and snack companies make money.

It shouldn't be so complicated to become vegan.

Cal Thomas recently wrote in his column that the Chick-Fil-A company was a "godly organization." This godly organization regularly tortures and kills thousands of animals. What do you have to do to be called "ungodly"?

People should know about the suffering involved in the making of food products; the information should be printed on the package labels.

Or does anyone care?