THE SITUATION:

Disney creates gigantic gingerbread houses for display every holiday season at their various parks, hotels, and cruise ships around the world. Examples can be found in the ballroom of the Haunted Mansion Holiday attraction at Disneyland, in the lobby of the Grand Floridian Resort & Spa, and aboard multiple Disney cruise ships. 

THE PROBLEM:

For these displays, Disney uses lavish amounts of ingredients that are obtained via animal cruelty. For example, the Disney Parks Blog lists that the gingerbread display at the Grand Californian Hotel in 2018 contained TWELVE GALLONS of egg whites. The other displays are around the same size, so I assume that a similar amount of egg whites are used. This alarms me because, in the egg industry (as well as the chicken breeding industry), most of the male chicks who hatch are sorted out and immediately killed (often by dropping them into a grinder) because they cannot produce eggs for humans to sell. Furthermore, it is common in the industry for hens to be genetically modified to lay 300 eggs per year, as opposed to the natural number of 10 to 12), which takes an agonizing toll on their bodies and health. Hens are kept in cramped cages and barns and given little to no veterinary care because they're financially disposable, left to suffer and die. I could list many more ways in which chickens are harmed in the egg industry, but the root is that they are thinking, feeling creatures who are being treated like objects for someone else's profit. This abuse takes place because of demand for the product (eggs), and Disney is funding it on an unimaginable scale for each of these gingerbread displays.

It is likely that Disney bakers also use colossal amounts of dairy in these gingerbread displays. Abuse of cows in dairy farming is similar to that of chickens in the egg industry. Cows don't automatically make milk; just like us humans, they have to get pregnant first because the milk is biologically produced to feed their babies. Dairy farmers exploit cows' female reproductive system by repeatedly artificially (and forcefully) impregnating them and separating them from their babies every time they give birth, preventing the newborns from drinking their mother's milk which the humans intend to sell. If the baby calf is male, he is confined in an intentionally small space to prevent him from building muscle, so that he can be killed early on for his flesh to be sold as veal. If the calf is female, she will be forced to give birth over and over again until she does not produce a profitable amount of milk or until she collapses, in which case she will be killed.

THE SOLUTION:

Disney can drastically cut back their support for these vile practices by switching to an egg-free and dairy-free recipe for their gingerbread displays. Not only would it keep a substantial amount of Disney money from funding animal abuse, but it would set a positive example for consumers to eliminate demands for these archaic products and serve as a powerful PR move in a world that is becoming increasingly aware of the villainy of animal exploitation for food and the catastrophic environmental effects of animal agriculture. 

To be clear, it is no more necessary to harm animals for ingredients in gingerbread that people are actually eating, but I must stress that people are NOT eating this gingerbread; it is just for show. There should be nothing stopping Disney from using an animal-friendly recipe. Disney, it is absolutely possible to switch, and you should, whether it be for the animals, for the environment, or for your own reputation.