It’s pretty obvious why some people choose not to eat meat or wear fur, but why someone wouldn’t use silk is just plain baffling to most. So here’s the deal.
When we think of silk we imagine beautiful gowns, delicate underwear
and lavish furnishings, what we definitely don’t picture is live silk
worms being plunged into vats of boiling water. And why would we? This
certainly isn’t going to make us want to reach for our wallets, instead
it is likely to make us reel with disgust.
The Plight of the Silk Worm
Just like cows, chickens and pigs, silk worms are domesticated, raised and bred on factory farms and are also killed by the hundreds of millions every year. To make one single pound of silk 2000-3000 worms have to be slaughtered.
Just prior to the metamorphosis stage where Bombyx Mori silk worms
transform into moths, they spin fibers to create their cocoons.
Naturally, the moth would chew its way out of this cocoon once the
transformation is complete, but the problem this poses to the silk
manufacturing industry is this natural development would result in
chewed silk strands that are much shorter and less valuable than the
intact cocoon. Which is why when the silk worms are in their pupa stage
after being fed a strict diet of mulberry leaves, they are placed while
still alive into boiling hot water, killing them and starting the process of unraveling the cocoon to produce silk.
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