The Indigestible

2 Comments

1. Guy Mac
   11:48 on August 8th, 2008

   I’m no veg, but can understand their point of view (and tactics). What I don’t get are things like the (recent AZ proposition) which would require that animals be humanely penned… on the way to the slaughterhouse. It’s sort of like what Sam Harris says about Fundamentalist Christians compared to “lukewarm faiths” : he may disagree with them entirely, but at least they are consistent!

2. Warren
   23:50 on August 8th, 2008

   There might be a good reason for that, actually; the stress of restraint could change the flavor of the meat due to adrenaline. Also, I suppose stress-related mortality could go down.

   TTBOMK most animals killed in slaughterhouses today are done in with stun bolts, which makes it pretty fast. Until a few minutes before they’re led into the chute they’re probably clueless about what’s happening, so overall it could be argued that the regulation is more or less sensibly humane.

   What I haven’t seen, and would like to, is legislation increasing protection of slaughterhouse employees. Eric Schlosser, in Fast Food Nation, documents rising cases of repetitive-motion injuries, lacerations, missing digits, etc. as slaughterhouses have increased production with decreased workforce over the last decade or so. It’s a hard, tiring job on the floor, probably exacts a rather painful psychological toll, and the work is a big social blind spot. (”I work in a slaughterhouse” is almost guaranteed to be a conversation stopper.)

   Having seen a whole cow shot, bled and butchered on a ranch, I’ve got some idea of the connection between the mooing, pooping animal and the slabs of meat that come from it — but that was out in the open, under a blue sky, with several experienced people working on the carcass. Modern slaughterhouses are nowhere near as demi-romantic. Generally, the animal is taken apart so fast that its muscle fibers might still twitch even as they’re being cut into steaks.

   The point is that things happen so fast, and under such high-stress conditions, that the humans working on the animals are subject to pressures most of us can’t probably imagine, and that leads to all sorts of problems for them.