first of all I want to say thanks for the useful tips and encouragement from the last thread I posted.



as I mentioned previously, I'm slowly going veggie. I've pretty much eliminated beef...anyways, here is my question:



I still haven't seen anything that convinces me that most animal "processing" plants are as violent as the ones seen in Meet Your Meat. can anyone point me to another resource that backs up that claim? (PETA's done some good stuff, but I'm still not sure I trust their data completely). Aren't there laws and regulations that tend to result in a "quick and painless" death instead of torture?

It's hard for me to comment on US slaughterhouses but I'm sure you can find reports from whistblowers and other former employees of abattoirs about what goes on. There was a guy who used to work in a chicken processing plant who allegedly became really depressed from it and turned into a campaigner to teach people just how cruel it was, but I think he committed suicide. I'm not sure of his name.

Peter Singer, in the Ethics of what we eat, claims that as many as one in three chickens don't actually have their throat slit or aren't stunned, and are still alive through some of the process.



And in Victoria, apparently some conventional abattoirs don't stun sheep before they're killed as they have found some legal loophole which allows them to do so.



But I basically keep the attitude of, who really knows HOW that animal got to your plate. Just 'cause there are laws in place, doesn't mean their enforced and even so, the suffering may be minimal compared to what it could be but is still an entirely unpleasant experience for the animal.

I found the movie E A R T H L I N G S to be very helpful.

Let's say their life and slaughter was all sunshine and butterflies. Do you still have any right to eat their dead bodies? Did you have the right to take another animal's life to fill your belly?

No, all slaughterhouses are not like that.

X2



That movie is what turned me into a vegetarian in one day.

Sorry but ALL slaughterhouses are hell.



PETA seem to do the most undercover work (that I have seen anyway) but check out Earthlings (as mentioned by pinkwolf). I wouldn't use the word helpful... eye-opening yes! Nightmare triggering yes! (I still have scary flashes 5mths on that make me tear up).



Triple J, an Aussie radio station, did a radio report on a slaughterhouse. Even though it was over the radio and there were no images you still heard the killing and the rude, uncaring comments from the *******s doing it. They did post a few photos on their website, and they shadowed all of those PETA have ever posted.



There is no way to kill someone nicely. Even if there were "rules and regulations" changing the ways of the guys who have worked in these places for 5-10yrs is going to be the real challenge.



Just stay away from all meat and you know no harm has been done to bring the meal to your plate.

Slaughtering an animal just to eat his/her flesh is a violent act, regardless of the manner in which this slaughter is carried out.

good point. as bad as the method is, why worry about how "humane" the slaughter is? the fact that these innocent animals are killed for our selfish ways is reason enough. they have a right to live. Honestly, if you're possibly interested in eating animals that are "humanely" killed, you need more personal introspection. Why would that be ok?

Maybe you don't watch the news, but there have been several instances in the past 2 or 3 years of undercover investigators finding those types of conditions in slaughterhouses. This is why 300 millions pounds of meat was recalled in 2008:



http://video.hsus.org/index.jsp?fr_s...243b30d049b3b7

A humane slaughterhouse is one that doesn't operate any more.

I know Animal Voices once interviewed a former chicken slaughterhouse worker, and it was this guy's opinion that egregious abuse is pretty common in slaughterhouses. I can't recall his name, and I believe he died some time ago.

Virgil Butler. He was once a VB member too. RIP.

It is commonly believed that farm animals must be treated well, since sick or dead animals would be of no use to agribusiness. However, as Bernard Rollin explains in the book Farm Animal Welfare, it is "more economically efficient to put a greater number of birds into each cage, accepting lower productivity per bird, but greater productivity per cage...Chickens are cheap, cages are expensive."



In the United States, virtually all farmed birds are raised in factory farms.1 Under these crowded and stressful conditions, birds peck each other. To combat this, workers cut off the ends of the hens' beaks with hot knives, causing severe pain for weeks.2 Some birds are not able to eat after being debeaked and starve.3 The federal Animal Welfare Act excludes farmed animals, and most state anticruelty laws exempt standard agricultural practices. These practices include castrating, dehorning, and tail-docking without anesthesia.4



Also, federal law requiring slaughter houses to kill mammals humanely has been increasingly ignored as meat plants grow bigger. According to Steve Cockerham, a USDA inspector at Nebraska slaughterhouses, and former USDA veterinarian Lester Friedlander, some U.S. slaughterhouses routinely skin live cattle, immerse squealing pigs in scalding water, and abuse still-conscious animals in other ways to keep production lines moving quickly. Cockerham said he often saw plant workers cut the feet, ears, and udders off cattle that were conscious after stun guns failed to work properly. He said, "They were still blinking and moving. It's a sickening thing to see."5 In a 1996 USDA survey, the stunning procedures in 36% of sheep and pig and 64% of cattle slaughterhouses surveyed were rated either "unacceptable" or a serious problem."6







References:



1. Peter Cheeke, PhD, textbook Contemporary Issues in Animal Agriculture, 1999.

2. BR Poultry Sci, 1989;30:479.

3. Bernard E. Rolin, PhD, Farm Animal Welfare (Iowa State University Press, 1995).

4. USDA, Animal Welfare Issues Compendium, 9/97.

5. Reuters, 4/2/98.

6. Meat & Poultry, 3/97.







-Eugene

First, I think 'humane slaughter' is a complete oxymoron, the two words cancel each other out.



Second, there's a programme in England called 'Kill It, Cook It, Eat It', which aims to show the meat industry in it's best, most 'humane' light. They have a live audience which is made up of ordinary people off the street, meat-eaters, vegans and vegetarians, who are all there for different personal reasons, and they also have experts and lobbyists from both sides. They choose a species for each show and go through the slaughter and preparation process in front of the audience, as it should be carried out according exactly to the law and animal welfare regulations.



Even when the slaughter is carried out exactly to these specifications (and I think I'm safe in saying the regulations are stricter in the U.K than the U.S, hang me upside down and slit me if I'm wrong), the suffering is awful. The animals can see the others being taken away, they have to pull them out of the pen, the bird's heads are pulled through funnels, the animals are hung upside down for God's sake! The stun doesn't work immediately and sometimes another shot is needed, they're scalded, and I don't care how quick it is, being bled to death is not quick enough. If they're aware of what's going on for one second, that's too long.



The one with the turkeys at Christmas was the worst one I've seen. They bled one, scalded it, plucked it, cut it's head off, then they threw it in the bin because it had pooed itself when they cut it, so it died for nothing.



And that's what happens on camera, according to regulations.

That must've been the guy I was thinking of. What was his s/n on here?

Ditto.

thank you those of you who took the effort to cite sources...and I'll have to check that Earthlings movie out...



I did some google searching with the references you gave me and found plenty of pictures and stats...I'm pretty convinced now that animal abuse happens regularly even with all the regulations. I think I may have to remind myself periodically though. In my head I get it, but emotionally I still tend to think the way I've been taught all of my meat-eating life.



on a positive note, even before I saw the pics today I decided to take all meat products out of my kitchen. this week I'll be stocking up on veggie stuff, and will probably be eating faux meat for a while until I adjust. oh, and I've also discovered soymilk, which was surprisingly delicious

I had a friend mention this to me once, "The animals are treated nicely first!"



So I said to her that if I kill her premeditated and in cold blood, I would go to jail, right?



If I gave her a really great day, took her out to lunch, went to a movie, bought her a new outfit, etc, and went for ice cream before I brutally killed her, would I get out of the murder charge because I was nice to her first?

Nice job! you've done research and are more well informed. If you need help, just ask. we're here for ya.

This is good even if the conditions inside the slaughterhouse and the conditions of the actual slaughter were 'humane', it is still immensley cruel to consume the carcasses and support the industry.