TORTUOUS SLAUGHTERHOUSES

I eat meat.

Thinking about how that cute cow goes from the pasture (if it was *even* lucky enough to graze in one) to my dinner table is something I don’t like to give much thought to. I’m sure I am like a lot of you – If you don’t hear about atrocities, it is easy live by the mantra “out of sight is out of mind.” I fight the battle of wanting to know, but not wanting to be so disturbed that the thought of torture plagues my mind all day. I feel lazy, guilty.

Let me back up for a moment. There are SO MANY more atrocities that take place on a daily basis, that I set myself up for backlash for not, perhaps, pointing them out first. I sometimes feel like it is a crime to show emotion about animal abuse without first showing the same amount of emotion about human abuse. The people who make me feel this way have a valid point in that there are multitudes of horrible acts being committed every day worthy of outrage. However, just because I am using the sad example of torture at a slaughterhouse as my sounding board, please don’t mistake me for not caring for the other forms of abuse that take place daily – whether it be Darfur, human rights abuses in China (or any country for that matter), female genital mutilation in Africa -- it all makes me sick.

Perhaps the slaughterhouse thing has prompted me to write simply because it is an easy connection to me directly – I go to the grocery store and I buy meat. Call it basic, but it is a direct connection. So when I am hearing (I didn’t want to watch) the report on CBS news this morning about the California slaughterhouse, and the despicable, heart breaking things they did to living animals before they were to die, it effected me.

I had a debate with someone this morning who’s argument was “In the end, the animal is going to die, murder if you will, so what does it matter if it is tortured when it is murdered in the end?” (I am paraphrasing here, but you get the point.) My only reply is this “If you knew you were going to die or even murdered, would you prefer to be tortured first?”

Anyway, instead of smoothing over what took place at the Hallmark Slaughterhouse in California, leaving out the details so as not to upset you, I will share them here:

Sick cows were repeatedly exposed to electric shocks. Fork lifts were used to jab them with prongs and roll them to get them to stand up (mind you, these cows were to too sick to stand up on their own). Even high intensity water sprays (water boarding anyone?) were shot up the animal’s noses.

Why do all this? Simple answer: it is about the bottom line. An animal that cannot stand on its own cannot be slaughtered for market. These tortuous measures might get the animal briefly to stand on its own before it is inspected and then sent to the killing room.

These gruesome practices violate California Law and USDA regulations.

Let’s forget about morality, just for a second though. The scary part is that this meat from this slaughterhouse (Hallmark) is a partner of Westland Meat of Chino. They are a major supplier of beef to the Federal School Lunch Program. So, some “downer” cows (those too sick to stand on their own), who may slip through the system from the torture routine, potentially have a “heightened risk for infections from E. coli, salmonella, and the agent that causes mad-cow disease, which can also cause a brain disease in people”, according to the Seattle Times.

This is just one example of one slaughterhouse. Are there more slaughterhouses that practice the same gruesome torture tactics? Unfortunately, it took an undercover person from an organization outside of the government to bring the video to light. How many slaughter houses are there? We are a society that wants the best price per pound. At what cost?