Meatless March

It’s been over 100 years since Upton Sinclair wrote The Jungle, but his protagonist wouldn’t know the difference if it was written today. The atrocities that we read about in our high school English classes continue, thanks in large to high public demand for meat and the industrial nature of US slaughterhouses.

Slaughterhouse employees strain to keep up with kill quotas, and as a result they make mistakes. Animals that are not rendered unconscious by “knocking” machines are routinely beaten to death on kill-floors as they fight for their lives. Animals that are rendered unconscious, but do not bleed out, are routinely disemboweled before they are killed. The industry custom in bovine slaughterhouses is to sever the spinal cords of cows that aren’t killed on the line. This is not to bestow a quick death, but to paralyze the animal so that it’s skin can be removed without a fight. The swine industry is no better; pigs that survive the line are stabbed and dunked into scalding baths, where their skin peels off as they drown.

Scalding baths are also employed in the poultry industry. Before the birds make it to the baths, they pass through a chopping machine. This machine is meant to decapitate the birds, but can miss and hit the torso instead. A bird with its torso split won’t die instantly; it drowns in the bath, but not until its wound has released gastric juices and fecal matter for the bird to drown in.

Can you imagine worse deaths? Anyone who has ever owned a pet should know that animals experience a vast array of emotions. Their life experiences are not much different from ours; indeed, we are animals, too. You, your dog, and the animals on feedlots all experience curiosity, joy, fear, and pain. Animals are just as capable of suffering as we are.

After The Jungle was published Congress enacted the Federal Meat Inspection Act (FMIA). FMIA requires that an animal be inspected both before and after slaughter. FMIA also regulates sanitary requirements for slaughterhouses, and provides the USDA with the authority to monitor daily slaughterhouse operations. Unfortunately the US meat industry is so wealthy that it counters regulations with some of Washington DC’s strongest lobbyists. USDA inspectors have little power to enforce regulations, and even less incentive. When slaughterhouse operators are punished for violations, the punishments are slight and the gruesome killing continues.

As long as the public at large financially supports the US meat industry, the status quo will go on. The strongest message you can send is with your wallet. I humbly request that you do not reward the US meat industry with your hard earned money, but that you punish the industry for its unacceptable, inhumane practices, and join me in boycotting the business of meat for the entire month of March.