Animal Writings

I wanted to present this before my next post in the series about replacing meat. It's a small portion of interviews with ex-slaughterhouse workers, from Slaughterhouse, by Gail Eisnitz...

[The kill line] begins at the lead-up chutes when the hogs are brought in from the yards. Two or three drivers chase the hogs up. They prod them a lot because the hogs don’t want to go. When hogs smell blood, they don’t want to go.

[My Note: Transport to the slaughterhouse may take 30 hours or more. Typically, the hogs are given at most one drink of water. They are also starved for one or more days beforehand, since the food won’t be turned into profitable meat by the time they’re killed.]

I’ve seen hogs beaten, whipped, kicked in the head to get them to the restrainer. One night I saw a driver get so angry at a hog he broke its back with a piece of board. I’ve seen hog drivers take their prod and shove it up the hog’s ass to get them to move. I didn’t appreciate that because it made the hogs twice as wild by the time they got to me.

Management was constantly complaining to us about blown loins. They claimed that when the stunner voltage was too high it tore up the meat. The supervisors always wanted it on low stun no matter what size hogs we were stunning. Then when you got big sows and boars in the restrainer, the stunner wouldn’t work at all.

I yelled so much about having to stick [slit the throats of] live hogs, the stun operator would double-stun them. I’d watch him hitting them two and three times, and still they’d come through conscious.

I’ve seen hogs stunned up to twelve times. Like, a big boar would come through, they’d hit him with the stunner, he’d look up at them, go RRRAAA! Hit him again, the son of a bitch wouldn’t go, wouldn’t go. It’s amazing the willpower these animals have.

One guy would set the stunner on the hog’s back, then instead of holding the wand down for the three-second stun, he’d let it go and watch it ride up the hog’s back and shock the hog. He enjoyed watching the hog jump in the air when it was shocked. He liked to watch them flip up.

When hogs end up in the catch pen alive, the shackler beats them over the head with a lead pipe a couple of times – until they’re dazed so he can get a chain around the hog’s leg – and then he hoists it up. By then they may have come back to life and be squealing their heads off.

A lot of times hogs would jump off the shackling table and land in my little area. They’d been shocked, so they were vicious. They would be biting at anybody or anything that came near them…The foreman would be yelling at me “Stick that hog before it gets away!” So I’d grab it by the front leg, roll it over on its back and stick it [in the neck], then just get out of there. ‘Cause these hogs would spring back up after you stuck them. They would run around in a circle for about five minutes, just bleeding, trying to hold back [the blood] they had.

One night I had a boar come through live – about a five-hundred pounder – and I was about to stick it. It was hanging there upside down and it literally picked itself up [tried to right itself] and looked me right in the face. I grabbed it by its ear and it jerked away. When it came back, its tusk went through my no-cut glove and ripped my finger wide open. I turned around and stuck it. Then I shoved the water hose up its nose to drown it.

It got to the point where I was ducking and swerving and dipping so much I referred to my job as dancing. I’d stick the hogs, then as soon as pulled that knife out, I’d spin them so they wouldn’t [squirm and] kick blood in my face. There were nights I looked like I’d been through a bloodbath.

[The managers would] say, “That’s just muscle reaction, nerves. It’s not alive.” I’d say, “Then why’s the damn hog trying to bite me? Just how stupid do you think I am?”

After they left me, the hogs would go up a hundred-foot ramp to a tank where they’re dunked in 140 degree water. That’s to scald their hair off…You stick a live hog, it tightens up the muscles to hold the blood in. There’s no way these animals can bleed out in the few minutes it takes to get up the rap. By the time they hit the scalding tank, they’re still fully conscious and squealing.

There was one night I’ll never forget as long as I live. A little female hog was coming through the chutes. She got away and the supervisor said, “Stick that bitch.” I grabbed her and flipper her over. She looked at me. It was like she was saying, “Yeah, I know it’s your job, do it.” That was the first time I ever looked into a live hog’s eyes. And I stuck her.

[W]hen you’re standing there night after night, digging that knife into these hogs, and they’re fighting you, kicking at you, trying to bite you – doing whatever they can to try and get away from you – after a while you don’t give a shit. You’re just putting in your time. And then it gets to the point where you’re at a daydream stage. When you can think about everything else and still do your job. You become emotionally dead.

I’d come home, my wife would ask me how my night went, and instead of being happy to see her I’d say, “What the hell do you care?” We’d get into arguments about stupid things. Or else I’d come in so drunk I’d wonder how in the hell I made it home.

My wife…couldn’t take the bitching any more. I’d blow up at the drop of a hat, come home every night and find something to complain about, take my frustrations from work out on my family.

The minute I left [my job at the slaughterhouse] they just hired somebody else. And the minute he gets hurt bad they’ll put somebody else down there. And the chain will just keep going. Because people need a job, and they’re willing to do anything they can to keep their job. I proved it by sticking live animals.

Today, if somebody gave me a choice of going without a job or working for [the slaughterhouse], I’d go without a job. I’d mow lawns, fix cars. I’d do anything before I’d do that again.

...

One touch of that electric prod gets an animal to move, but…they were vicious with them. If a hog don’t want to go up to the restrainer and you don’t have a pipe handy, you shove the prod in his eye. And you hold it in his eye. And that changes his attitude.

I’ve taken prods and stuck them in their eyes. And held them there.

The preferred method of handling a cripple…is to beat him to death with a lead pipe before he gets into the chute…All the drivers use pipes to kill hogs that can’t go through the chutes. Or if you get a hog that refuses to go in the chutes and is stopping production, you beat him to death. Then push him off to the side and hang him up later.

I’ve beaten eleven to death in one day. I hope that don’t sound like bragging, because it’s not.

Hogs get stressed out pretty easy. If you prod them too much they have heart attacks. If you get a hog in the chute that’s had the shit prodded out of him and has a heart attack or refuses to move, you take a meat hook and hook it into his bunghole [anus]. You do this by clipping the hipbone. Then you drag him backwards. You’re dragging these hogs alive, and a lot of times the meat hook rips out of the bunghole. I’ve seen hams – thighs – completely ripped open. I’ve seen intestines come out. If the hog collapses near the front of the chute, you shove the meat hook into his cheek and drag him forward.

[When the hogs reach the restrainer] they’ve been shocked in the ass, poked in the eye, and they’re about as hyper as a pig can be. They’re climbing on top of each other. They’re nuts. They guy working the restrainer has to try and catch these bouncing hogs with a stunner. They’re jumping around, knocking the stunner off, and you’re not getting a solid stun.

Bad-sticks usually don’t have a chance to bleed out. They end up drowning in the scalding tank before they ever bleed to death. These hogs get up to the scalding tank, hit the water and start screaming and kicking. Sometimes they thrash so much they kick water out of the tank. Not a lot of water, but it was obvious what was going on because I could hear them screaming. Sooner or later they drown. There’s a rotating arm that pushes them under, so no chance for them to get out. I’m not sure if they burn to death before they drown, but it takes them a couple of minutes to stop thrashing.

So I go to their supervisor, a USDA veterinarian, and tell him workers are being hurt by live hogs…He’d be like, “Hey, I’m coming down.” And he’d tell everyone in advance. The main foreman would tell me the vet was coming down, then he’d crank up the stunners, walk around picking up pipes, and warning everybody, “Whatever you do, don’t use no pipes, the government man is coming down.” The vet would look around and say, “I don’t see no live hogs.” After that, he’d tell anyone who complained, “Hey, I’ve been down there, I’ve seen it. There’s nothing wrong with them hogs.”

I go to Iowa’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration. They say they have no statutes covering live hogs, which means no way of governing that. When OSHA would arrange to inspect the plant, here comes management again, turning up the stunners, taking away the pipes, making everything look nice, The foremen even made sure everybody had their earplugs in.

If you work in the stuck pit for any period of time, you develop an attitude that lets you kill things but doesn’t let you care. You may look a hog in the eye that’s walking around and think, God, that really isn’t a bad-looking animal. You may want to pet it. Pigs down on the kill floor have come up and nuzzled me like a puppy. Two minutes later I had to kill them – beat them to death with a pipe. I can’t care.

Labels: Gail Eisnitz, pigs, slaughterhouses

[Updated 1/8/2008 11:46am]

• Sometimes eat your vegetables before your main course. The idea is similar to starting dinner with a salad, which lets you get partially filled up on healthy greens and accouterments.
  
  You may be cooking a delicious, juicy, savory, zesty—and large—main course for which you're salivating, and as soon as it's ready, you dig in, and get filled up, and the nicely-prepared vegetables get downgraded to a marginal, sort of perfunctory afterthought. To safeguard against this, consider having a serving of the vegetable dish before your main course.
  
  Now, if your main course is filled with vegetables anyway, this isn't such a big deal. But if it's mostly protein and grains, e,g. red beans and rice or Gardenburger BBQ Riblets on a bun, it's a bigger deal.
  
  For instance, yesterday I had the-super-easy-cheating-way-of-mashed-sweet-potatoes and a vegan version of a bacon cheeseburger (I'll return to the specifics of each of these courses further on in the series). I kept the burger warm in the toaster oven while I enjoyed the sweet potato, which was piping hot and full of flavor.
  
  Anyway, by having some veggies before the main course is done, or perhaps before you even start it, you assure yourself of getting a healthy dose of the vegetables' nutrients and disease-fighting goodness.
  
  By the way, doesn't the picture of the kabobs in the Gardenburger link look great? Let's make that before the series is over. That'll be like the final exam, or the class picnic.


• My mom used to tell me that I would enjoy an activity if I had a positive attitude about it, but if I had a negative attitude, I would set up a self-fulfilling prophecy and probably have a lousy time as a result. With remarkably few exceptions, she was right.
  
  Don't think of vegetables as a chore, or as medicine that you "have to take" because your doctor—or your mom—tells you to. Vegetables are a wonderful thing—embrace them. No other food group has nearly the diversity of colors, textures, shapes, sizes, and flavors that you find in vegetables. We are blessed to live on an earth that has such a bounty of these wondrous foods. And through technology, we have access to a wide variety of them all year round.
  
  When eating vegetables, and when preparing them, feel how you're strengthening your heart, your lungs, your brain, your skin, your blood vessels and internal organs. Vegetables help fortify your heart, prevent cancer, lower your blood pressure, control your blood sugar, cleanse your colon, resist infection, and keep every part of your body working smoothly. Vegetables are more powerful than any wonder drug—and they taste good. They're a miracle. Savor them.
  
  Also consider the moral aspects. You have nothing to hide from yourself when eating vegetables. There's no deep-seated guilt or misgivings, no disturbing images of animal suffering and slaughterhouses that you have to push out of your mind; you don't have to engage in any rationalizing.
  
  Bruce Friedrich of PETA reminds us that one definition of integrity is refraining from paying others to do that which you would abstain from out of moral objection. Are you comfortable breeding animals to be so obese they have trouble walking? What about partially amputating animals' beaks, tails, and toes, and cutting off their testicles and horns with no painkillers? Crowding them into warehouses where they breathe in so much ammonia it damages their eyes and lungs? Forcing them to have babies, which you take away, so you can suck as much milk out of them as possible? Starving them for a few days? Loading them onto sweltering hot trucks in the middle of summer for a long journey with no water? Cutting some of their throats while they're alive and struggling? Suffocating them? Drowning them in near-boiling water? Causing them to scream and writhe in pain?
  
  No? Well, then don't pay someone else to do those things. With plant-based foods, you don't have to worry about any of that. You would most likely have no moral misgivings about preparing soil, planting seeds, watering and tending fields, and harvesting crops. In fact, you may do that on a small scale already in your back yard or patio or balcony.
  
  Yes, there is some impact to the earth and to animals in the growing of any food. That's unavoidable. You can lower your impact in many ways: Buying locally-grown food, preferring organic products, eating a variety of foods, growing a backyard garden, and making a shift toward participating in no-till agriculture.
  
  But step one is getting away from a mindset of creating animals just to kill them; opting out of a system where we severely manipulate animals' bodies—at great cost to their health and well-being—just so they'll have gigantic torsos and breasts, and the females will pump out insane levels of milk and eggs before we kill them. Walking away from that is the first step toward a diet that's compassionate and leaves you with a clear conscience. Eating meat hardens your heart; breaking free of that lifestyle allows you to have a more honest and meaningful relationship with the earth.
  
  These are just some of the many benefits of vegetables. In the next post, we'll look at easy ways to enjoy them in hot meals. Prepare to cook!

To be continued...

Labels: cooking, diet, slaughterhouses, vegetables

This is third of three posts that discuss why you should reduce meat and dairy from your diet as much as possible. The first two posts presented health and environmental reasons. This post looks at animal cruelty. After that, we will focus on how to replace animal products with plant-derived ingredients—without giving up taste or significantly changing your routine. You will, however, almost certainly increase the diversity, satisfaction, and healthfulness of your diet.

This post is not a comprehensive treatise on the cruelty and suffering—or, for that matter, the moral transgressions—involved in the raising and killing of animals for food. That would require a book.

Where to start? Perhaps with this: All the animals who are killed for food are individuals. Any of you who have lived with more than one dog or cat know that each one is unique, with his or her own personality. A dog or cat may be gregarious or shy; assertive or timid; active or a couch potato; easily bored or satisfied with a comfortable routine; an explorer or a passive observer. If you've interacted much with companion animals, you've probably noticed their unique quirks, preferences, and habits. You've picked up on—and maybe been amazed by—their emotional capacity: Their joy when playing, their anticipation of a tasty meal, their affection toward their human and non-human friends, their fear of danger, their depression when they're sick, and their grief when they lose a long-time companion.

It's no different with cows, chickens, turkeys, pigs, lambs, sheep, or goats—or any other animals on farms or being trucked to the slaughterhouse. I've gotten to know many of these animals; each one is different from any of the others. They have as broad a range of personality and emotions as companion animals. All have the capacity to feel joy and sadness; all of their lives have meaning to them, and none want to die, unless they are on death's door and in severe agony. In many deep respects, they are just like our dogs and cats, and just like us.

Please take a look at these pictures and video, for a brief overview of modern animal farming. You should know what it is you're causing—what you're financing—whenever you buy meat or order it at a restaurant. That alone might compel you to reduce your meat consumption.

Chickens on their way to the slaughterhouse

A baby chick getting her beak amputated with a searing hot blade. The ends of chickens' beaks are filled with nerves. The chicks are given no painkillers during this operation. In fact, farmed animals are never given painkillers when portions of their bodies are amputated.

Pigs who died on their way to slaughter

A pig being castrated without anesthesia

An introduction to how turkey meat is produced. In the video, the mutilations, painful procedures, and slow deaths are inflicted on newborn turkeys. This is their introduction to the world.

Similar cruelties and suffering occur at dairies and egg farms. All those animals are killed, too, at young ages, and almost all of them are subject to horrific conditions throughout their lives. In fact, please view one more set of pictures—a brief slide show of large dairy farms in California, where they like to boast of pampered cows in lush pastures. Note the difference between the commercials and the reality.

It's not hard to find extended suffering and brutal mistreatment of animals in all phases of the agriculture business, including breeding, auctioning, raising, "culling" (destroying animals who aren't market-worthy), transporting, and slaughtering. Here are a few excerpts:

From Animals' Angels:




In January, 2007, Animals' Angels "filmed Sara Lee turkeys in cages being trucked to slaughter in Iowa with broken legs, missing toes, and frostbite on their heads and toes. Some birds appeared to be dead, others were crammed into a broken container, and there was a large amount of blood on top of one of the cages. Birds and cages were caked with feces and once the trailer arrived at the slaughter plant (at 6:30 pm), the turkeys had to sit for 2 more hours in the open cold as the trucks waited in line to enter the plant." (As summarized by United Poultry Concerns)

Sara Lee turkey products are sold under the brand names Hillshire Farms, Jimmy Dean, and Ball Park.

Keep in mind that this is just the very tip of the iceberg.

What about "free range?"

"Free range" tends to be a far-fetched exaggeration. A "free range" operation can mean ten thousand birds confined in a dark, ammonia-filled shed with a door in the back that's open an hour each day and leads to an uncovered, muddy area that's big enough for a hundred birds. That's all legal.

Don't believe any of the pictures on packages; don't trust any of the producers' claims. Here's a photoessay of a "free range" turkey farm that supplies turkeys to Whole Foods. "Free range" in this case, like so many other cases, is a cruel farce.

I'm not trying to single out Whole Foods; in fact they're better than most grocery stores. The dishonesty and deception is widespread.

Smaller farms can be just as bad as large industrial farms. Far too many eyewitness accounts show animals starving to death, sick animals neglected and left to suffer and die, animals outside in 95-degree heat with no shade or water, excessive cruelty in prodding animals onto slaughterhouse-bound trucks, violent "culls" of unmarketable pigs, and more. The animals on smaller farms, just like on larger farms, typically—depending on their species—have their horns, testicles, toes, teeth, beaks, and tails amputated without painkillers. The animals are fattened up at a hyper rate due to intensive breeding and feed additives. Dairy cows have their calves taken from them—permanently—when only two days old. The animals are subject to the same gruesome transport and slaughter as their brethren imprisoned in larger factory farms.

Here's one more story, about a naive meat-eating couple who, after witnessing the realities of "free-range" farming up close, decided to change their lives and provide a haven for those animals instead. [Note that the story is continued on page 2 of the PDF document, but you need to scroll down to near the end of the document to see that part of page 2.]


Nine out of ten animals killed for food in the U.S. are chickens.

"Broiler" chickens—their fate embedded in their names—are killed at only seven weeks old. Some are still peeping. They've been engineered to grow at super-fast rates. They're the equivalent of human children weighing over 300 pounds. Many die of heart attacks. Others fall over and can't get back up because their legs can't support their oversized upper bodies; they slowly die of dehydration, even though they may be within inches of water. This is all due to the public's demand for cheap "white meat."

The chickens are starved for one to four days before their slaughter, because their last meals wouldn't have enough time to be converted to sellable meat. The day of their slaughter, they're grabbed by their legs and stuffed into cages on trucks. Several chickens may be crammed into each cage.

Once at the slaughterhouse, they may sit on the truck for another one to twelve hours. Then they're yanked out of their cages and hung by their feet in shackles. At this point they're on the moving slaughterhouse line. Each chicken is dunked head-first into an electrically charged trough of water that paralyzes their muscles but does not knock them out. An employee called the "cutter" attempts to sever both of the chicken's carotid arteries. But because the process is so rushed, and some birds are improperly hung, he may miss the mark, with the result that the chicken will be fully alive and conscious—but still paralyzed—as he or she is submerged in a "scalding tank" of near-boiling water that loosens feathers from the chicken's body.

I haven't talked much about eggs, mostly to save space. But here are some facts you may not know about egg production. Hens in commercial egg facilities have been engineered to lay up to ten times the number of eggs they would lay in the wild. This robs the hens of calcium and other nutrients, leaving their bones weak and brittle. The intense egg-laying frequency also increases the chances of painful conditions such as prolapse, in which the egg sticks to the uterine wall. At the hatcheries that produce laying hens, all the newborn male chicks are killed because they're of no economic use to the producers. The laying hens themselves are slaughtered when they're between one and two years old. They may be killed by the same torturous methods as those used on broiler chickens, or they may be disposed of in other gruesome ways, such as being thrown into a macerator, which is basically a wood-chipping machine. For more information, see www.noeggs.org.

There is a myth that farmers have to take good care of their animals or the animals won't produce. On today's farms, almost the exact the opposite is true. Animals are kept in hideous conditions, and they're confined so they won't burn up calories and cost more to feed. Farms only have to keep broiler chickens alive for seven weeks. Genetic manipulation makes them grow at ridiculous rates during that brief time. Even under the best conditions, at farm sanctuaries, these birds suffer from a host of problems and don't live long. Likewise, laying hens' "productivity" is a function of genetic tinkering and environmental tricks such as near-constant lighting that makes their bodies lay more eggs. By the time these hens are the equivalent of teenagers and are slaughtered, they look miserable and often are filled with disease.

Undercover investigations at slaughterhouses typically reveal cruelties and suffering that go beyond what I've described and that are outside the scope of this post. Investigators witness sadistic acts such as employees impaling live chickens on spikes, jamming steel rods into pigs' anuses, and throwing turkeys full force against a concrete wall. Imagine being in a job where you were soaked with blood and killed animals every day, with such rapidity that you ceased to see the animals as individuals. Add to that the repetition of the job, the long hours, the low pay, and the almost non-existent benefits. Some of the workers take out their pent-up frustration on the animals. The animals, unfortunately, are an easy target. Slaughterhouses are saturated with violence. The non-humans are brutally killed, but there is a human toll, too. Remember, you support all this when you buy meat, as well as when you buy dairy, eggs, and products such as muffins and soup that contain animal-derived ingredients.

Now, there's little to be gained from getting disgusted, angry, or depressed and then not being able to do anything about it. Fortunately, that's not the case here. Your choice of which foods to buy and eat can make a huge difference in terms of your health, your environmental footprint, and your contribution to animal suffering.

But it may go beyond that. Reducing your meat and animal product consumption may also give you peace of mind. Most people are decent and do not really want to harm animals if they can help it. But we get stuck in our ways. We eat what we're used to, what's convenient, and what others are eating. We don't think about this, but we become emotionally attached to our diets. They're comfortable. If we're eating roughly the same foods as our friends, co-workers, and relatives, we're never the "odd man out;" and it's nice to fit in—as much as we may like to consider ourselves independent and above all that.

So in the back of our minds we're uncomfortable with the suffering and death we inflict on animals (and maybe with the negative impact we're having on the environment and on our long-term health). We push those thoughts out of our mind, or we make rationalizations. But the disconnect ultimately takes a toll.

When your diet is more in line with your deepest goals and your morals, it relieves you of a burden you may never have even realized you had. It improves your relationship with the earth and its creatures, and it brings you peace of mind.

For most people in the West—where we have an abundance of foods all year long—the barriers to reducing meat and dairy consumption are almost all psychological. True, there are exceptions; some people have unusual dietary needs or health conditions that impede their efforts to replace meat with vegetarian alternatives. In those cases, a veg-friendly dietitian may be of great benefit. But for the vast majority of people in this part of the world, their reasons for not cutting meat consumption and trying vegetarian main dishes are primarily mental and emotional.

One persistent barrier is a reluctance to give up familiar routines and favorite foods. That's perfectly understandable. If you take a vacation to Japan, you may decide to become absorbed in the culture while you're there and eat miso rice and soup for breakfast each day. Even if you go to France, another Western country, you may do as the French do and eat a baguette with jam or Nutella every day for breakfast. But when you get home, chances are close to 100 percent that you'll settle back into your normal eating patterns, which may consist of cereal and toast for breakfast. You'll be enriched by your overseas experience but be glad to be eating familiar foods once again.

It's not that cereal and toast makes any more sense than miso soup and rice for breakfast. It's what you're used to. We grow attached to our comfort foods.

My observation is that this fear of having to give up everything that's comfortable and replace it with things that are strange is an impediment to people changing their diets, and specifically trying vegetarian foods.

My goal in the next several posts is to show you easy, unstressful ways to reduce meat and dairy and replace them with plant-based choices. I'm putting myself in your place, as though I were a somewhat skeptical meat-eater (which I used to be).

I'll start with a few straightforward substitutions, then move on to:

• Simple ways to boost the fruit, vegetable, whole grain, and/or legume content in your menu;


• Tips on how to vary and increase your enjoyment of dishes that you already eat that are vegetarian.


• Foods that may be new to you but that—alone or in combination with other ingredients—yield familiar tastes and textures.

Finally, we'll venture into slightly more exotic stuff as well as cooking hints.

I don't want to narrow the focus too much, but the primary audience I'm targeting is people who don't cook much and whose tastes are fairly conventional but are willing to try new things.

With the holiday approaching, I'll probably be pressed for time and have to add to the posts in small batches. I'll continue the convention of ending incomplete posts with More to follow....

If you are going to a faraway land that has limited Internet access, have a great holiday, snack on Smokehouse Almonds instead of cheese, graciously bring some (spoiler alert!) Silk Nog to your hosts' house, don't fight with your relatives, and check out the series when you get back!

To be continued...

Labels: chicken, chickens, defense mechanisms, diet, eggs, nog, slaughterhouses, violence