Re: Marmite Crisps - Slightly pregnant

tony cooper wrote:
On Sat, 26 Jan 2008 16:04:33 -0500, "CDB" <bellemarec@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:

have in fact no objection to the idea of meat-eating if the animals
are raised and slaughtered in a carefully humane way.

Sorry, but I just can't get my mind around slaughtered in a humane
way.

I visited a slaughter house once. The cows came in through a
narrow, fenced chute. A guy stood atop the chute just inside the
building. He had a semi-pointed sledge with which he smacked each
incoming cow on the forehead. The cow went down, chains were
attached, the chains lifted and pulled the cow along a track, and
another guy slit each cow's throat. But the time the cow was taken
the length of the track it was gutted.

That is what happens when the industrial process works as intended.
In a relatively small number of cases, which still amount to a large
number overall, the process is botched, and the living and conscious
animal is carried by hooks thrust through its body to the slicing
machinery. It was to take account of such mistakes, many of which are
caused by carelessness and the constant pressure of the "moral
persons", or corporations, that govern the process, that I added the
word "careful" to my earlier posting.

Smaller animals, like pigs, chickens and turkeys, suffer more and more
often, because there are many more of them and the disassembly lines
move faster. Modern times. Those animals are also confined in
unbearable conditions for their entire lives (cattle, except for
veal-calves, come to it later), a cruelty that is far worse than even
the most horrific death.

Temple Grandin has come up with some simple modifications to
slaughterhouse design that reduce the suffering of the animals. I
don't know how many places they have been put into practice, but I
suspect that they will never be widespread unless they are required by
law.

In any case, the root of the problem seems to me to be the use of
methods conceived for the making of automobiles, for the processing of
living creatures. Any effective solution will no doubt raise the
price of meat. Some meat (or fish, as mb points out) is probably a
healthy addition to the human diet, but the amounts most people take
in are certainly unnecessary and probably harmful, especially since
the meat carries residues of the heavy doses of hormones and
antibiotics that are required to keep the animals healthy enough for
human consumption at the end of even their very short lives, and it
often enough carries diseases that those antibiotics can no longer
prevent.

That slaughter house later went to a method of using a gun-type
thing that shot a bolt into the cow's head. For humane purposes
because the bolt was more effective in causing instant death.

Did the cows appreciate the more humane method?

If a change reduces their suffering, I am willing to let their
gratitude go.

I eat meat, and I don't concern myself with the method of death.
Dead is dead.

I don't worry about them either, after that point. I've committed
several of the offenses cited by other posters in this thread, but my
intention is not to spoil anyone's digestion (except maybe Oleg's:
that corpse-steak was for you, OL, and may it curdle your bat***),
but to repeat that we all have to be responsible for the consequences
of our actions. Looking away won't do; holding your nose and running
past the abbatoir won't help.


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