The MEAT File - A Documentation on Meat Consumption, Climate Change, Health and Vegetarianism. 6 terrifying reasons why it’s time to stop eating meat
TRUTH IS SOMETIMES SOMETHING YOU DON'T LIKE BUT IT IS THE TRUTH...
Factory farming, the crowding together of livestock in factory-like conditions to cut down on production costs, is widely deplored for its harm to animals, workers, the environment and food consumers. It is hard to find a farm that crowds animals together in pens and cages that doesn't also rely on antibiotics and growth chemicals, mistreat workers, spew manure into the environment and generate periodic safety questions about its products.
The Meat File - A fascinating and impressive documentation about the effects of eating meat on our health, the climate, world hunger and not lastly, on how we treat animals. The far-reaching consequences of the individual links in the processing chain - from meat production to consumption - are presented in an oppressively transparent way.
6 terrifying reasons why it’s time to stop eating meat
From disgusting
slaughterhouse conditions to devastating health consequences, the evidence
keeps piling up
09.29.2014•3:17 PMFactory farming, the crowding together of livestock in factory-like conditions to cut down on production costs, is widely deplored for its harm to animals, workers, the environment and food consumers. It is hard to find a farm that crowds animals together in pens and cages that doesn't also rely on antibiotics and growth chemicals, mistreat workers, spew manure into the environment and generate periodic safety questions about its products.
Meat giant Tyson dumps more than 18 million pounds of toxic chemicals into America’s waterways each year, according to a recent report, even as it finalizes a merger with meat giant Hillshire. Tyson was served with a federal indictment in 2001 charging it with smuggling workers across the Rio Grande and supplying them with phony social security cards. "They cheat these workers out of pay and benefits, and then try to keep them quiet by threatening to send them back to Mexico,” declared Rev. Jim Lewis, an Episcopal minister in Arkansas.
Meat mergers and the globalization of meat production have the potential for eroding U.S. food safety standards, say food experts. Few missed this summer's scandal in which Starbucks, Burger King, McDonald's and KFC were accused of using expired meat products in their China operations. But not as many people have noted the recent sale of Smithfield foods to Shuanghui International, China's biggest takeover of a U.S. company to date. In 2008, dairy products tainted with the industrial chemical melamine in China sickened thousands and killed six infants. Last fall, the Obama administration approved the sale in the U.S. of chickens "processed" in China if they are raised and slaughtered in the U.S. or Canada. In 2007, an estimated 1,950 cats and 2,200 dogs in the U.S. died from melamine-tainted food from China.And let's not forget that f orty
percent of the world’s land surface is now used for food, the
vast majority to feed chickens, pigs and cattle, not people. Increasingly
governments and environmental groups say such inefficient land use and extreme
meat consumption is not sustainable. US factory farms largely elude pollution
regulations yet hydrogen sulfide from
manure lagoons is linked to respiratory problems, seizures and worse and
nitrates, found in drinking water near hog factories, are linked to blue baby
syndrome and spontaneous abortions.
As whistleblowers and undercover humane
workers have exposed unwholesome and cruel meat production practices like a
California slaughterhouse processing and
selling cows with eye cancer, there has been a public call for transparency and
better regulation of meat production. Yet this year has brought serious
setbacks to food activists who seek to reform factory farms and ensure pure,
humane and clearly labeled food. Here are some ongoing battles with Big Ag.
1. Slaughter Lines Are
Increasing in Speed
Many welfare and sanitary objections concern the speed of the assembly line
on the kill floor at the slaughterhouse. Workers, federal inspectors and
reporters who have gone undercover have
all noted that animals are "missed" and not stunned
as they are supposed to be before slaughter. Ten years ago, federal meat
inspector Lester Friedlander told the press that stopping the line cost about
$5,000 a minute, so veterinarians are pressured “to look the other way” when
violations happen. Nonetheless, in shocking privatization, the federal
government is increasingly letting Big Meat self-police. In 2000, it instituted
a kind of honor system called HACCP which 62 percent of meat inspectors
said forced them to allow feces, vomit and
metal shards in food on a daily or weekly basis.
And it gets worse. The USDA is now seeking
to implement new slaughterhouse guidelines "that would allow poultry
companies to accelerate their processing lines" and make "plants more
efficient" reports the Washington Post. Is that even
possible? In March, 68 members
of Congress joined many food and public health activists in
saying to Ag Secretary Tom Vilsack, you want to speed up WHAT?--noting the
obvious humane and hygiene risks of more "efficiency" Similar
concerns did not stop the implementation of HACCP fourteen years ago.
2. The Blight of
Porcine Epidemic Diarrhea virus (PEDv)
Have you ever heard of porcine epidemic
diarrhea virus? Big Pork in the U.S. hopes not. Even though one tenth of U.S.
pork supplies have been decimated by the virus since May 2013, producing mountains of
dead baby piglets, Big Pork doesn't want to turn off or scare pork eaters so
the virus has been downplayed. PEDv, a severe and usually fatal diarrhea
disease, has killed
seven million piglets in their first days of life in the U.S.
since 2013, though it does not affect humans who eat pork or adult pigs. The
Humane Society of the United States (HSUS) puts
the blame for PEDv, which has spread to over half the states,
on cramped factory farm conditions which spread misery and disease among animals.
Earlier this year, HSUS reported on a Kentucky farm that lost 900
piglets within a two-day period and was actually feeding the dead pigs to
other pigs in an attempt to induce "immunity" in survivors. Footage
from the Iron Maiden Hog Farm in Owensboro, Kentucky shows pigs whose legs
had bound together to keep them standing when they otherwise would
have collapsed.
In addressing PEDv, the National Pork
Board and National Pork Producers Council defend "indoor
facilities" which allow" security protocols [that] lead to healthier
pigs and a safer food supply." Except that they don't.
Disposal of unwanted piglets on factory
farms is by "manually applied blunt force trauma to the head"
according to the American
Veterinary Medical Association also known as bashing their
heads against wall. Piglets are also gassed. A barn technician at Country
View/Hatfield Quality Meats in Fannettsburg, Pennsylvania describedwatching 39
unwanted pigs "left in the cart all day to trample each other, before
being gassed all at once.” What an irony that PEDv may instill new respect for
baby piglets on factory farms.
3. California
Slaughterhouse Receives Criminal Indictment
In March, we told you about a giant
recall of beef from Rancho Feeding Corp. in Petaluma,
California because the slaughterhouse "processed diseased and unsound
animals and carried out these activities without the benefit or full benefit of
federal inspection." The recalled meat was found in Nestle's Philly
Steaks, Cheese Hot Pockets, Walmart Fatburgers, Kroger Ground Beef Mini Sliders
and other well-known brands.
It turns out the "unsound
activities" were criminal. While inspectors were on their lunch breaks,
workers processed condemned and cancerous cows and put the heads of healthy
cows next to their carcasses, charges a federal indictment.
Employees were also directed
to "carve out" USDA Condemned stamps from carcasses.
Like Westland/Hallmark Meat Co., the slaughterhouse behind
the school lunch recall in 2008, Rancho Feeding Corp. was a
slaughterhouse where farmers could dump sick and dying dairy cows who could no
longer walk, still making $400 per carcass. And like Agriprocessors,
an Iowa kosher slaughterhouse charged with such serious worker abuse, it was
forced to shut down, Rancho was back in business almost overnight, under a new
name and with many of the same
employees. We learned our lesson!
4. An Asthma-Like
Growth Additive Worse Than Ractopamine
Last year, AlterNet reported
on the controversial growth additive, ractopamine, which is marketed as Paylean
for pigs, Optaflexx for cattle and Topmax for turkeys in the U.S. Widely banned
in other countries, the Center for Food Safety and Animal Legal Defense Fund
have sought information from the FDA about ractopamine's effects on animal or
human "liver form and function, kidney form and function, thyroid form and
function," "tumor development" and urethral and prostate
effects.
Now there is news about a related drug,
Zilmax (zilpaterol hydrochloride), a growth enhancer that adds "24 to
33 pounds additional hot carcass weight," according to
Merck, its manufacturer. Merck says that Zilmax improves "cattle's natural
ability to convert feed into more lean beef that is flavorful, tender and
juicy," but the drug's destruction of cattle's hooves is well
documented.
Ten months ago, 17
Zilmax-fed heifers and steers were destroyed at a Tyson
slaughterhouse in Washington state because they couldn't walk, leading Tyson to
tell its feedlot customers it would not accept Zilmax-fed cattle. After a video
of hoof-less Zilmax-fed cattle was shown by meat giant JBS USA LLC at a trade
meeting, Merck temporarily suspended Zilmax sales in the U.S. and Canada.
"Maybe we found the point where we pushed the cattle just so hard in the
sake of making a buck that we exceeded the biological limits of the
cattle," said
Abe Turgeon, a prominent livestock nutritionist, who had
previously recommended Zilmax.
Then, Texas Tech University and Kansas
State University researchers reported that
more than 3,800 cattle fed Zilmax in 10 feedlots died in 2011 and 2012, with
"between 40 percent and 50 percent of the deaths likely attributable to
Zilmax"-- a far cry from the 285 Zilmax-related deaths Merck reported.
Undaunted by reports of animal harm, Merck
wants to resume sales
of Zilmax in the U.S. which brought in nearly
$160 million annually. It proposes a "study" of
Zilmax in 250,000 cattle, which meatpackers oppose for human and animal safety
reasons. Meat retailers also have doubts. "We don't want to fiddle with it
as long as there's a known animal-welfare issue," said Costco VP Craig. A
spokeswoman for Burger King also expressed reservations. Yes, the drug is even
too extreme for meat processors and fast food outlets.
5. Factory Farm Fires
In 2012, the National Fire Protection
Association (NFPA) addressed the sad and preventable scourge of
farm fires by proposing an amendment requiring all newly constructed farmed
animal housing facilities to be equipped with sprinklers and smoke control
systems. But, a letter
to NFPA from Michael Formica, chief environmental counsel for
the National Pork Producers Council on behalf of the other Big Ag groups, said
installing fire protection systems presented "staggering costs in the
billions of dollars," and that many operations lack "sufficient water
supply available to service an automated sprinkler system." This
effectively killed the proposal, condemning millions more helpless animals to
die in infernos.
In July, 65,000 hens burned to death in
an Egg Innovations barn
in Kosciusko County, Indiana, an egg operation whose website brags about
"Letting Chickens Be Chickens." Right. In January, 300,000 hens
burned to death at an egg operation in La Grange, Wisconsin. More than 50 fire
departments and 100 firefighters battled the blaze at S&R Egg Farm where
the trapped hens perished in the worst manner any living being can endure.
It is shocking that animals are worth less
to Big Ag than the cost of a sprinkler system, even if they end up burning to
death. But, according to Fire
Prevention Contractor magazine, Big Ag's cost objections are not
even correct. "In truth, the existing water supply system serving the
animals at any farm could double as a sprinkler system just by adding
heat-sensitive sprinkler heads. No more water would be needed than the water
already in the supply lines," it writes.
6. Ag-Gag Laws
How do we know about these and other
unethical practices on factory farms? Reporters, whistleblowers and undercover
humane investigators tell us. That is why Big Ag has rolled out
"Ag-Gag" laws which criminalize photographing farm practices, even by
employees, and being hired under false pretenses. Killing the messenger rather
than cleaning up farm operations may be a transparent ruse to continue cheap
meat production, but it is working.
When Idaho
lawmakers were confronted with grotesque undercover video from
Bettencourt Dairies Dry Creek Dairy in Hansen, Idaho showing workers beating
trapped cows and dragging a cow by a chain, they had a swift response: a law
criminalizing videotaping of farms.
Needless to say, Animal Facility
Interference laws, proposed or enacted in about a dozen states, are about
freedom of speech and the First Amendment as much as animal welfare.
"Extreme versions of ag-gag would make it illegal for me to write about it
[farm abuse], or at least publish pictures," wrote New
York Times columnist
Mark Bittman in a piece titled "Banned
from the Barn."
John P. Kibbie, a state
senator from Emmetsburg and president of the Iowa State Senate
says the bills "make producers feel more comfortable." Yes, at the
same time they tell food consumers how their food is produced is none of our
business.
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