the Truth Behind Slaughterhouses

                                Michelle Chambers
                                Research Paper
                           
The Truth Behind Slaughterhouses


    American citizens and government officials have turned a blind eye on food industries.

The way they operate and how that can effect lives. American slaughter houses have became a

place of torture and a means of entertainment. They are filthy, contain horrible conditions and

are unsuccessful. Shining a light on the conditions of the slaughterhouse and the treatment of

animals can maybe spark some change. How can we better these slaughterhouses for these

animals, workers, and consumers?

    The treatment of animals at slaughterhouses are inhumane. Many of the animals that we

consume on a daily basis are being brutally killed in these slaughterhouses. Turkeys with broken
   
wings and legs, bloody open wounds, tumors and other untreated injuries are being slaughtered

for human consumption. According to the Vegan Outreach program, in the article “If

Slaughterhouse Had Glass Walls,” “Animals in slaughterhouses can smell, hear, and often see

the slaughter of those before them.” imagine knowing you are going to be killed but cant do

absolutely nothing about it. The Federal law requires that mammals be stunned prior to slaughter

(exempting kosher and halal) (Vegan Outreach), but in most cases animals are still conscious

when having their throats sliced, and are not given any pain killers during the process.   

    Workers in slaughterhouses have become so desensitized to killing these animals that

they physically abuse them before slaughter, just for fun. The article “Animal Cruelty in

Slaughterhouses,” appeared in “the College Hill,” a community college newspaper of Sussex

County, stated that “Employees of Kentucky Fried Chicken, one of the biggest fast food chains

of poultry, were caught in July 2004, torturing their chickens for fun. Workers were videoed

stomping on chickens, kicking them, and slamming them violently against floors and walls.

Workers also ripped the animals’ beaks, twisted their heads off, spray-painted their faces and

faces, and squeezed the chickens’ bodies until they would die.” These workers have lost all type

of emotional attachment to these animals. Due to the fact that these workers perform the same

task all day everyday for a number of hours, they tend to become bored and stressed, so their

form of entertainment on the job is to physically abuse these animals. It has been documented of

some incidents where there are supervisors on duty witnessing these actions of the workers but

do not say anything. According to “Mercy for Animals.” there is no type of control on these

workers to prevent these incidents.

    Majority of workers in the United States slaughterhouses are illegal immigrants. These

workers are hired by these corporations because they can be paid below minimum wage, they are

easily replaceable and there is no fear that these workers would unionize. These illegal

immigrants are young, inexperienced and have little to non educational background, and are out

to work in one the most dangerous jobs. Many illegal workers have been killed due to the lack of

experience and the dangerous conditions they are put under. In Eric Schlosser’s “Fast Food

Nation” there is a entire chapter dedicated to the dangerous jobs that were given to these

immigrants. In this chapter labeled “The Most Dangerous Jobs” there are some factual incidents

where employees have been injured and even killed on the job. There was an incident where a

illegal immigrant worker named Raoul severely injured his shoulder and tendon. He was driven

to the hospital to receive stitches ans as soon as he was all finished, he was driven back to work ,

where he was dripping blood all over. Sometimes employees were asked to climb into gigantic

blood tanks and gut bins to unclog drains, according to Eric Schlosser’s findings. To clean these

huge tanks was a liquid called chlorine mix. “Chlorine is a hazardous chemical that can be

inhaled or absorbed through the skin, causing a litany of health problems [Eric Schlosser].”

There is a task called the “gutter” as a former IBP employee in Fast Food Nation described, is a

person that removes all of the guts from animals. An unskilled, inexperience worker can

improperly remove an animal to spray all over. As the former IBP worker explained it took him

6 months to learn how to properly gut an animal without the spraying of manure. The manure

that was sprayed out of these animals, due to improperly gutting, can lead to contamination of

the products.

    The way corporations conduct their slaughterhouses are not successful. Many animals are


killed before they even reach the slaughterhouse, and workers tend to kill healthy animal, mostly


chickens and turkeys, for entertainment. All of these animals being killed either before


slaughter or for fun, is a loss of product for these corporations. When product is being loss profit


will also decrease. Even trying to get the animals, especially larger animals, to behave is time


consuming and can lead to a loss in profit. These large corporations are knowledgeable about


these incidents but are not doing anything to prevent then from happening. Dr. Temple Grandin


is a designer of livestock handling facilities and author of “ Thinking In Pictures and Other


Reports from My Life with Autism.” in her book, Dr. Temple Grandin pin points the problems


that human beings have done to animals that has made these slaughterhouses unsuccessful. Dr.


Temple Grandin states that “Mistreatment by people is the number one causing of animals


becoming frightened.” Management is also a lead contributor of the operation not being


successful. “Some people buy new equipment and think that is a substitute for good


management, over years I have seen animal handling improve with a change in management, and

I have seen it get rough and nasty when a good manager left [No Manager, No Control].” if


managers and workers had more of an emotional attachment to these animals, American


slaughterhouses would not only be more successful but less inhumane.

   
    With no change in slaughterhouse conditions, treatment of animals and workers,


consumers can be effected. The conditions of American slaughterhouses are filthy and hold a


foul odor. Animals sit all day in a crowded facility drenched in manure, awaiting some type of


disease to eat away at there bodies. Due to these horrible conditions contamination can occur.


Deadly pathogens such as E-coli 0157: H7 can spread and lead to a supermarket near you.

The Disgusting Truth About What Our Meat Is Being Fed ! YUCK !

"They’re designed to eat grass and, maybe, grain. I mean, they have four stomachs for a reason- to eat products that have a high cellulose content. They are not designed to eat other animals.”

 -Steven P. Bjerklie

Quote Found On Page 202 of "Fast Food Nation" -Eric Schlosser

                I Find this to be BEYOND disgusting. The cattles that are being slaughtered to become our next meal are being fed dead cats, dogs, and chickens. Cattle's are natural herbivores. Their body isn’t built to digest ANY meat products. Yea, us human beings consume dead animals on a daily basis, but our body is designed to digest these types of material. It even takes our bodies 15 days to digest these meats. Due to feeding these cattle dead meat the “mad cow disease” began.  The sad part about it is that current FDA regulations still allow dead pigs, horses and chickens to be fed to these cattles.  Sawdust and waste products from poultry plants are also being fed to the cattle. 3 million pounds of manure from chicken has been fed to cattles. This is like you yourself as the consumer eating pounds of chicken manure.  YUCK, yea I know I felt the same way.

            Feeding these cattle dead animals can lead to all types of disease.  The food borne illness that is mentioned a lot throughout this passage is E-coli 0157: H7. When a single cattle is infected with E-coli 0157: H7, it can contaminate thousands of pounds of meat that was produced at that plant. This pathogen causes bloody diarrhea, bloody urine, vomiting and excruciating pains in the abdomen area. This pathogen can also be fatal in children.

           So the question that we all must be asking ourselves is, why do these corporations feed these cattle dead animals? WELL, due to the rise in grain, corporations had no other option than to fed these cattle dead animals. Dead animals are the only material that is still high in protein and can still accelerate growth. Because of the high demand of meat, corporations are left no other choice.

So lets all think about where that hambuger you might eat really came from and what it is REALLY made out of! (MANURE!!!!!)