You are currently browsing the tag archive for the ‘meat’ tag.
My commute to work shares the path of “chicken trucks” en route to the Draper Valley Farms slaughterhouse. (The sanitized name is “Processing Plant.”) Depending on the time I go into work, I may see a truck carrying live birds to their deaths about once a week. Occasionally, I see live birds in the morning, and then a truck carrying dead birds in the evening…
12/13/11…Today at 8:30 AM I saw the ‘chicken truck’ driving north carrying live birds to this “processing plant.” At 6:00 PM tonight, I saw a “Draper Valley Farms” truck driving south carrying the refrigerated body parts of those same birds. What I want to know is this…
At what time did those beings experience the first pains of “processing?” At what time were the frightened birds grabbed– by the fistful– by men unloading their metal cages? When were they hung upside down on hooks? When did the first one experience broken bones? At what time did they realize they would die? At what time did they hit the electrified bath? When did the first bird miss the automatic throat-slitting machine & go to the scalder alive? At what time did the ‘backup slaughterer’ start his shift? When were the birds’ heads pulled off? Feet & feathers removed? Eviscerated? When did the feces start to spray all over? When did the carcasses commune in the refrigerated water? When were these birds chopped up and packaged in cellophane?
AND…At what time will the delivery truck driver unload the neat little blood-free packages at the back door of the grocery store? At what time will the stocker arrange the stacks of flesh? When will the first customer come to pick through the piles of breasts, thighs or legs? At what time will the grocery patron complain that chicken is just getting too “expensive?”
AND…When will that same grocery patron make the connection that IN these packages were birds who were exploited, abused, hurt and killed for NO good reason. WHEN?? When will he go vegan? When will she go vegan? God, I hope it’s soon.
Chickens killed unnecessarily on 12/26/11…
Chickens killed unnecessarily on 12/27/11…
Chickens killed unnecessarily on January 4, 2012…
PLEASE…GO VEGAN.
For more about these birds, please read Chicken Dinners
I did a home safety assessment for a patient at work today. I went with her & her husband to their rural home that includes a small herd (i.e. <25) of cows raised for meat. Having never been in this particular situation before, I was keenly interested to learn everything I could about the fate of those animals. I watched the cows innocently & peacefully grazing on grass as my patient was more than happy to answer all my questions.
By anyone’s definition, this is about as “humane” as an animal farm can get. The bulls are not castrated, so the breeding is natural. The cows have a lovely green pasture with a beautiful view of trees & mountains in a location w/ a mild climate. A mobile unit comes to the farm to slaughter the animals on site. The animals are killed when not much more than ~18 months (“so that the meat doesn’t get too tough”…and older animals are only “good” for hamburger.) The animal’s body is hauled off to a butcher shop in a nearby city for about a week of aging (she called it “hanging”) & then processing into the various meat cuts.
This will be the last herd that my patient & her husband will have because they are both elderly & it’s getting to be too much work for them. She also admitted that for health reasons everyone in her family is eating less beef so it is clearly not a necessary food source. She clearly has a certain fondness for her animals & yet her speaking tone was matter of fact and clinical.
I found the whole experience quite unsettling. Since going vegan, I have never needed confirmation, but yet being there confirmed in my mind that I am on the right track. If this little family farm is AS good as it gets, I still don’t want any part of it. I looked at the eyes of those animals. I put myself in their situation. I can only come to the conclusion that those animals don’t deserve to be suddenly killed when it is so unnecessary to kill them. It is unnecessary to eat them. And they really are babies…18 months. Cows can live to be 20 years or more if given the chance.
More Q’s I have: What happens when the mobile slaughter unit drives up? What is the process then? I didn’t have time to find out all the answers to every question that I later thought of. What happens when one cow is harmed..killed? When do the other cows know that they, too, will be harmed? I still want to know more. Nevertheless, I reflect on this interaction without tears, without anger. I am disturbed by it because it is so unfair. So unjust. But I am glad that no more animals on this particular farm will be bred just to be killed. I hope that more people will go vegan.
(Written April 5, 2012)
Freeheel Vegan 