veganpowers-activate:~ tw: discussion of animal cruelty, gore ~I’ve recently finished reading this b
veganpowers-activate:~ tw: discussion of animal cruelty, gore ~I’ve recently finished reading this book and I can’t recommend it enough. It is a book that everyone should read. I would describe it as Earthlings in text form, and although it doesn’t quite have the scope of Earthlings in that it only covers the meat industry, this does it no harm as it manages to focus fully on the issues surrounding animal slaughter and is constantly brutally honest.Gail A. Eisnitz is the chief investigator for the Humane Farming Association. She is tasked with the undercover examination of slaughter houses all over the U.S. in order to ensure each and every one is complying with basic welfare laws. As a vegan and an abolitionist, I would normally overlook any literature to do with welfarism but to ignore this book would be a huge mistake. Eisnitz spends numerous years documenting gross misconduct and terrible cruelty and neglect within the industry. She interviews slaughterhouse workers who tell her about the regular practice of cows being hung on the slaughter line fully conscious, cows not being “stuck” properly so that they end up being skinned alive at the end of the slaughtering process, calves being ripped from their mother’s wombs as they hang upside down on the line, pigs being boiled alive in the scalding tank and workers beating animals to death with lead pipes. Eisnitz campaigns and struggles to expose these atrocities and is constantly turned down by media outlets that brand what she is trying to expose as “too gruesome” for public consumption and others that are simply too terrified to take on the meat industry at all. The only way Eisnitz is eventually able to get her findings across is to write this book.The reason these basic laws are being so regularly flouted are simple – there is high demand for meat and profit to be made. Not only does this result in appalling and unimaginable cruelty towards the animals, it sees simple hygiene and inspection laws being completely ignored in favour of high production. Carcasses riddled with tumours and disease are often snuck through production lines in order not to waste any “product”, faeces is embedded in the meat, animals that fall on the floor are hung back up and meat is often contamination with filth, gravel and splintered metal. Carcasses that have turned green and are infested with maggots or tapeworms are simply washed quickly and added to the pile of meat sent for rendering. Workers comment frequently that insects are commonly rendered along with meat – this meat ends up in hamburger patties. In fact, Eisnitz spends some of her time with the parents of children who have died horribly of Ecoli and other diseases caused by bad practice within the meat industry.Although it is easy to blame the slaughterhouse workers for the cruelty going on in these establishments, Slaughterhouse highlights the fact that the cause of this cruelty comes from far higher up the chain of command. Poor, vulnerable and exploited men, women and even children – particularly those in the country illegally or who do not speak English and therefore will not or can not complain about their jobs – are forced to deal with impossible production demands. Most of the workers that are interviewed are deeply concerned about the welfare of the animals as they are unable to ensure that each animal is treated with the respect they are apparently required by law to expect. Some workers are expected to successfully slaughter six pigs per second, ensuring they are properly “dispatched” before they face the horrors of the rest of the line – this rarely happens. Others face the constant danger of being crushed by falling animals, slashed with their own knives or even being threatened with violence by their own supervisors who expect them to keep up with insane demands. Eisnitz asks each worker that expresses concern for the animals and their fellow workers why they don’t speak up and the answer is simple – they can’t. Speaking up would have them moved to a different, more brutal station, or simply fired. They are replaceable. During the course of the book, one worker who speaks to Eisnitz is fired for simply speaking to her about his work. Most of these workers are extremely vulnerable and losing their job would more or less mean losing their life. They are also treated with disdain and are forced to both face and cause disgusting and harmful conditions. Many workers speak of their inability to go to the bathroom more than a couple of times in a shift, as moving away from the line would mean a slow on production – something that is unacceptable to the company – and so they often urinate on themselves where they stand. Supervisors make no exceptions for bathroom breaks even for the pregnant or for one man Eisnitz speaks to who is diabetic. To reiterate, this book is for everyone. If you eat meat, you should read this book to fully understand what your money is paying for and the sacrifice made by both human and non-human animals for something as frivolous as a twenty minute meal. If you believe you are feeding your family or yourself healthy, clean food then you need to realise what is really going into your “food”. It is no longer acceptable to justify eating meat by using the “humane” argument. Not only is the idea of humane slaughter oxymoronic in itself, any idea of how you might think animals are treated before they reach your dinner plate are crushed by this book. To continue to consume meat is to wilfully ignore the suffering of both human and non-human animals.If you don’t consume meat, this book is important as it does bring to light practices that the expose videos have previously failed to, and in far more detail. I especially recommend reading this book if you are of the opinion that low-wage slaughterhouse workers should be the main target of your rage surrounding this industry as this book shows quite clearly it is the system and big businesses that are mostly to blame for this cruelty and while, of course, there are some workers Eisnitz speaks to that are deplorable and cruel individuals, a large amount are not. They simply have no other choice – and they suffer the consequences severely. As an aside, it is important not to overlook this book if you do not live in the U.S. Yes, it focuses on the U.S. meat industry, but it is made clear that these products are being shipped all over the world. In addition to this, this sort of cruelty goes on everywhere. Eisnitz goes on in the afterword to draw attention to atrocities documented in India, Australia, France, Germany, Poland and numerous other countries. Don’t assume that because this investigation focuses on the U.S. meat industry that it does not hold extreme importance for everyone around the world. You can read Slaughterhouse here. -- source link