"MMmmmmmm Saussssaaage."
Posted on 10/23/2002 9:47:57 AM PDT by Korth
Every day in America, 355,000 pigs are slaughtered, notes Matthew Scully in his book Dominion (St. Martin’s Press). The numbers of pigs killed wouldn’t, in itself, horrify me. They way they are raised, as Scully describes it, does.
Space precludes a full discussion of this stunning book. I’ll confine myself here to the fate of the lowly, despised, and unpitied pig.
Scully doesn’t believe in “animal rights.” As his title suggests, he believes in man’s “dominion” over beast, more or less as authorized in the book of Genesis (though he also says he isn’t especially devout). But he also believes — noblesse oblige — that that human dominion should be humane. And it is now anything but.
The old-fashioned farm is nearly extinct. Animals raised for food — pigs being only one example — are now bred in conditions beyond nightmare, thanks to modern methods of efficient production. Few of them ever see sunshine in their lives. They are conceived (artificially) and born, live and die, in “factory farms,” in metal crates so cramped that their mothers barely have room to lie down, either to sleep or to give birth.
The filth and odor, Scully says, are unbearable. Pigs aren’t naturally filthy; under natural conditions, they leave their waste some distance from where they eat and sleep. But “factory farms” don’t permit that. The pigs live and die in tiny spaces from which there is never a moment’s escape. If they were given a tiny bit more space, the thinking goes, the mothers might accidentally crush their young. While they are deliberately fattened, their muscles atrophy, you see, and they become both obese and clumsy.
They are subject to a regimen of chemicals, inadequate food, “vaccinations, ear notching, teeth cutting, tail docking, and, for the males, castration. All of this ... without the use of a local anesthetic.” Castration is usually performed with a hot knife. Their tails must be docked — with pliers — “because premature weaning has left them constantly searching for something to chew or suck, and because their five or six months on earth will be spent in a crowd staring into the behinds of fellow captives, snapping at the tails in front of them, while the guys in back are doing the same to them.” Incredibly, the purpose of docking is not to reduce their pain, but to increase it, so that the young pigs will try to avoid attack and fewer infections will result.
When antibiotics are withdrawn, a week before slaughter, many of the pigs contract pneumonia. “Trembling and shaking, many lose control of their bowels and the floors must be constantly washed of excrement.” Scully quotes two New York Times reports on what happens next:
“Squealing hogs funnel into an area where they are electrocuted, stabbed in the jugular, then tied, lifted, and carried on a winding journey through the plant. They are dunked in scalding water, their hair is removed, they are run through a fiery furnace (to burn off residual hair), then disemboweled and sliced by an army of young, often immigrant laborers.”
These workers, Scully notes, “wear earplugs to muffle the screaming.” Most find the work demoralizing.
Another scene:
“Kill-floor work is hot, quick, and bloody. The hog is herded in from the stockyard, then stunned with an electric gun. It is lifted onto a conveyor belt, dazed but not dead, and passed to a waiting group of men who wear bloodstained smocks and blank faces. They slit the neck, shackle the hind legs, and watch the machine lift the carcass into the air, letting its life flow out in a purple gush, into a steaming collection trough.”
When 2,000 hogs per hour are thus processed by unskilled laborers, there are going to be mistakes. So the hogs that survive are “dropped alive into the scalding tank.”
Yet the producers — you can’t call them farmers — of these wretched porcines insist, with straight faces, that the animals are well treated and live contented lives. On Scully’s showing, this seems open to question. But what is certain is that the efficiency of these factory farms is such that traditional farms can’t compete with them.
So there is a little prehistory of your morning sausage. It’s a little chunk of an animal, of sorts, that never knew anything but a cruelty and misery you can hardly imagine.
I don’t know what practical conclusions follow. I only know that Scully has given my conscience a blow in the solar plexus.
Lisa Simpson: "No, dad.."
Homer: "What about ham?"
Lisa: "No.."
Homer: "pork chops?.."
Lisa: "Nope.."
Homer: "What about bacon?"
Lisa: "Dad, those all come from the same animal.."
Homer: "Yeah right Lisa...they all come from some wonderful, magical animal!"
The pig: nature's miracle.. : )
In addition, it is possible to obtain meat from cooperatives in which you can pick out the steer that you want in the spring and tell the producer exactly how you want that animal raised.
This is not a liberal/conservative issue. I am not gonna advocate government control of the packing plants or the factory farms. I do think we can promote and support alternatives that keep farmers on the land without their needing to resort to government assistance.
That being said: God is a God of mercy and life, not cruelty and death, and it is our duty as His children to reflect those qualities in our behavior, including our treatment of the soil, water, air, and life He has placed in our care. Cruel and wasteful practices towards these natural resources are -- if not fully sinful -- at the very least disrespectful towards God and His intentions; therefore, the less cruel and wasteful our farming and ranching practices are, the more holy our stewardship of the Earth becomes.
I find the cruel treatment of domesticated animals to be particularly troubling. Suffering is to some degree an unavoidable part of life, both for animals and for humans, but unnecessary suffering is not. Yes, they are only animals, but as moral creatures it is our responsibility to make sure that the lives of our livestock are as free from unecessary suffering as possible, without anthropomorphizing or sentimentalizing them in the process.
As I rule I prefer to buy meat produced from humanely-treated animals. There are many sources for such meats (including many which keep kosher); however, so-called "grassfed" or free-range meats may for reasons of cost or convenience be beyond the means of a given consumer. Each person must make their own decision about the sources of their foods based upon their own beliefs and resources.
I'm a supporter of market economics, but in certain cases the market will fail to produce the morally optimum (as opposed to the most efficient) solution to a given problem of supply and demand. I believe that industries dealing in living creatures (farming, ranching, etc,), especially where human beings are involved, must be considered such cases. It's my hope that in he future consumer choice will drive factory farming to the background and lead to a renaissance of family farming based upon an increased demand for fresh, high-quality, and naturally-based agricultural produce.
It seems quite likely that in 10-20 years, we'll be able to grow muscle tissue economically, in large quantities. At some point such meat is going to be cheaper and superior in quality to what we eat now. My guess is that by 2050 farm-raised meat will be a rare item.
I have seen advertisements for companies that ship beaf steaks via UPS or FedEx packed in dry ice so they stay fresh. I believe that Omaha Steaks is the name of one such company. Does anyone know of any companies that do the same sort of thing with pork products? I don't see why it wouldn't work just as well for bacon, sausage, pork chops, etc. for a company which sells meat from pigs raised and slaughtered in a more humane way.
Next subject: Dos it hurt the trees when we yank the fruit off?
"MMmmmmmm Saussssaaage."
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