Before It Was a Sausage

Sobran's ^ | October 1, 2002 | Joseph Sobran

[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.

[LibertyGirl77]

prouct should be product

[Cooter]

Scientist grows meat in vat.

[freedomson]

This will cheer you up:

It's quite possible that when islamaniacs die, they are resurected as swine and it is for this reason that they are not kosher.

[LibertyGirl77]

They cut muscle strips from goldfish and put them in a high nutrient liquid made from the blood of unborn calves.

From the article about creating meat in a vat. This sounds truly horrific in its own way.

[Misterioso]

Take your sarcasm somewhere it will be appreciated, like an illegal dog-fighting ring or other gathering of sadistic idiots.

If I enjoy a pork chop, purchased at a reasonable price, does that make me a sadistic idiot?

[Stand Watch Listen]

Next subject: Dos it hurt the trees when we yank the fruit off?

Didn't you see Dorothy, the Scarecrow in the darkwoods of apple trees?

[Augie]

I buy from a guy who raises pigs the old-fashioned way- on dirt. I paid .30/lb on the hoof for the last one I bought.

I haven't been satisfied with the service at the processing plant lately, so this one was 100% do-it-yourself. Shot, washed, skinned, gutted, butchered, wrapped, frozen. It's cut the way I like it, and it was cheap.

I put 200lbs of pig in the freezer for $125, which includes the freezer paper, sausage seasonings, gas for the truck and other incidentals.

It's a bit of work, but the results are worth the trouble. Store-bought pork isn't fit to eat, and the price is rediculous. $5.18/lb for thick-cut boneless chops? Not at my house...

[Pagey]

"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.”

Doesn't this read as the proper way to deal with the members of Al-Qaeda, that are being held in Cuba?Mmm Hmmm.

[mg39]

No.

Please note that my comment was aimed at a jerk who dismissed the issue of cruelty to animals by making sarcastic and thoroughly insincere noises about plants feeling pain.

[woofie]

SSSSSHHHHHHH! Porky is listening

[leslie_is_cooking]

My grandparents had a "family farm" all of their lives. They wouldn't have even understood the concept of "animal rights," but there was a level of treatment for their farm animals that would never have been compromised just because common decency required a certain level of care.

We ate freshly butchered beef and poultry, unpasteurized milk and cream, and fresh eggs, and never once had illness as a result. Nowadays, food poisoning and salmonella are at epidemic levels, mostly because of the ghastly, unsanitary conditions we raise most of our livestock in. In addition, we have an impending medical crisis from "super bugs" which are resistant to all but our very strongest antibiotics. These "super bugs" are a direct result of the army of antibiotics that is injected into our food during prior to slaughter.

I've raised and slaughtered turkeys, chickens, rabbits, and pigs; I am no PETA nut who thinks that we should set free all domesticated animals to live in some sort of fantasy utopia. However, I believe the current factory-farm system is a disgraceful situation that reflects poorly on our society's character and is a looming health crisis that we are already seeing the preliminary signs of.

[Old Professer]

Mr Scully should be reminded that one doesn't speak ill of one's family in public.

[Old Professer]

The basic law of nature is that any creature too slow or too stupid to avoid capture will be eaten.

[Old Professer]

I buy my red meat locally where I see them out in the fields

Isn't it hard to keep them from spoiling without refrigeration? (What a picture you painted!)

[Old Professer]

. Nowadays, food poisoning and salmonella are at epidemic levels, mostly because of the ghastly, unsanitary conditions we raise most of our livestock in. In addition, we have an impending medical crisis from "super bugs" which are resistant to all but our very strongest antibiotics. These "super bugs" are a direct result of the army of antibiotics that is injected into our food during prior to slaughter.

With your permission, I will forward this insight to the CDC and maybe they will then furlough all those lazy featherbedders and reduce the national debt.

[Misterioso]

As should have been obvious, I dismiss the issue of cruelty to (food for human consumption) animals, too. I don't worry about the environment the hog endures before it is slaughtered when I savor my breakfast bacon. That is what Procyon's point was, I believe. People who focus on the "suffering" of the animals whose flesh they eat are silly, if not hypocritical. (Do they fret over the demise of a poisoned rat?) Ever cook a gut-hooked trout at the end of a day of fishing? This thread is beginning to look like a PETA forum.

[RichInOC]

[trying manfully to avoid making "Deliverance" jokes...]
[...and failing...]

"Ah'ma make yew squeal lahk uh pig, Mister So-bran...Squeal now...c'mon!"
"WEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!"

[GovernmentShrinker]

Actually, producing meat at all is inconsistent with feeding as many people as possible. It takes several times as many calories worth of grain to produce meat. If all meat production stopped today, and all the grain that would have bene fed to meat animals were fed to people instead, there would be a lot more people getting fed. A small amount of animal products is necessary for sound nutirition, but milk and eggs are sufficient, or the small amounts of meat available from wild game.

[mg39]

Fortunately most people are not as self-centered and cold-blooded as you.

[GovernmentShrinker]

It sure does. I think I'll stick to being a lacto-ovo vegetarian. Been one for 27 years now, and am perfectly healthy.