When the Humane Society of the United States posted video of shocking cruelty at Westland/Hallmark Meat, a slaughterhouse in Chino, California, it really started something. In the video, slaughterhouse employees were shown using forklifts, high-pressure water hoses, and other abusive means to get cows otherwise unable to walk on their feet for slaughter. One cow is shown being dragged along the ground by a tractor, with a chain tied to its feet; another cow’s hind legs are so badly injured that she has to walk on her broken stumps. It’s awful footage, but I made myself watch it as a reminder of why I won’t purchase conventional, or otherwise inhumanely slaughtered, meat. Here’s the link for HSUS’ videos; I encourage you to watch them, if you can.
I’m sure this isn’t an isolated incident; rather, this particular slaughterhouse just got caught. I’d be willing to bet that these practices take place in several slaughterhouses across the country. (Wayne Pacelle agrees.) After all, these are huge buildings designed to make the slaughter of cattle as cost-efficient as possible. And far too often, there aren’t enough USDA inspectors on the premises to make a difference. Besides being cruel, the practice of dragging downed and injured cows through heaping piles of sloppy manure is risky; the chances that the cows’ flesh will contain E. coli or other pathogens is significantly increased. So, this is bad from an animal compassion view as well as a human health standpoint.
And what’s worse: this meat has mostly already been eaten. By CHILDREN IN SCHOOLS. The Westland/Hallmark slaughterhouse supplied the National School Lunch Program, better known in schools as the “Free Lunch” program. The meat hasn’t been proven to contain any pathogens (well, at least any more than usual), but still: kids ate it. And my thinking is, kids eat this kind of meat every day, in schools across the country. I should know, I went to public schools where we ate Sloppy Joes every week. I never belonged to a free lunch program, but I’m pretty sure we were eating stuff of the same caliber.
So there’s been a huge recall. About 143 million pounds, actually. And sure, you can read about it in most major news publications (though you’d probably have to search for it), but do you guys remember the outrage about the pet food from China that made pets sick and caused animals’ deaths? People lost it. I understand, too; if any of our five animals ever got sick from conventional pet food (which they don’t eat), I’d be really upset. So where are those animal lovers now? Where’s the outrage, the public media frenzy? Even if you don’t care about the kids, which probably makes you a bad person, what about the abused cows? They’re sick and dying, too. Do they get no love from America’s pet owners? I guess cheap meat is enough of an incentive for them to disengage from these cows, who suffer every day. I think most people have divorced their thinking about what they put in their mouths so thoroughly from what they hear in the news that they don’t put two and two together, because they don’t want to.
Even if the beef recall isn’t getting the massive level of media attention that was paid to the pet food recall, you can rest assured that the Humane Society is going at this thing balls to the wall. On his blog, A Humane Nation, Wayne Pacelle (CEO of HSUS) talks about what the organization is doing to investigate this case, as well as several dogfighting cases. Basically, the HSUS has no rest, and I love them for it. Their posting of the abuse video is really the reason this beef recall got started in the first place, and for that they are my hero.
Hey, do you think that the recall would have garnered more attention if the animals came from China? Just sayin’.
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