Meat - Whose Meat?
Luckily I have been born into a household that does not believe in the benefits of a meat diet. As a teen, I once happened to walk past a dingy area of the city where in a tiny tin shack, a goat (or the remants of it) were being hacked away by a butcher. Flesh, muscle, bone - all looking fresh yet dead. Being a teen obsessed with likes and dislikes like the vegetarians who make a morality issue out of this, I felt glad I had vegetarian eating habits.
Looking back at that incident, I think it is more than just morality. A meat-eating man is no better nor worse than someone who does not eat meat. It is just a level of comfort for me. I would not want to call a person who willingly eats rotting flesh when there is plenty of fresh green produce available, a healthy person. Yes, rotting flesh, unless it has been bought from a small farm and not the product of an assembly line like a car! The bigger issue here is the way the meat is obtained, not whether eating meat is moral or not.
Grass-fed, free-range, growth hormones, e-coli, mad cow disease; all are terms of this century. All because of the greed of a few million people for whom enough was not enough. Those shiny plastic packages containing a cut or chop of the miserable animal do not tell the entire story. For that, someone has to go investigate and then write a book about the evils of the meat industry, thereby making millions.
In that occasional masochistic mood, I like to read reality books. Books that knock the life out, leaving one gasping for air. Ofcourse, I do not buy these books when a stroll to the library can do the job. I read three books on this subject. The one by 'Gail Eisnitz' had a pretentious, melodramatic tone to it. Clearly, the writer was suddenly awakened and aware of the evils of meat, not because there were feelings for the animals but because there were people dying after consuming contaminated meat. A 'righteous' enough cause for a book, right? The other books by Eric Schlosser were practical and frank enough to retain my interest. And then there is that classic by Upton Sinclair, 'The Jungle', which exposes the evils of the meat industry with horrific incidents about the working conditions such as a man getting caught into the processing machine and turning into lard!
Recently, a few family members have been diagnosed with a Vitamin B deficiency. Yes, a vegetarian diet has it's disadvantages. I have seen people obsessed about 'getting their protein'. Once I happened to accompany my colleagues to an 'Asian' (let us leave it at that!) restaurant. There was a single veg dish and I ordered that. One bite and I could detect a rotting smell. Even the salad looked limp and tasteless. On the way out, another vegetarian American asked me how the food was and I replied, "like out of a trash dumpster!"
Without getting into more details, here are the reasons for following a vegetarian diet :
1. Around 5000 cows slaughtered on a typical day at a single slaughterhouse. At times, the slaughtering is not done properly because of the tremendous speed of the assembly line and the animals can more than often, feel the pain of being chopped, shot and pulled.
2. Cows are fed scrap meat of dead cows; cows are fed dead chicken, dogs-cats roadkill and even newspapers and sawdust; chickens are fed roadkill and scraps of cow meat as well as dead chickens. Talk of being thrifty and 'efficient'! I hope some 'other white meat' does not get into the vats by accident (like was shown in that x-files episode)!
Eating the meat of the same species has been known to cause severe health problems and diseases. Not to forget the consequences of greed. When the mad-cow disease was discovered in parts of U.K, a few million cattle were burnt and millions pounds of meat recalled. Talk of wastage because of greed!
3. Hygiene issues. Slaughterhouses are anything but orderly. Given that the speed and efficiency of the workers is measured with a strict eye, some 'tasks' are not done completely or properly. The condition of some workers could be terrible and there have been incidents reported of workers losing a limb or an eye in the machinery. Poop, vomit and urine has been found in meat samples. Then often, there is that incident where a fast food worker spits onto the burger he is assembling for a waiting customer, out of frustration. It is not exactly the best job in the world, right? After all the pain, frustration, tears, sweat and blood that goes into a single chop, I doubt I would want to eat it. We are what we eat!
4. Wastage and polluting of land, water and food resources. The grain consumed by the animals would help feed several humans. A few weeks before the slaughtering, the intake of the animals is increased severely. The manure from these animals (animals bred in excess of requirements) has been known to increase the levels of Hydrogen Sulphide and other toxic gases. People living in the vicinity of the slaughterhouses have complained of headaches, nausea because of the terrible smell and air quality. Often times, the manure has caught fire! Dangerous chemicals such as chlorine sprays are used to clean the slaughterhouses after the daily kill. A few million fish died at a single location, because of contaminated water in the habitat.
I have read stupid arguments on the forums that eating plants is also evil. Well guys, guess what - on relative terms, vegetarians are guilty of a lot lesser mistakes than omnivores. Once at an Indian restaurant, I was mad after seeing only two vegetarian items and two meat items in a 'buffet for all'. I left a comment in the guestbook that there should be separate buffets for the veg and meat lovers and separate prices accordingly. I no paying for no one's meat!
Finally, I am glad and thankful to God that I was born into a non-meat-lovers household and in India (although the India today allows cow slaughter illegally
), my religion (and more importantly faith) advises me to follow a diet free of red meat and I have good teeth to enjoy the crunch of a delicious sugarcane or guava. So there, self-righteous, prejudiced and pompous to the core! Better than being run-of-the-mill.
The two books I was referring to :
Eric Schlosser - en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fast_Food_Nation
Gail Eisnitz - en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slaughterhouse
I had meant this blog to be a book review but did not find the appropriate category. Brickbats welcome!
Looking back at that incident, I think it is more than just morality. A meat-eating man is no better nor worse than someone who does not eat meat. It is just a level of comfort for me. I would not want to call a person who willingly eats rotting flesh when there is plenty of fresh green produce available, a healthy person. Yes, rotting flesh, unless it has been bought from a small farm and not the product of an assembly line like a car! The bigger issue here is the way the meat is obtained, not whether eating meat is moral or not.
Grass-fed, free-range, growth hormones, e-coli, mad cow disease; all are terms of this century. All because of the greed of a few million people for whom enough was not enough. Those shiny plastic packages containing a cut or chop of the miserable animal do not tell the entire story. For that, someone has to go investigate and then write a book about the evils of the meat industry, thereby making millions.
In that occasional masochistic mood, I like to read reality books. Books that knock the life out, leaving one gasping for air. Ofcourse, I do not buy these books when a stroll to the library can do the job. I read three books on this subject. The one by 'Gail Eisnitz' had a pretentious, melodramatic tone to it. Clearly, the writer was suddenly awakened and aware of the evils of meat, not because there were feelings for the animals but because there were people dying after consuming contaminated meat. A 'righteous' enough cause for a book, right? The other books by Eric Schlosser were practical and frank enough to retain my interest. And then there is that classic by Upton Sinclair, 'The Jungle', which exposes the evils of the meat industry with horrific incidents about the working conditions such as a man getting caught into the processing machine and turning into lard!
Recently, a few family members have been diagnosed with a Vitamin B deficiency. Yes, a vegetarian diet has it's disadvantages. I have seen people obsessed about 'getting their protein'. Once I happened to accompany my colleagues to an 'Asian' (let us leave it at that!) restaurant. There was a single veg dish and I ordered that. One bite and I could detect a rotting smell. Even the salad looked limp and tasteless. On the way out, another vegetarian American asked me how the food was and I replied, "like out of a trash dumpster!"
Without getting into more details, here are the reasons for following a vegetarian diet :
1. Around 5000 cows slaughtered on a typical day at a single slaughterhouse. At times, the slaughtering is not done properly because of the tremendous speed of the assembly line and the animals can more than often, feel the pain of being chopped, shot and pulled.
2. Cows are fed scrap meat of dead cows; cows are fed dead chicken, dogs-cats roadkill and even newspapers and sawdust; chickens are fed roadkill and scraps of cow meat as well as dead chickens. Talk of being thrifty and 'efficient'! I hope some 'other white meat' does not get into the vats by accident (like was shown in that x-files episode)!
Eating the meat of the same species has been known to cause severe health problems and diseases. Not to forget the consequences of greed. When the mad-cow disease was discovered in parts of U.K, a few million cattle were burnt and millions pounds of meat recalled. Talk of wastage because of greed! 3. Hygiene issues. Slaughterhouses are anything but orderly. Given that the speed and efficiency of the workers is measured with a strict eye, some 'tasks' are not done completely or properly. The condition of some workers could be terrible and there have been incidents reported of workers losing a limb or an eye in the machinery. Poop, vomit and urine has been found in meat samples. Then often, there is that incident where a fast food worker spits onto the burger he is assembling for a waiting customer, out of frustration. It is not exactly the best job in the world, right? After all the pain, frustration, tears, sweat and blood that goes into a single chop, I doubt I would want to eat it. We are what we eat!
4. Wastage and polluting of land, water and food resources. The grain consumed by the animals would help feed several humans. A few weeks before the slaughtering, the intake of the animals is increased severely. The manure from these animals (animals bred in excess of requirements) has been known to increase the levels of Hydrogen Sulphide and other toxic gases. People living in the vicinity of the slaughterhouses have complained of headaches, nausea because of the terrible smell and air quality. Often times, the manure has caught fire! Dangerous chemicals such as chlorine sprays are used to clean the slaughterhouses after the daily kill. A few million fish died at a single location, because of contaminated water in the habitat.
I have read stupid arguments on the forums that eating plants is also evil. Well guys, guess what - on relative terms, vegetarians are guilty of a lot lesser mistakes than omnivores. Once at an Indian restaurant, I was mad after seeing only two vegetarian items and two meat items in a 'buffet for all'. I left a comment in the guestbook that there should be separate buffets for the veg and meat lovers and separate prices accordingly. I no paying for no one's meat!
Finally, I am glad and thankful to God that I was born into a non-meat-lovers household and in India (although the India today allows cow slaughter illegally
), my religion (and more importantly faith) advises me to follow a diet free of red meat and I have good teeth to enjoy the crunch of a delicious sugarcane or guava. So there, self-righteous, prejudiced and pompous to the core! Better than being run-of-the-mill. The two books I was referring to :
Eric Schlosser - en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fast_Food_Nation
Gail Eisnitz - en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slaughterhouse
I had meant this blog to be a book review but did not find the appropriate category. Brickbats welcome!
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