Most people have seen the disturbing and heartbreaking undercover footage of feed-lots and slaughterhouses.
Animals raised for food are routinely treated in ways that would result in felony cruelty-to-animals charges if dogs or cats were the victims.
I love animals, and I hate the idea of animal cruelty.
Most people do, but I would of course put the well being and feeding of hungry humans over any concern I have for animals any day.
However knowing there is a dietary option that allows for this kind of revolting behavior to simply cease to exist puts me in a position to make only one choice.
In 1906, Theodore Roosevelt was deeply disturbed by the slaughterhouse images depicted in Upton Sinclair's classic novel "The Jungle.
" He ordered an investigation that led to the passage of the Pure Food and Drug Act of the same year.
It was a step in the right direction.
Another step consisted of the unionization of the meatpacking industry in the 1930s, resulting in fair wages and insurance coverage, as well as attention to safe working conditions.
But the industry pulled its plants from the cities and moved to the high plains states.
Now, the majority of meat packing plant workers are immigrants, many of whom have been bused in to the country from Mexico by the companies themselves.
Many meat workers learn of these jobs in the United States by Spanish radio advertisements paid for by U.
S.
meat companies.
In his 2001 book Fast Food Nation, Eric Schlosser reports: "We've gone backward...
The wages in one Greeley, Colorado, plant now are 30 to 40 percent lower than when the plant opened in 1961.
That's not supposed to happen.
" Meatpacking is the most dangerous job in America.
In statistics dated 1998 from the Labor Department, at least 29.
3 percent of meat industry workers suffered injury or illness, compared to 9.
7 percent for the rest of manufacturing.
The bottom line is too often the deciding factor for working conditions in this industry.
The companies must speed up their lines to maximize their profits, which can lead to injuries and dangerous food due to lack of time to clean or sharpen blades.
We have seen this kind of problem several times in the last decade specifically with recalled contaminated hamburger, which is more susceptible to dirty working environments than intact cuts of meat.
Meat packing plants have an almost 100% annual turn over of employees.
That means no insurance, no retirement plans, nothing.
And the wages start at minimum wage on the books, off the books.
Who knows how little these immigrants are being paid? The phenomenon of agribusiness has left us so far removed from our food, that we as a society allow this kind of injustice and inhumanity to continue, simply by voting with our dollars.
As long as we continue to buy the meat, these kind of horrors will continue to happen.
Animals raised for food are routinely treated in ways that would result in felony cruelty-to-animals charges if dogs or cats were the victims.
I love animals, and I hate the idea of animal cruelty.
Most people do, but I would of course put the well being and feeding of hungry humans over any concern I have for animals any day.
However knowing there is a dietary option that allows for this kind of revolting behavior to simply cease to exist puts me in a position to make only one choice.
In 1906, Theodore Roosevelt was deeply disturbed by the slaughterhouse images depicted in Upton Sinclair's classic novel "The Jungle.
" He ordered an investigation that led to the passage of the Pure Food and Drug Act of the same year.
It was a step in the right direction.
Another step consisted of the unionization of the meatpacking industry in the 1930s, resulting in fair wages and insurance coverage, as well as attention to safe working conditions.
But the industry pulled its plants from the cities and moved to the high plains states.
Now, the majority of meat packing plant workers are immigrants, many of whom have been bused in to the country from Mexico by the companies themselves.
Many meat workers learn of these jobs in the United States by Spanish radio advertisements paid for by U.
S.
meat companies.
In his 2001 book Fast Food Nation, Eric Schlosser reports: "We've gone backward...
The wages in one Greeley, Colorado, plant now are 30 to 40 percent lower than when the plant opened in 1961.
That's not supposed to happen.
" Meatpacking is the most dangerous job in America.
In statistics dated 1998 from the Labor Department, at least 29.
3 percent of meat industry workers suffered injury or illness, compared to 9.
7 percent for the rest of manufacturing.
The bottom line is too often the deciding factor for working conditions in this industry.
The companies must speed up their lines to maximize their profits, which can lead to injuries and dangerous food due to lack of time to clean or sharpen blades.
We have seen this kind of problem several times in the last decade specifically with recalled contaminated hamburger, which is more susceptible to dirty working environments than intact cuts of meat.
Meat packing plants have an almost 100% annual turn over of employees.
That means no insurance, no retirement plans, nothing.
And the wages start at minimum wage on the books, off the books.
Who knows how little these immigrants are being paid? The phenomenon of agribusiness has left us so far removed from our food, that we as a society allow this kind of injustice and inhumanity to continue, simply by voting with our dollars.
As long as we continue to buy the meat, these kind of horrors will continue to happen.
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