8 Egregious Animal Abuses by the Meat Industry

This is the third post in a series about reasons to consider a vegan diet.

Earlier:
Top 5 Ways Livestock Wreck the Planet
Top 7 Health Reasons to Bypass Animal Products

While researching our books Veggie Revolution and Going Green, Sadie and I wrangled our way into several factory farms - our home state of N.C. is full of them. North Carolina has more hogs than people, and is a major poultry state too. Why? Because land is cheap, environmental laws are lax, and NC is the least unionized state. So the meat industry is free here to exploit immigrant and minority labor and pollute our rivers. Smithfield has the world's biggest hog "processing plant," in Tar Heel, NC, where 35,000 hogs per day are slaughtered. The Cape Fear River runs right by, to receive the effluent. Most states that produce a lot of animal products exclude farm animals from animal-cruelty laws. So anything that's common practice in animal farming is legal, regardless of how abusive or cruel it is. Hundreds of inhumane practices warrant comment in a post such as this. But I chose situations I witnessed while researching our books - those that had the biggest emotional impact on me.

A sow confined in a farrowing crate with her piglets. Photo: Sally Kneidel

1. Most breeding sows in the U.S. spend their lives in "gestation crates" so small they can't turn around.
The sows have no bedding, no straw, nothing to do but lie there - for 12 years. They breathe the foulest air you can imagine - after I walked through the buildings, everything I had reeked of fresh feces, including my camera. The rooms with rows of "farrowing crates" were the saddest sight, for me. Just before piglets are born, a sow is transferred from her gestation crate to a farrowing crate, where a metal bars (see photo) immobilize her and keep her teats always available to the piglets. The piglets are removed after 3 wks, then the sow is inseminated again and moved back to the gestation crate. Under pressure from animal activists, some pork producers have pledged to phase out gestation crates by 2017. But these narrow, bare crates are still the norm. Veterinarians consider pigs as smart as dogs, and without ample places to root and explore, pigs are bored to the point of insanity. Imagine keeping a dog for 12 years in a crate so small it couldn't turn around. The public wouldn't stand for it. So why do we allow it for pigs?

  5-week-old chickens in a Tyson broiler shed. Photo: Sally Kneidel

2. The Tyson broiler farm I visited had 24,000 chickens crammed into each shed.
As I entered a dimly-lit broiler shed, I felt claustrophobic - the air was so thick with feather and fecal dust that I had trouble breathing; the floor was spongy with 18 months' accumulation of feces. The chickens in the shed were crowded, but would get much more crowded after 2-3 more weeks' growth. Crowding maximizes profits by maximizing the number of birds in the expensive heated space, but also by keeping the birds immobile - inactive birds gain more weight. Tyson chickens are bred to be constantly hungry and to grow unnaturally fast, gaining 6 lbs in 7-8 weeks, most in the breast muscles (the most expensive cut). Some gain so fast their legs collapse and they starve, unable to reach the automated food and water dispensers. The farmer has to do a "walk-through" every day to pull out the dead birds. When the chickens have reached the target weight for slaughter at 7-8 weeks, a crew of Tyson "catchers" come in. Hidden cameras have shown the catchers literally throwing the live chickens into the crates (up to 5 birds per hand is allowed). For a description of the slaughter and processing of the chickens, read this excerpt from the book The Way We Eat by Peter Singer and Jim Mason.

3. Breeder chickens must be kept hungry all the time, or their own weight will kill them.
We visited a Tyson breeder farm, which produces fertile eggs and chicks to populate the broiler sheds. The breeder or parent chickens are allowed to live for 63 weeks (much longer than broilers) because they have to reach sexual maturity, unlike the broilers. The shed we visited contained 11,500 hens and 1,200 roosters. The breeders, being older, are bigger than broilers (9 lb hens, 12 lb roosters). They looked to me just as tightly packed in the shed as the broilers were, but the farmer said they're not, because the roosters have to be able to move around to reach all the hens. As the hens lay fertile eggs in their roosting boxes, the eggs roll out of the shed by automation, then are transferred elsewhere to hatch into chicks. Since the breeders (as parents) must have the same genes for hunger and weight gain as the broilers, the breeders could all grow to fatal proportions with their longer life spans. To prevent this, the breeders are fed minimal diets and are always hungry, said the farmer. These chickens have also been bred to lay eggs with abnormal frequency, and around 10% of the hens drop dead from "blowout" - the physiological stress of egg overproduction with a minimal diet.

Laying hens at Food Lion egg factory. Photo: Sally Kneidel

4. At the Food Lion egg factory I toured, five hens were stuffed into each 18" x 20" cage.
Cages were stacked floor to ceiling, housing 1.2 million hens at the site. These hens lay "table eggs" for human consumption. Each hen, with beak clipped to prevent fighting, spends 2 years in a cage until her body is spent. "When they're done," said the manager, "we can hardly give them away." Walking up and down the aisles, I saw the hens had bare red patches and stripped feathers from trying to dust bathe on a metal grate and trying to brood missing eggs - the eggs roll onto the conveyor belt as soon as they're laid. Many had feces on their heads and shoulders from the hens stacked above them. The hens have been engineered to lay 3 times the number of eggs as a normal rural hen. If the rate of production wanes, food is withheld for several days, which forces the hens to molt, and then egg production picks up. An occasional "forced molt" is recommended by the industry to maximize production. The sheds where hens were undergoing a forced molt were very quiet. This was the worst air of all the factory farms I visited - there was a dusting of "snow" (fecal and feather dust) on everything, including me. Under the cages was an 8' ft deep trench full of hen feces. It's emptied only when the hens are replaced, every 2 years. The buildings had outdoor fans, but none were operational.

5. "A dairy cow is a milk factory. There's not much quality of life in a dairy cow,"
said the dairyman. A family dairy cow used to produce milk for 10 to 12 years, maybe live as long as 20 years. Nowadays, in the industrial-sized dairies that can house 10,000 to 18,000 cows each, a cow is generally worn out after only 3 years - her body is pushed to its limits and just gives out. In one of these mega-dairies, a cow is impregnated roughly once a year to maximize her milk production. She may also be injected every other week with BST (bovine somatotropin) to increase milk production 10% more. The continual pregnancies and abnormal milk production place a huge strain on the cow's body. The concrete floor is hard on her feet and legs, and the weight of pregnancy makes it more so. When her milk production drops too low or she has chronic leg problems or fails to become pregnant, she's slaughtered for low-grade meat. In a typical confinement dairy, a third of the herd is culled every year. What happens to the calves that result from the continuous pregnancies? Many consumers have the impression that humans take the milk the calf doesn't want. But the calves are whisked away from mom only a few hours after birth. Female calves may be raised on formula to replace the milk cows culled from the herd. Male calves may be sold at auction, or tethered alone in wooden stalls for 16 weeks, fed low-iron diets to make their flesh pale, and then slaughtered to be sold as veal. How do cows feel about losing their calves just after birth, when their systems are flooded with mothering hormones? They look for the calf and often bellow continuously, sometimes for weeks. Said Dr. Temple Grandin, "That's one sad, unhappy, upset cow. She wants her baby....it's like grieving, mourning."

6. The unnatural corn diet fed to 90% of beef cattle makes them very sick.
Cows evolved to eat grass. But corn leads to faster weight gain, so at 6-7 months of age, 80-90% of beef cattle are transitioned to an abnormal diet of up to 85% corn. At the same time, they're trucked to large feedlots; one feedlot may have as many as 200,000 steers, grouped in pens of 900 or so. The cattle spend all their time standing or lying in a gray muck of feces and urine, with access to an always-full trough of corn and food additives, until they reach slaughter weight at 12-14 months of age. Corn causes cattle stomachs to be more acidic than they should be. The industry's "Feedlot Magazine" says all corn-fed cattle develop painful "sub-acute acidosis" at some point in the feedlot. The "Beef Cattle Handbook" (for feedlot managers) says animals with sub-acute acidosis "are plagued with diarrhea, go off their feed, pant, kick at their bellies, salivate excessively, and eat dirt." This condition often leads to very painful stomach ulcers, which when perforated, lead to liver ulcers. "Acute acidosis" is generally fatal. Feedlot management is a race between erosion of the digestive system and growth to slaughter weight. An effective feedlot manager sees to it that growth wins and the animal reaches slaughter weight before it succumbs to disease. For more details about feedlot life, see Michael Pollen's article "Power Steer." For info about what goes on in cattle slaughterhouses, read Fast Food Nation by Eric Schlosser.

7. Are fish insensitive, just because they're not mammals?
Fish are smarter than you might think. I studied the behavior of cichlid fish as a project in college, and I was astonished when I realized the school of fish that I was observing all recognized me personally.  Their tank was was in a hallway constantly full of other biology students, but when these fish saw me nearby, they all immediately came to the surface and toward me - because they knew I was the one who fed them. This was regardless of what I had in my hands. Several studies report fish intelligence, and sensitivity to pain. Dr. Culum Brown trained fish to find a hole in a net on only 5 attempts. When re-tested 11 months later, the fish remembered instantly. Dr. Lynne Sneddon showed experimentally (with bee venom and acetic acid) that rainbow trout feel pain and distress, make efforts to relieve the pain, and show relief when injected with morphine. Fish are the only vertebrate animals harvested on an industrial scale, with long-lines, gill nets, bottom trawlers, etc. Death by suffocation takes about 15 minutes; others are clubbed, pulled aboard with pickaxes, or bleed out when their gills are cut off. We treat fish as if they're vegetables, and we do it to a lot of them - humans haul in 88 million tons of fish each year just from the oceans. I haven't mentioned our decimation of fish populations - read about that here. For more about the sensitivity of fish, click here. For info about farmed fish, click here and here.

8. Foie gras - who would eat it?
Fois gras is the liver of a duck or goose that has been fattened by force-feeding it a mash of corn boiled in fat. The animal is fed far more than it would normally eat; a funnel with a long tube is used to push an excessive volume of food into the bird's esophagus 2-4 times per day. The resulting fatty liver of the bird is considered a delicacy by some, especially in France. But many investigators have reported that the birds live a miserable life: grossly overweight, immobile, with numerous damaged organs. For more info about foie gras, read here. To see a video of Kate Winslet's comments on the cruelty behind foie gras, click here.

Keywords: factory farming animal cruelty animal welfare hog farms poultry farms fish feedlots breeder farms humane farming foie gras

Ground beef: a risky choice for families and the planet

Story by Sally Kneidel, PhD, of sallykneidel.com

The New York Times reported on October 11 that eating ground beef is still risky. Well, yes, but what's new about that? Of course it's still risky. Every now and then the media decide to write up something about the hazards of beef as though it were new, but the situation remains as it has been for some time.

The New York Times article focused on E. coli, a short name for the bacterium Escherichia coli. We all have E. coli in our intestines; most strains of E. coli are harmless. But one strain can be deadly to humans, causing bloody diarrhea and kidney failure. That strain is E. coli 0157. It lives in the bowels of half of the beef cattle in the United States. A very small number of these bacteria can kill you - some say as few as ten bacterial cells.

 A beef-cattle feedlot in photo above. Photo courtesy of http://oceanworld.tamu.org

Virtually all cattle in feedlots spend their days and nights standing around in manure, and so their coats are usually contaminated with E. coli 0157. Keeping the bacteria out of their meat is a challenge. After cattle are killed in a slaughterhouse, the carcasses pass through a hot-steam area, then are sprayed with a disinfectant to get rid of E. coli 0157. In some slaughterhouses and processing plants, the carcasses are irradiated. The radiation kills bacteria, although there is some debate about effects that irradiated food may have on human consumers.

Young Dancer Paralyzed by E. coli

In the U.S., there are occasional outbreaks of E.coli 0157 poisoning, where several people in one town will become extremely ill and a few may die. Since children eat half the hamburgers sold in the U.S., the victims are often children. The poisoning is usually traced to a single hamburger restaurant that has a batch of meat contaminated with E. coli 0157. The New York Times article featured a children's dance instructor, Stephanie Smith, who was left paralyzed at the age of 22 after ingesting a hamburger contaminated with E.coli 0157 in 2007.

Before the advent of feedlots, dangerous E. coli from cattle could not survive in human digestive tracts because our stomachs were too acidic for them. But the unnatural corn diet fed to beef cattle in feedlots, to marble their flesh and increase their weight gain, increases the acidity of cattle's stomachs so that it's more similar to ours. So the cattle's E. coli 0157 have adapted to a more acidic stomach and now can survive in our stomachs too.

A Possible Solution

It doesn't have to be this way. According to a study by Dr. James Russell at Cornell University, feeding cows their natural diet of hay instead of corn for only five days before slaughter will reduce the acidity in their stomachs and get rid of the acid-loving and dangerous E. coli 0157. Any remaining E. coli would not be able to survive in our acidic stomachs and so would not be dangerous to humans..

Of course, if cows were not fed corn in the first place, but were fed hay or allowed to graze, then we wouldn't have any problem at all with the dangerous E. coli 0157. So, remind me, why is it that cattle are fed corn? Oh yes, it's that familiar corporate incentive: shaving pennies from production costs to maximize profits. Because corn-fed cattle gain more weight and gain it faster, they make more money for beef producers. And we Americans have gotten used to that fat-laced meat and now prefer it.

Is beef worth the risks, and the ecological down-side? You might be surprised at how fast you can get used to a life without beef. Aside from the E. coli issue, consider that a recent Worldwatch document declared beef and dairy products to be the two ecological "hot spots" in our diet - that is, the two diet items whose production does the most long-lasting damage to the planet.

Anyone for a Tofurkey sausage? All plant-based and indescribably delicious.

Sources:
Sally Kneidel, PhD, and Sadie Kneidel. 2005. Veggie Revolution: Smart Choices for a Healthy Body and a Healthy Planet. Fulcrum Books.

BBC Online Network. "Change of Diet Could Defeat Killer Bug." http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/169255.stm

Sarah DeWeerdt. "Is Local Food Better?" Worldwatch Institute

Michael Moss."E. coli path shows flaws in beef inspection." October 11, 2009. New York Times.

Photo courtesy of http://oceanworld.tamu.org 

Key words:: beef feedlots E. coli health meat cattle diet hot spots

The contaminated pet food scandal: 5 things you can do

You've probably read about the "contaminated pet food" debacle that's been in the news for a couple of weeks. It began with the death of some family pets who had eaten pet food accidentally laced with an industrial chemical, melamine.

Then the plot began to thicken. Late last week it was discovered that 6,000 hogs across the country ate the chemically-contaminated pet food too. And some consumers in California consumed the toxified hogs. Although, the FDA rushed to say, the hogs' flesh probably did not contain enough melamine to be harmful to the humans who ate the hogs. Of course.

Yesterday, there were more developments in the widening scandal. Now, says the FDA, we know that at least 2.5 million broiler chickens ate the melamine-laden pet food as well and were subsequently sold at fresh meat counters across the country. The FDA's chief medical officer, David Acheson, maintained yesterday that there is no "significant threat of human illness from this." Well.

I am very sorry for any families who have recently lost pets due to melamine in the pet's food. I am sorry too for any families who may be fearful for their own health after eating contaminated chicken and pork.

I might say that I'm sorry for the tainted livestock that will be killed and not eaten, rather than killed and eaten. But from the livestock's perspective, what's the difference?

I could say that I'm sorry for the farmers who have raised the contaminated hogs or chickens that will now be destroyed and not sold for meat. But.... farmers do not own the hogs or chickens they raise. In the U.S. 99% of poultry and 80% of hogs are raised in warehouses on factory farms. The company that packages the meat owns the animals throughout their life cycle, e.g. Tyson owns all the 24,000 chickens in a single broiler shed. Tyson also provides all the feed. The farmer owns the land and the warehouse-like buildings on his property. So I presume that Tyson (or Perdue or whatever corporation owned the tainted broiler farms) will take the hit for the loss of the animals. I'm glad for that much of the story. Tyson deserves it. Likewise, Smithfield or some other giant meat corporation owns all the hogs on any factory farm. Smithfield will take the hit if their hogs must be destroyed. I'm glad for that too. For that reason, I hope the scandal grows and grows. I hope every factory-farmed animal in the country turns out to be laden with melamine, and Tyson and Smithfield and their cronies go belly-up.

That's unlikely.

But what might really happen is this: we might start a national dialogue about what's in the feed that our livestock eat. As environmentalist- rancher Nicolette Niman said so aptly in her essay for our book "We are what they eat."

We researched the topic of livestock diets thoroughly for Veggie Revolution, and even more thoroughly for our next book (Going Green: A Wise Consumer's Guide to a Shrinking Planet, 2008). We interviewed feedlot specialists at midwestern universities, scientists with the National Chicken Council, food scientists at NCSU, a Tyson plant manager, dairymen, etc.

Here's what we discovered. There is almost no regulation on what can be fed to livestock. That's because the meat industry is extremely rich and powerful, and their lobbyists get what they want in Washington. And what they want is license to feed their animals the cheapest possible substance that will enhance their growth in the short term. It's all about shaving pennies off production costs.

Because transport adds to the cost, livestock are fed whatever is cheapest locally. For example, cattle in Texas are fed chicken feathers, chicken feces, and chicken-slaughterhouse scraps - because Texas has a lot of cattle feedlots and a lot of factory farms that raise chickens. Feedlot cattle used to be fed cattle-slaughterhouse scraps too, but that has been stopped due to the threat of mad-cow disease which is transmitted when cows eat other cows. But...oddly....cattle feedlots are still allowed to feed bovine-blood products to other cattle.

And (this was told to me by a PhD who advises feedlots on their feeding regimen) , the chicken feces that is fed to cattle in feedlots almost certainly contains cattle tissue. That's because the chickens have been eating cattle slaughterhouse waste! And some of the beef scraps pass through the chickens unaltered, in addition to the spillage from the chicken-feeding tray which mixes in with the chicken feces on the floor. It's all scooped up together and added to the chow at cattle feedlots.

See? It's ugly. I believe the public would be appalled if livestock diets were posted in grocery stores. Or if pictures of the conditions the animals are raised in were posted. I've been there, and I was stunned. The photos we took are in Veggie Revolution.

What can you do?
1. Write your legislators and supermarket managers and ask for labeling on all animal products stating what the animals were fed. Demand transparency and accountability in farming, especially livestock farming. Ask your legislators and supermarket managers to stop the deceptive marketing that pervades our meat industry. (Take a look at the bucolic meadow of happy animals over the meat counter at Harris Teeter.)

2. If you consume animal products, look at farmers markets or natural food stores for products from grass-fed animals, or look for certified organic products.

3. Eat fewer animal products. Even one or two meatless meals a week helps. Americans consume on the average 248 lbs of meat per year per person, way more than citizens of any other country, including Western Europe and Australia and other industrialized nations. The average amount of meat in developing nations is 66 lbs per person per year. If we as Americans didn't eat so much meat, we could come closer to meeting the demand with grass-fed and pastured animals .

4. Ask around at a local farmers market and locate a small farm near you that uses sustainable, healthful, and humane methods to raise livestock and produce animal products. In NC, you can find dozens of such farms in the annual "Food Guide" available for free from the Carolina Farm Stewardship Association (google for contact info). Visit one of these sustainable farms, and talk to the farmer about how his or her methods differ from the standard corporate methods on factory farms. You'll be moved - I guarantee it.

5. Support and get involved with activist groups such as the Grace Factory Farming Project or the Waterkeeper Alliance that are working hard to hold meat corporations accountable for their abuses to our environment, non-unionized laborers, and captive animals. Or better yet, find a group that's active in your own community.

Keywords:: melamine contaminated pet food tainted pet food feedlots mad cow slaugherhouse waste scraps livestock feed sustainable farming