Maliciousness of the meat industry

If you're like me, you probably love the smell and flavor of a hearty steak on your plate - to the point that if you can only have one food in the world this would be it. What you probably didn't think about is the less romantic behind-the-scenes story. And I mean FAR less. The story I am thinking of involves the people who suffer to provide our nourishment.

Meat production harms people in so many ways. Not just the people who eat meat, but the people who produce it. Our meat consumption encourages more meat production, which encourages someone else to kill, which encourages thinking and emotional behavior that some people would not want to put up with everyday of their lives. I've never tried it myself, but I can't imagine jamming a knife into a pig being fun. Chances are the guys in the slaughterhouse aren't laughing about it either.

While I'm not a vegetarian (yet), I do have connections. My sister became a vegetarian at age five, my mother eats chicken but has given up beef and pork, and a friend of mine from India has taken on this semi-meat diet too. If asked why they don't eat steak, sausages or burgers, they would say it's because of their health or their sympathy for animals.

As sad as their reasons sound, most of us in the meat-eating world just don't buy them. If the meat eaters I know really cared about health, they would replace half the things they eat now with something else. Talking about what the animals are fed for production doesn't scare them either. In response to the animal question, I once heard someone say, "Just don't think about it," which is a fancy way of saying they don't care at all about the animals being killed. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying you have to feel sorry for the animals. I don't. If I did, I wouldn't have ordered a Whopper at the Burger King drive-thru last week.

So why feel sorry for meat producers? Well, it may depend on how pacifist your viewpoint is. People who claim to be against violence, murder or war are known to value and preserve humanity. To defend their views, they bring up issues like army vets who have nightmares and panic attacks after the bloody, corpse-infested images they have seen in combat.

You have probably heard who butchers are, what they do and why they do it, but do you wonder what effect it has on them? When I think of people working in a slaughterhouse or a meat factory with knives, I draw the same series of images: anxiety, sadness, guilt, or any other downbeat or squeamish response you can think of.

Naturally some meat workers get more scarred than others, but I hope this gives you food for thought, no pun intended. I think it's important to put ourselves in the shoes of these people and ask if they're really happy about what they do. You may not become a vegetarian, but you may not want their job either.

Not only is the idea behind the work unsavory but so are the conditions. Top industries like Tyson, Smithfield and Nebraska Beef have been accused of breaking international labor standards. For example, according to the Marxist-inspired PoliticalAffairs.net, the meat industry wrecks every attempt by employees to unionize and fight for better working conditions. Conditions involve working at a fast pace with sharp tools. Some workers don't get the proper training and receive no compensation when they are injured on the job. Information I found on the Google.com search engine stated that workers have lost limbs and sometimes their lives because of these conditions, but when they boycott, they are harassed or threatened. One reason for the lack of change is these conditions are so cheap for being unsafe, the chairmen don't see any need to change. Not only does the job inflict pain on the workers but the bosses seem to encourage it.

You might not think anything about it. You might go back to the, "Don't think about it" or "I don't have that job so I don't have to worry about it." Some jobs unavoidably cause psychological pain on their workers, but I believe in meat production half the problems can be easily fixed if producers take the initiative.


<i>- Tom Zallocco is an IC Staff Writer and a UT graduate who majored in independent studies.</i>

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