Does anything separate rural and urban communities more than the use of animals for food? While rural inhabitants often live close to farms and hunted wildlife and accept the practice, urban dwellers can cringe at images of the “processing” of the very food they eat.
The mechanism and faster lines at slaughterhouses complicate the issue: Every week the Food Safety and Inspection Service, FSIS (part of the United States Department of Agriculture, USDA) reports events like these last week at the Puro Alentejano Iberian slaughterhouse in Salem, NJ.
“At approximately 1127 hours, inspection program personnel (IPP) observed a large bull being stunned ineffectively with a captive bolt…The bull bellowed loudly… A second shot was applied to the front of the bull’s head…The bull vocalized loudly and began breathing deep, heavy breaths…The employee applied a third stun…to the front of the bull’s head at approximately 1134 hours. The bull again vocalized… IPP asked an establishment employee to touch the bull’s eye and the bull was observed responding to the touch to its eye by blinking…An establishment employee then began again to cut the neck of the bull.”
This month, residents near Illinois’ northern community of Woodstock are demonstrating against a planned, 107-acre slaughtering facility adjacent to Wonder Lake and reportedly 800 feet from area homes and less than a mile from Greenwood Elementary School.
“I am concerned about the possible contamination of Nippersink Creek,” as well as Wonder Lake and the Glacial Park Conservation Area,” said Kelly Liebmann, a Greenwood Township trustee not speaking in an official capacity. Village President Dan Dycus also raised concerns about sound and smell pollution.
“Sunberry Farm has been working with the McHenry County Department of Health on its septic and waste planning,” according to officials quoted in the Shaw Local News Network.
Chicken and turkeys from a farm near Harvard, Illinois, are the animals to be slaughtered on the 20-by-30-foot killing floor with cows and pigs slated in the possible future.
Mary Bishop, a local veterinarian, contends that odor from deceased animals will be a problem.
Illinois Governor JB Pritzker Supports Other Slaughterhouses
While Illinois Governor JB Pritzker has not weighed in on the proposed Wonder Lake slaughterhouse, earlier this year he cheer led a slaughterhouse in the Village of Dieterich, in downstate Effingham County.
Frichtl Processing and Slaughtering, LLC’s new 9,227-square-foot facility brings “a state-of-the-art facility that will create jobs, strengthen the local economy, and support Illinois agriculture,” he said.
“The Village of Dieterich is thrilled to be chosen as the location of the new Frichtl’s Processing and Slaughtering,” said Village of Dieterich President, Brad Hardiek. “There is currently nowhere in Dieterich to purchase fresh meats.”
The slaughterhouse will create six jobs.
If Slaughterhouses Had Glass Walls….
The gory and macabre world that Upton Sinclair portrayed in his 1906 slaughterhouse expose The Jungle continues to appall. A recent Animal Outlook investigation at the Manning Beef slaughter facility in California revealed cows butchered despite showing signs of consciousness, electric prodding of a dairy cow that could not walk and captive bolt failures like those recently cited by FSIS at the Puro Alentejano Iberian slaughterhouse.
“The images our investigations team captures are heartbreaking to watch, and the truth is that cruelty like this is happening every day,” says the animal welfare group.
Industry groups admit that suffering occurs. “Tail manipulation, including lifting and twisting, is one of the common handling methods used to prompt forward cattle movement or to get dairy cows to stand still depending on circumstances,” says Dairy Global. “However, improper twisting with excessive force results in dislocation of the intervertebral joints, tears to the caudal fascia, damage to the intervertebral connections, tail deviation, and subsequent swelling.”
Slaughterhouse Free Food?
In addition to plant-based beef, chicken, pork etc. – there is another culinary option that omits the slaughterhouse: Cultured or cultivated meat is grown from animal muscle cells without slaughter and environmental pollution such as feed lots and concentrated animal feeding operations. It has the nutrition and flavor of real meat because it is real meat – but ranchers and “Big Meat” agitate to make such meat illegal. Why? Because it steps on their profits.
