Dangerous meats in school lunches?
Categories: Eating & nutrition
Yesterday, ParentDish received a rather disturbing email from the Humane Society of the United States. They suspected we might be interested in an undercover study they'd recently conducted that resulted in extremely disturbing footage of a slaughter house in California. The footage shows workers at the plant abusing weak cattle with prods, jabbing them in the eyes, shackling and dragging them, and spraying high-pressure water up their noses and into their mouths in an attempt to get the weak animals to their feet.The company featured in the video is the Hallmark Meat Packing Co,, a major supplier of the US National School Lunch program. The Humane Society wants you to know about the abuse that takes place there not only because it's sickening, but it's dangerous. By processing downed cattle, the slaughterhouse is endangering the health of people who end up eating its meat, as the link between downed cattle and mad cow disease has been confirmed.
The Humane society is now demanding tighter regulations on the slaughter of down cattle, but if I were a parent of a meat-eating kid in the school system, I think I'd be doing more than that: writing letters, finding out about "humane" meat processing companies and buying from them, and making changes to ensure my family didn't ever eat meat that came out of such horror. Shudder.
There is video footage available here, but a warning to all those of you who like to eat meat and who have children who do,too: this video is horrifically disturbing. if I weren't already a vegetarian, this video would have converted me.
**Updated to add: I received the following email from someone who is very close to the meat industry, but did not want to use her email address in the comments section. I think her knowledge is useful and have added her words as an addendum below.
Like Kris, I too have a great deal of knowledge of what happens in slaughter houses, except my experience is in the US. In fact, I am very close to this situation and have been dealing with it for the past 24 hours. I manage the supply chain of commodity foods in my state, I do not work in a slaughter house, and I am a vegetarian as well.
At this point, I can only say that this is extremely scary and should be taken very seriously. Right now the media is using these practises to connect the National School Lunch Program to this beef, although that has not been proven yet. The Humane Society has held on to this information since sometime around October 2007, something that is very questionable. If anyone has concern, I urge them to first contact the school their children attend. All beef from this company is in the process of being placed on hold. The next step is one of two things - one would be releasing the product after a determination that it is safe, or two, a recall.
Next, I urge concerned adults to start writing letters to their congressmen/women, their local and federal government agencies and to the beef companies they buy from.
Being a vegetarian is not enough, we need to start holding people accountable. I hope that this situation will urge people in the US to get closer to our food supply. We should all be able to trace everything we eat from farm to fork.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
ame s 1-31-2008 @ 11:59AM
One would be hard pressed to find a slaughterhouse in the U.S. where things like this DIDN'T happen. Cows, pigs, chickens...
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kris 1-31-2008 @ 12:47PM
I have a great deal of knowledge of slaughter houses in Canada as a result of my line of work (no I do NOT work in one). While I am a vegetarian and an animal lover I have never seen anything like this happening in the slaughter houses I have worked with. This is a horrific abuse of living creatures by disgusting people who deserve to have cattle prods shoved up their a##@s. Extreme you say? These animals feel this torture and there has been much discussion about the effect of stress on the meat supply. To me this is another reason to buy organic or stop eating meat. Meat is not necessary for a healthy lifestyle.
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aprilw 1-31-2008 @ 1:42PM
Schools use meat that is mechanically removed from the carcass too. Remember that gristle you got in your salisbury steak when you were at school? [shudder] That was proably a little bit of spine. They use this meat because it is cheap.
I have read (and also seen on several shows here in the UK) that mechanically removing meat like that adds bits of bone and spinal tissue and probably raises the risk of BSE (mad cow disease) being passed on.
This kind of stuff makes me think my kids are not going to eat school lunches when the time comes.
We eat don't eat meat very often anyway, and when we do it is organic. I've been on the edge of giving up meat all together for years. I think I am getting closer and closer to the end.
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Janna 1-31-2008 @ 2:42PM
If you think that's bad, it actually can get worse and even more inhumane. Read "Food Revolution" or "Diet for a New America" by John Robbins.
Me and my family have been vegan for about a year now since my eyes were opened to the atrocities of American animal production and slaughter. We're all healthy and thankful that we can eat every meal with a clear conscience knowing that we do not support what is normal is animal production these days. We also do not buy leather or other products that contain animals.
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Sarah 1-31-2008 @ 6:33PM
That's no where near as bad as the stories in Slaughterhouse by Gail Eisnitz.
It's ridiculous that we don't know where our food is coming from our how many different cows are in one hamburger patty.
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Janna 2-05-2008 @ 12:28PM
Some good news! Because of this investigation, several school districts in my area have stopped serving beef for this week at least.
http://www.9news.com/news/local/article.aspx?storyid=85795
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Laura 2-05-2008 @ 2:00PM
I live in Europe, The Netherlands to be exact. I'm told the 'rules' on meat, eggs, etc are more strict here and animals have better lives.... but does anyone have info about that so I know for sure?? After all, one item that is eaten here A LOT is 50% horse meat *shudder* and I find that just wrong! Also, when you go to the store, they don't store the eggs in a cooler, they are on a regular shelf... is that ok??? I'm used to American ways and am unsure if eggs like that are safe. I assume so or they wouldn't do it.
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Sophie 2-13-2008 @ 9:59PM
I just wanted to reassure you about eggs. When I grew up (in France), eggs were not refrigerated when bough them, and did not regrigerate them once they were in our home.
Like bananas, avocados and mustard, eggs stayed out of the fridge. However, they were usually a few days old max (sometimes bought from the market or the farm). Once they've been, refrigerated, you should keep them in the fridge. But if they've never been refrigerated, they can be conserved in a cool place. If you want to see if an egg is "still good", place it in a bowl of water. A "good" egg will stand at the bottom, upwards. A "bad" one will float to the surface. Smell is another indicator: A good egg has no significant smell.