Meat to eat vs. human lives: an easy choice!

Indonesian meat market

For weeks now, I’ve written here about the need for humans to stop wild animal trafficking and consumption, which are believed to be the cause of Covid-19 and various other viruses that have come our way.  And I plan to continue repeating this call to action (more accurately, IN-action!) because in my view, it has always been cruel, wrong and yes: needless.

The American Dream

But I’ve come to doubt that such a change can occur.  People seem to be inextricably linked to their habits and traditions, like eating wild animals.  It would take conscious work to stop what’s been going on “forever,” and I doubt most people would buy into that concept or consider the myriad alternatives that do exist.  

Which is why I’m repulsed by Americans’ devotion to meat-eating, and enraged by the recent executive order to keep meat-processing plants open despite workers’ sickness and deaths from coronavirus.  But I believe our precious “food chain” will be kept stocked with beef, chicken, pork, etc. 

That would mean continuation of factory farming, with helpless, sentient animals often bred only for slaughter and consumption.  It would also assure that our meat-laden food chain will be maintained on the backs of low paid, involuntary workers who feel they must return to those horrific plants again if they’re to support themselves and their families.

It’s clear now that the vaunted “food chain” – a.k.a. meat supply -- seems more valued and important than human lives.  Shameful.

“Never mind that food-processing and meatpacking plants are hot spots for covid-19 — at least 79 have reported outbreaks.  Never mind that at least 20 workers in the industry have died from the disease or that the United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) reports that at least 6,500 workers in the industry have been diagnosed or exposed.

“And never mind that shutting down plants is often the only way local officials can force safety improvements to protect the larger community from the disease’s spread . . . .”  – E.J. Dionne, Jr. in the Washington Post, 4-30-20

 Back to the animals, the involuntary stars of this horror story:  What happens to those who can’t be “processed” while meat-packing plants are closed?  

“The short answer is they will be killed. Slaughterhouse author Gail Eisnitz** said the American Veterinary Medical Association guidelines for emergency killing are extremely weak.  For poultry and pigs, they allow animals to be killed by simply shutting off the ventilation system fans (heat or carbon dioxide may be added).  The animals die of hyperthermia, baking and suffocating over a period of several hours.

“According to the Delmarva Poultry Industry, a large chicken processing company in Delaware and Maryland killed 2 million chickens earlier this month because worker shortages left them without workers to slaughter and butcher the animals.”--excerpted from the daily “Coronavirus Updates” in the Washington Post, Tues, April 28

Now conveniently forgotten: such things as health warnings about eating meat; the push for meat-free days; and even mad-cow disease.  In the throes of a killing pandemic with myriad other, more important things to be concerned about, people can’t do without their burgers, their steaks, their chicken.  Shameful.

Let them eat plant-based foods, lots of fruit and veggies, beans in countless ways, peanut butter.  Let them learn about vegan eating and its ingredients.  And even, as Marie Antoinette is alleged to have said (but most likely did not): “Let them eat cake!”

** Slaughterhouse: The Shocking Story of Greed, Neglect, and Inhumane Treatment Inside the U.S. Meat Industry, by Gail A. Eisnitz, c. 1997 (updated in 2006 paperback edition)

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