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

May 4, 2020/Pat Summers
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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