Mother Talkers

Disturbing Video

by Elisa

Wed Jan 30, 2008 at 02:12:22 PM PDT

This story made me sick to my stomach.

The Humane Society sent me a video clip of sick and downed cows being shocked and tortured at a slaughterhouse. The cows were illegally processed for meat and may have ended up in the Agriculture Department’s “commodities program,” which supplies food for the needy and school lunches, according to the Washington Post.

The investigator and Wayne Pacelle, president of the Humane Society, said the footage was taken at Hallmark Meat Packing in Chino, Calif. Hallmark sells meat for processing to Westland Meat Co. in Chino, according to Westland President Steve Mendell, who is also Hallmark's operations manager.

Over the past five years, Westland has sold about 100 million pounds of frozen beef, valued at $146 million, to the Agriculture Department's commodities program, which supplies food for school lunches and programs for the needy, according to federal documents.

In the 2004-05 school year, the Agriculture Department honored Westland with its Supplier of the Year award for the National School Lunch Program.

I could not bring myself to watch the video. I stopped at the photograph of that poor black cow. But how low can we go that we have let corporations like Hallmark Meat Packing and Westland Meat Co. hurt animals and children? It sounds like we need more than regulatory agencies and labor unions. How about even a moderate dose of decency? Sick, sick, sick.

The WaPo piece said this video -- by an underground worker -- is “evidence that anti-cruelty and food safety rules are inadequate, and that Agriculture Department inspection and enforcement need to be enhanced.” You think? Ugh!

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Tags: Humane Society, cow, slaughterhouse, sick video, Washington Post, school lunch meat, Agriculture Department, Hallmark Meat Packing, Westland Meat Co., meat packing plant (all tags)

Permalink | 9 comments

  • I read The Hot Zone (0 / 0)

    about 10 years ago and it put me off ground meat totally and has me only eating organic, locally produced meat now.  Ick.

    by Laura on Wed Jan 30, 2008 at 02:29:55 PM PDT

  • Forever (0 / 0)

    this has been going on forever and a day. Farm Sanctuary, PETA, and many, many other groups have documented this, brought it before Congress, etc. If slaughterhouses had glass walls...

    (Disclaimer: I'm a vegetarian - lapsed vegan - and have been for 20+ years due to issues such as this.)

    by GiGi on Wed Jan 30, 2008 at 03:39:30 PM PDT

  • thanks for the timely reminder (0 / 0)

    that I need to source me some local, organic meat! Although I don't know the set-up here in Australia, so perhaps things are better run? We haven't had any madcow outbreaks in Oz as yet.

    by Rachel on Wed Jan 30, 2008 at 03:47:15 PM PDT

  • secondly (0 / 0)

    Sorry, not to double-post, but am I the only one who finds it laughable that the UDSA inspector claims to never have seen this - that the operations at the plant were so precise that they were able to get the downed animals on their feet every single day, twice a day, such that the inspector never saw a thing? I mean, really. It strains credulity, to say the least.

    by Rachel on Wed Jan 30, 2008 at 03:48:26 PM PDT

  • Transparency (0 / 0)

    I think the best thing that could happen would be more information like this - more widely disseminated.  We have "Fast Food Nation", "Omnivores Dilemma" etc etc etc.  The failures of our agricultural system - especially beef farming - are widely known.   Rather than more regulation, I think we need those glass walls on the meat processing system.

    by Sue in Queens on Wed Jan 30, 2008 at 04:02:53 PM PDT

    • But how many people make changes? (0 / 0)

      I'm constantly surprised at how many people I know who see something like this and say, "Yeah, that's totally wrong" and go back to buying the same products two weeks later.  It's lead to a lot of weird conversations... they think I'm neurotic and I think they're insane.

      by K C on Wed Jan 30, 2008 at 04:20:11 PM PDT

      [ Parent ]

      • This is why we need government. (0 / 0)

        Because most of us don't have the time or energy to devote to checking and verifying everything we do. Toys, food, bridges(!), air quality... the free market isn't equipped to deal with this alone, we need regulation and competent authorities to assure us what we're consuming is safe. I don't blame people for going back to buying the same products because really, there's only so much space in each of our brains to look out for what we're purchasing.

        FWIW, I feel pretty secure in the quality of meat produced in the UK, mostly because of Mad Cow - I know Rachel probably feels like things are safer because it's not been in Aus, I'm not sure that's the case. Mad Cow was a huge incentive for them to clean up the meat industry in the UK, and now I feel like we have the best monitoring and safety apparatus in the world. Every animal can have its lineage traced back to the mid '90s at a moment's notice, every slaghterhouse has a government appointed vet who checks each animal's health before it's slaughtered (and they're rotated through assignments at no notice, so if one's corrupt they don't know when they next one'll come and who it'll be), and the regulations for what meat can be used and how slaughter can be carried out are pretty stringent. Unfortunately this doesn't stretch as far as poultry, but I do think it's a good indicator of what we should all be doing. Monitoring isn't optional, and it should be constant, not just spot checks.

        "You're never more alone than when you're alone in a crowd."

        by Expat Briton on Thu Jan 31, 2008 at 07:54:14 AM PDT

        [ Parent ]

    • I've been a vegetarian (0 / 0)

      for a few years now, ever since reading "Fast Food Nation."  The main reason was because of the treatment of the animals and workers in slaughterhouses.  I just can't bring myself to watch this video, though.  

      by baker baker on Wed Jan 30, 2008 at 06:55:42 PM PDT

      [ Parent ]

  • I too, have seen (0 / 0)

    videos like this before.  It's the main reason, along with health-benefit reasons that we've sought out a farmer that supplies grass-fed organic beef.  This is our main meat source.  

    That said, we go out to eat or get take out once in a while.  I'm sure that's not organic or grass fed.  

    Cows aren't the only animals that can be mistreated.  I saw one video on the Peta site a few years ago where chickens were being thrown like baseballs on to a truck.  I also saw horrible things happening to pigs.  Something's definitely up with the psyche of the people committing these horrible acts.  

    As to why this keeps happening...well, obviously it's a money thing.  Downed cows that would otherwise be disposed of are being put into the food supply because they are making a profit.  

    And, not everyone can afford organic grass fed beef.  Unless you can find a supplier like we did, it's much more expensive to find organic meat in natural health food stores.  Natural poultry is extremely expensive.  For families with a tight food budget, it's no suprise that they just hold their nose and choose conventional meat.  

    It's important that stories like this continually come to light.  Big changes need to be made in the industry.  

    "If it's not Scottish, it's crap!" ~Mike Meyers

    by 1plain1peanut on Thu Jan 31, 2008 at 05:46:13 AM PDT

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