At the time that Pollan was writing this book he was still a meat eater. But after owning a steer, helping to kill chickens and reading up on PETA, his omnivourous nature was in question. While our culture has been telling us it is good to eat meat, some medical researchers (and organizations like PETA) have been telling us otherwise. With this comes the removal of animals from our sight, our meat is meant to be as far removed from us as possible. "Nowadays it seems we either look away or become vegetarians." Pollan did not look away, was he about to become a vegetarian? Animal Liberation was one of the things that helped convert Pollan, from "speciest" (racism based on species) to the works of Reagan, Rachels, Wise, Williams and Scully. And so Pollan begins a new challenge, the challenge of becoming a vegetarian--at this time in history, it is possible to live without eating meat so why not? "So on a September Sunday, after dining on a delicious barbecued tenderloin of pork, I became a reluctant and, I fervently hoped, temporary vegetarian."
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| No suffering animals in sight! |
"A month or so into the experiment and I'm still feeling reluctant about it." Making vegetarian meals requires more thought and work, and is less convenient. It is less sociable (a minority, 10 million Americans, are vegetarian) and quite alienating. People must now accomodate Pollan, and the awkward situation he is put in can be seen in some places as bad manners. To Pollan, meat eating is a part of our culture, a part of our identity. We sacrifice our animality, something Pollan fears more than I do. Meat eating is something I believe trivial to our identity, Pollan does not feel the same way. "Rather, our meat eating is something very deep indeed."
3. ANIMAL SUFFERING
"In a certain sense it is impossible to know what goes on in the mind of a cow or pig or ape." So how do we know if the animals we kill to eat suffer? Since pain is part of our evolution, many writers believe animals also have pain. "Pain? Suffering? Madness?" Thats what many animals (fed the wrong foods, put in small and awful living spaces, filled with disease and killed) feel. "It all sounds very much like our worst nightmares of confinement and torture, and it is that, but it is also real life for the billions of animals unlucky enough to have been born beneath those grim sheet-metal roofs into the brief, pitiless life of a production unit in the days before a suffering gene was found." Exactly why I don't eat animals.
4. ANIMAL HAPPINESS
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| Unfotunately, these happy pigs are few and far between. |
5. THE VEGAN UTOPIA
"If our concern is for the health of nature--rather than, say, the internal consistency of our moral code or the condition of our souls--than eating animals may sometimes be the most ethical thing to do." I think Pollan is rationalizing his desire to eat meat, something that I find many people doing. So the billions of pounds of pollution that comes from eating meat is good for the environment? I think not. Sure, animals are good for the environment, it doesn't mean we have to kill and eat them. And yes, some people would be forced to import food, but we already do that. After some more rationalizing, including the "benefits" that animals get from us eating them, Pollan dropped his vegetarianism and said, "All of which was making me feel pretty good about eating meat again and going hunting. . ." I sighed.
6. A CLEAN KILL
Pollan was never showed the kill room at the steer plant, the place where steer 534 was stunned and killed. Before Temple Grandin, the animal-handling expert who designed the killing machinery for National Beef, stories of animals being painfully shot with a stun gun but not actually stunned and then waking up for a painful skinning were often times true. Now, Grandin says, the animal goes through a shoot where it can only see the animal ahead of it. A conveyor below seperates the animal until it's off of the ground and it is being carried that way (a false floor is implemented to make sure the cow is not scared that he is off the ground, like he doesn't know). Grandin claims they have no idea they are going to get slaughtered. The stunner, from above, shoots a seven inch bolt into the forehead of the animal to kill it, if done correctly, on the first shot. The animals feet are then wrapped and he is hung upside down by one leg. The bleeder cuts the throat of the animal to have it bleed out. People think the animals are still alive because of reflex kicking. Only a non-dead head is proof of an alive animal, which is why additional stunners are needed in the bleed area (sounds to me like the process is still far from perfect). "I found Temple Grandin's account both reassuring and troubling. Reassuring, because the system sounds humane, and yet I realize I'm relying on the accound of its designer. Troubling, because I can't help dwelling on all those times "you've got a live one on the rail." Mistakes are inevitable on an assembly line that is slaughtering four hundred head of cattle every hour (McDonald's tolerates a 5% 'error rate.')." I don't find it reassuring at all. I can't even see how it is possible to slaughter animals on an industrial scale without causing them to suffer.
Taking a life is momentous and people have been justifying, rationalizing the killing of animals for thousands of years. Salatin says he can kill chickens because they "don't have souls." Religions, rituals and customs have all helped with this part. Now, we are breaking down these traditions. Pollan believes that all feelings about eating meat would be clarified with clear glass walls in slaughter houses that allow people to see, the right to look. Although I can't say how many people would volunteer to do this. And when this would happen? "Yes, meat would get more expensive. We'd probably eat a lot less of it, too, but maybe when we did eat animals we'd eat them with consciousness, ceremony, and the respect they deserve." Maybe you could, Pollan, but I certainly couldn't.
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