Shepherd- Week 7

While reading chapter 6 of Eating Animals “Slices of Paradise/ Pieces of Shit” I think the part that stood out to me the most was the part that talked about the “assembly line” of sorts happening in the animal slaughterhouses. The gruesome detail to which the killing of the pig/lambs was described was a lot to handle. Things like when the pig is ‘“stuck’” to drain all the blood for the animal, or the way the pig is scalded and ends up looking fake and plastic-y when it comes out. The poor assembly line workers who have to manually take off left over hair with cruel devices such as a blowtorch or knife. The sawing of the skull in half and the guts were pulled out with bare hands was something that truly struck me as disgusting, and seemingly a health hazard, made me rethink how I previously thought of meat however it was earlier in the chapter on chicken that made me become a vegetarian again due to the pure vulgarity of the images described to the reader. The same happened in this chapter just re affirming my belief that vegetarian is the right way to go until we can improve the conditions in these factories. Another thing that struck me as a health hazard for the consumers was that the USDA factory inspectors aren’t allowed to see the slaughter areas. This is where a lot of contamination and horrible animal torturing can occur and if the people who are trying to maintain a clean good factory cant even see what is happening in almost the most important part, definitely vital part, of the factory then how do we expect anything to be done correctly.