Eating Animals? Kosher?

After watching the first few sections of Earthlings in class Tuesday, I left the class in complete horror of seeing the reality of slaughterhouses and puppy mills. As an animal lover it was next to impossible to watch the graphic gassing of dogs or the astonishing inhumane slaughter of cows and pigs. As a person on a no carbohydrate diet, my meals mainly consist of meat. I didn’t know whether to hate the inhumane slaughters or myself for purchasing their meat.



However, the assigned readings gave me another outlet to channel my anger and disgust. I believe that it is impractical to reduce meat consumption in the United States. Yet, it is practical to ensure humane slaughter and the USDA should seek reform.

The Humane Slaughter Act (HMSLA), originally passed in 1958, is in need of further enforcement and reform. In 1978, “inspectors were given the authority to stop the slaughtering line when cruelty was observed. However, the USDA eventually stopped authorizing USDA inspectors to stop the line, since doing so incurs considerable cost of time for the industry” (689). Even though President Bush pushed the enforcement of this act through his Farm Bill, it has still not been enforced, as it should.

The documentary Earthlings, shows that the slaughterhouses operate on the principle of financial profit at any cost. Slaughterhouse workers “are expected to slaughter one animal every three seconds – and are penalized when they slow down” (690). A greater problem with the HMSLA and the United States Department of Agriculture is considering “properly conducted religious slaughter as humane and allows Jewish and Muslim slaughterhouses to forgo stunning” (696). Therefore, for the sake of religious affiliation, these animals are forced to suffer a cruel death where kosher workers are “ripping the tracheas and esophagi out of fully conscious animals, dumping them out of pens into pools of their own blood” (696). The entire idea of kosher meat is despicable.


Kosher slaughterhouses employ illegal aliens “nearly 400 workers, mostly Guatemalan” and practice inhumane slaughter to reap incredible annual profits and revenue. Because of their faith, “Agriprocessors had a second plant in Nebraska, run in partnership with the Oglala Sioux Tribe, and annual revenue of $250 million” (698). It is absolutely disgusting that the Jewish families can be proud of the profits they bring home to their families. That profit was earned by employing illegal workers, teenage workers, and primarily cost saving and inhumane methods of slaughter made legal because the USDA considers religious slaughter acceptable.

The Slaughterer explains that Yoineh Meir was only able to slaughter animals based on the Jewish idea that “Men cannot and must not have more compassion than the Master of the Universe” (915). His family of women enjoy his great income for slaughtering animals, and have no idea what kind of moral and ethical problems their breadwinner is having with his profession based upon murder. Yoineh has dreams that “cows assumed human shape, with beards and sidelocks, and skullcaps over their horns. Yoineh Meir would be slaughtering a calf, but it would turn into a girl. Her neck throbbed and she pleaded to be saved” (915). The inhumane requirements of Kosher slaughter eventually drew this religious man mad. He ran through the town screaming “Father in Heaven, Thou art slaughterer and the Angel of Death! The whole world is a slaughterhouse! (916). Yoineh Meir was found dead in a nearby river the next morning. As a slaugterer, he felt compassion for these animals. However, his religious faith prevented him from seeking a humane way to do his job and eventually led to his death.


Other issues with the HMLSA is that “it only focuses on the last few minutes of the animals lives and has no effect on how they are treated beforehand, even as they are going to slaughter” (690). Even worse, “the Humane Slaughter Act specifically mentions only cattle, calves, horses, mules, sheep and swine” (688). Because of the way chickens are treated to conserve as much money as possible, “a fourth of all chickens have stress fractures. It’s wrong. They’re packed body to body, can’t escape their own waste, and never see the sun. They feel their slaughterers” (612). Earthlings show us that “milking cows are kept chained to their stalls all day long, receiving no exercise. Pesticides and antibiotics are also used to increase their milk productivity. Eventually, milking cows, like this one, collapse from exhaustion. Normally, cows can live as long as twenty years, but milking cows generally die within four” (573). The USDA must reform this act to include all animals that undergo slaughter of any kind and to consider the lives of these animals. If we must consume meat for our diets and breed these animals for that reason alone, we must give them a fair quality of life.