SLAUGHTERHOUSE HORROR-DAYS THAT LEFT ME WITH MORE THAN JUST A BLEEDING HEART

It wasn’t conscience that made me become a flexitarian, it was the texture, the blood, the pipes, the smell… the chewiness

I am a flexitarian, I guess.

The reason I try to pigeonhole myself – although I don't think you're supposed to eat pigeons are you – is because I am a vegetarian, except when it comes to beef burgers and kebabs.

Yes, flexitarian gives me dignity. It could even become a lifestyle. You see, I'm flexible as far as my omnivorous gnawings are concerned. I can simply take meat or leave it.

And most of the time, I'd rather leave it because, the truth is, I just don't like it. I don't like the texture, the blood, the pipes in liver, the smell, the chewiness.

And I abhor the slaughter of it.

You see, once in my younger days I worked in a slaughterhouse on the outskirts of Manchester in the North-west of England.

It was a disgusting, howling, metal grinding hellhole of grotesque Victoriana down a bloody pitted and rickety lane. Blood-stained men in vests and vast aprons turned the colour of red wine, red-faced men, bluff and hearty laughing out loud and cursing each other with a kind of meat-sweat madness. They were uncouth and uncaring by the bucket-of-blood load.

The abattoir itself was a cacophony of screams, reeling spinning meat hooks, a choreography of slaughter on the sticky killing floor steaming in the smell of blood  and cheap  disinfectants.

But I was a boy of the 1970s British city. I was seventeen, chain-smoking, beer swilling - and I had my first driving license. And United Cattle Products supplied me with a reeking slaughterhouse van. I drove it like a maniac, offal, cow’s heels, bellies, heads and blood smashing and splashing around in the back like Hieronymus Bosch had chosen UCP van interiors as his new canvases.

***

Then at the end of the 1980s I escaped the rigours of big city newspapers and moved to the countryside where I became a pastoral writer. Peace and quiet, shepherds and lost sheep, ale by the fireside and long tales of red skies and starry starry nights.

But it wasn't like that … it was a madness of noise, the constant squealing of pigs in their shit-strewn pens, the acrid over-powering ammonia smell of chickens in their fields of foul.

Animals packed cheek by jowl in trucks, faces and noses searching out cracks in the metal for air and light.

At that time Myxomatosis was devastating the UK's rabbit population … those still surviving sat by the roadside, eyes and heads swollen and pustulating, livid and agonised.

And Mad Cow Disease was just around the corner.

But still the hoorays, the Henries and the Harriets galloped through the lanes for country miles, their skin smeared and a bit drunk. Killer hounds baying at their heels.

The foxes fled in terror.

The Hunt has no respect for anything living, except themselves. They look down on all creatures from their elevated leather saddles. Disgusting.

Once they tried to cross my land after a fox that was heroically scything through a field of yellow... my land, as the crow flies, was the quickest way to get to tear it limb from limb. I got my pitchfork and stood my ground. Finally they galloped off trying to find a gap in the hedges.  The Hunt hated me in the pub that night.

Perhaps that naughty wily fox had eaten some of their hooray eggs. A medieval and tortured death was the sentence they'd passed down on it.

Later I started to see badgers with their brains blown out by the side of the road … the perceived countryside wisdom was that the badger population was becoming depressed, and they were blowing their own heads off and throwing themselves under passing trucks,

It was always said with a haughty ruddy, toothless snigger from a pot-bellied farmer. Then he'd wink.

Must have thought I was the village idiot.

***

After all these years I started to understand what we do to animals in the name of food and sometimes sport.

By now I was living in Delhi and there was a KFC just around the corner. As a travel journalist, I knew that McDonald's was a 'safe haven' for travellers, homogenised food, coffee, warm and clean bathrooms.

KFC was a close runner. And the severed wings, legs and breasts were quite toothsome in their breadcrumbs and spices. I was also shocked by how big a chicken's nuggets were! And don't mention the length of their goujons!

Protection of animals is enshrined as a fundamental in India particularly cattle protection and cow slaughter prohibition.

Yet the streets around the KFC restaurant were haunted by killer-eyed scrawny dogs, the sewers were full of snuffling pigs, the shops filled with lugubrious and cud-chewing cows.

And then as I chomped my way through my smiling bucket of severed chicken limbs and bits and pieces, I saw this in a greasy imported three-week old copy of The Guardian:

'KFC suppliers cram birds into huge waste-filled factories, breed and drug them to grow so large that they can’t even walk, and often break their wings and legs. At slaughter, the birds’ throats are slit and they are dropped into tanks of scalding-hot water—often while they are still conscious. It would be illegal for KFC to abuse dogs, cats, pigs, or cows in these ways.'

It was a statement from PETA, People for the  Ethical Treatment of  Animals, the largest animal rights organization in the world.

PETA also said that roughly 'One billion chickens killed each year for KFC's buckets are crammed by the tens of thousands into excrement-filled sheds that stink of ammonia fumes. The birds’ legs and wings often break because they’re bred to be too top-heavy and because workers carelessly shove them into transport crates and shackles'.

I sucked on a chicken bone as I read it.

***

Many reports in the past have said that nearly all the chickens reared for KFC are fast-growing breeds - 30 days to reach their slaughter weight. The growth rate  has   made health problems for birds worse, including the ability to move - and liver and heart failure.
One in ten KFC chickens were also said to suffer hock burn caused by ammonia from the waste of other birds.

KFC is not alone.

Most of the chicken meat served by the major fast-food brands comes from animals who live in cramped and barren 'hangers' without sunlight.

Many chickens suffer from lameness and skin lesions. Intensive farming methods also often rely on antibiotics as a quick-fix to keep animals alive. 

***

KFC has however been praised by animal welfare campaigners recently for its willingness to make public the information in its animal welfare report. The  company tracks progress in tackling various welfare measures, including mortality rates, antibiotic use and stock density.

KFC’s vegan “chicken” burger has also received an accolade at a vegan food awards event.

And this year, in the World Animal Protection 'pecking order 2021', KFC, out of all eight global brands assessed, is the clear leader.

So, things are improving. But enough? Not for many campaigners.

***

I just found this interesting … Harland David Sanders from Henryville, Indiana, became the Colonel with his showman's moustache and  Southern-style flannel 'whites'. Harland was an entrepreneur who been a farmer, street-car conductor, railroad fireman and insurance salesman.

In his 40s he took over a service station in Kentucky and decide road-side food was a good idea. Because of this eventually, he was nick-named the chicken colonel. That was way back in 1935.

And just 25 years before I joined the hellhole of the UCP and the abattoirs, Sanders began franchising his chicken business. In 1964, with more than 600 franchised outlets, he sold his interest in the company for $2 million.

And the threshing machine of fast food was confirmed as the business to be in if you were hungry for success and money.

And we omnivores were very happy for him, I'm sure.

***
Many studies have shown that meat is just no good for us humans and could be killing us. The human body is apparently intended to function on plant-based foods full of fibre, antioxidants, unsaturated fat, essential fatty acids, phytochemicals, and cholesterol-free protein.

But the simple fact is that many big brand restaurants are denying billions of birds the chance to see sunlight, grow at a healthy rate or behave naturally so that we get our daily dose of flesh.

This is the real flesh-eating disease that we think is so good for us.

But why do we think this if it's actually so bad for us? Is meat (it's a real treat) in fact in the same category as cigarettes and alcohol?

Here are some figures to chew over: Fast food was a 473 billion pound industry back  in 2019 and is growing and alcohol swallowed more than a trillion pounds of our hard-earned dosh.

And another 800 billion went up in smoke.

Big deadly industries  making big money out of our certain demise.

Funnily enough – funny on the dark side - the death-care industry is worth far in excess of 100 billion pounds too.  

Here some more startling figures:

We humans are far outnumbered by farm animals. So, why are we at the top of the food chain?

The Economist once worked out that the combined total of chickens (19 billion), cows (1.5 billion), sheep (1 billion) and pigs (1 billion) living at any one time is three times higher than the number of people.

And it's because we eat an estimated 50 billion chickens and about 1.5 billion pigs are killed for sausages and other things. Half a billion sheep are taken to the abattoir every year too. And then there are goats! 

And what about seafood? 

Is something fishy going on here? And that is another story ...

#kfc #slaughterhouselive #goats #pigs #bulls #LA #cow

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