Week 6: Slaughterhouses

The discussion of the slaughterhouses in the US was a real shock.  Our group had no idea that animals were treated so cruelly in the American meat industry.  The discussion really reminded me personally of the world-changing novel, "The Jungle."   Upton Sinclair opened many eyes in the early 1900s by describing the horrific and unsanitary practices in the meat-packing industry, and I think another author or media outlet needs to do some investigative journalism on the ethical treatment of the animals we eat.  There's no need for cows and chickens that are already raised to the slaughter to live cruel and torturous lives.  This does bring up an interesting question, however.  Ethically, we should make sure that these animals live and die peacefully, yet that's not really the way of nature.  Animals are attacked and killed in fear by wolves and other natural predator all the time in the wild.  Perhaps an animal dying in fear adds beneficial hormones into their meat, but that's a speculative argument.  It's an interesting question, but I think as human beings, if we want to act like we're above the violence that dictates nature, we need to make sure that we don't have barbaric practices in our own backyards.