I have received a ton of emails from people asking why I do not make a statement about the recently re-exposed practices of the beef industry after it came to light that many of the cows are literally being tortured.  They are not being tortured as George Bush would define torture, because the cows like some accused terrorists are being water boarded.

Do they have intelligence that is essential to protecting national security?  Nope, they are just cows and they won’t give up names, places or dates regardless of how much you torture them.

First, let me say (again) I am not a member of PETA.  I am not a vegetarian either (hot dogs for lunch and chicken for supper).  I love a good steak, but don’t eat hamburgers very often as they give me indigestion. 

After you finish this story, they may give you indigestion too.

Suggestion to feed unwanted dogs and cats in animal shelters to the poor and hungry

I read an article this evening suggesting that the United States should consider feeding cats and dogs to people that are hungry, starving or too poor to eat regularly.  A number of facts about the number of homeless and hungry were cited along with some estimates of the unwanted animal population that is put to death each year.

The same goes for cats and dogs. The problem of unwanted cats and dogs isn’t going away. Why not turn those millions of unwanted pets into some tasty snacks for people who would otherwise go hungry?

Title -  Please don’t hurt me!

The suggestion is a bit rhetorical, but it also points out the fact that many people do not realize that they are already eating euthanized cats and dogs every day!

You may have eaten someone’s unwanted pet this evening for supper.  I may have unknowingly eaten a stray cat for lunch.

Sometimes when you have your pet put to sleep, you can take the pet home and bury it and sometimes you can pay a hundred dollars to have the pet incinerated.  Many times however shelters and other facilities sell the dead carcasses of these animals to Rendering Plants that have the sole and legal purpose of recycling the dead animals into

• recycled meat
• yellow grease (animal fat)
• bone meal

Cows and Chickens Eat Dead Dogs and Cats too

These products are all used as animal feed.  That recycled meat is sold to pet food manufacturers and to poultry and beef farms where the ground up cats and dogs and road kill and left over parts of other cows and chickens are fed to chickens and cows.  When I was a kid growing up in Illinois, people used to even trap raccoons and possums.  They would sell the animal whole.  The pelts were worth so much and the meat was sold to a rendering plant outside of Peoria that sold the products to Purina.

That’s right, rendering plants might even sell your pet dogs carcass to be made into pet food.

The Real Problem with this Process is the Toxic Waste

Now let’s be real for a second.  Human kind has included carnivores and omnivores for thousands of years.  Vegetarians are a definite minority in our population and in our history.  The primary issue with this process (as was exposed last year when thousands of pets died as a result of poisoned pet food) is that toxic wastes are not removed from the rendered meat.

GIGO – Garbage In Garbage Out – Toxic Deceased Pet In Toxic Recycled Meat Out

The following menu of unwanted ingredients often accompany with dead animals and other raw material:

• Pesticides via poisoned livestock

• Euthanasia drugs that were given to pets

• Some dead animals have flea collars containing organophosphate insecticides

• Fish oil laced with bootleg DDT

• Insecticide Dursban in the form of cattle insecticide patch

• Other chemicals leaked from antibiotics in livestock

• Heavy metals from pet ID tag, surgical pins and needles

• Plastic from:

  • Styrofoam trays from packed unsold supermarket meats, chicken and fish

  • Cattle ID tags

  • Plastic insecticide patches

  • Green plastic bags containing dead pets from veterinarians

  Source

 

Where is the Media on This Fiasco?  Covering Michael Vick too much

So you may ask the question why isn’t the media covering this issue?  The cynics in the crowd that come to this website will respond that they are too busy covering Michael Vick. 

The reality is that they are covering this issue, and on a different site designed for the right purpose so am I.  I present this here just to holistically cover it from the Michael Vick perspective, but you can see this coverage in a great USA Today articles titled Consumers may have a beef with cattle feed.

There are many more articles like that out there too.

My view on the situation

As I see it, I and many people around the world are not going to completely stop eating meat anytime soon.  The industry needs to be cleaned up so that toxic wastes can be removed from the system and we can work to insure the safety of both human food as well as the safety of pet food and the food fed to the animals we eat.

Am I comfortable with the thought that when I slice into a steak, I might be eating something one meal removed from someone’s pet or a rotted deer on the road or a lame cow fed back to the herd.  No, I am not.  I didn’t grow up on a farm and I am not yet conditioned to just accept that.  However, I do understand that we do exist within an ecosystem and a food chain and that this is not terribly unreasonable.  The food, the feed, the pet food, it all has to come from somewhere.  We cannot create miles of pet cemeteries.  We can not burn up every animal that we put to death and pollute the air either or exhaust a bunch of fuel or electricity to do it.

This is an organic process.  It needs to be cleaned up significantly but it is a real process. 

I do feel that we can find someway to grow and raise all the animals involved in a way that does not torture the animals.  We can eat and exist without being sadists.  Even though our pet cats may play with a mouse and torment it, we humans can do a little better.  When the day comes that someone invents some mush or gruel or a pill that feeds us more efficiently and tastes better and we do not have engage in this practice, I may just embrace it.  However, I am not going to agonize over one of the necessities of life, like a vampire character in an Ann Rice novel fretting over having to kill to survive.