Peoples Have Crazy Idea's on Where our Meat Comes From

This last week was Meat-out week at Penn State. Meat-out is a national event where Vegetarians and Vegans encourage people to give up meat products for one day out of the year. Since Penn State is a huge Agriculture school, many of the Ag and Animal science students took offense to the event as their job depends on people consuming animals/animal bi-products. As a resuly, they held a "Meat-in" day where they passed out information on the benefits of eating meat and Beef Jerky. As a counter, the Vegetarian Club at Penn State passed slightly over 1,100 pamphlets on factory farms out. The Penn State Collegian, the student newspaper, covered the story. After the article came out, a couple articles came out denouncing Vegetarians and Vegans along with the other side.

This first is the Letter to the Editor that started the whole ordeal:

Practices of meat farmers ensure safety of livestock


All of the practices that farmers do are for
the safety of the animal with production in
mind. PETA argues that animals are being
treated inhumanely and spread stories of how
mother sows are penned in stalls so that they
cannot turn around.This is a true fact but
what PETA neglects to tell the public is that
that is for the safety of the piglets.

This living arrangement is for the ultimate
good of the animal, when penned this way
they are less likely to kill their piglets by lying
on them then when they are just left to roam
free. In addition young piglets, just like babies,
are not very good on their feet, and would find
it very difficult to chase after their mother
when it came time to eat and the small piglets
would ultimately die.

If PETA would remove its ugly head from
an industry it does not understand every ani-
mal would be better off.

The other major issue PETA argues is the
ingestion of animal meat. If humans did not
eat meat there would be an over-abundance of
animals in the world and they would become
obstacles on roads like the over populated
deer herds in Pennsylvania. The consumption
of animal flesh is not only just something we
do because of tradition, but it is a direct stim-
ulant to the US Economy. The U.S. meat
industry is the largest sector of agriculture
and agriculture is the largest sector of the
U.S. economy.

Meat industry sales in 2003 were nearly $90
billion, according to the U.S. Department of
Commerce. With the current status of our
economic system who would want to pull that
chuck of change out of the equation? For
many rural communities, livestock production
and meat processing are economic corner-
stones and cannot be replaced or compro-
mised!

The responce:

Making profit trumps safety
as farmers’ main concern

In Nicholas Wingert's letter to the editor
(“Practices of farmers ensure safety of live-
stock,” March 19), he states "All of the practices
that farmers do are for the safety of the animal
with production in mind." He has one part right:
With production in mind. The only time corpo-
rate farmers treat the animals with safety is
when it is economically beneficial to them.

According to the United Egg producers,
which is funded through egg producers in the
United States, 95 percent of the eggs we eat
are from caged birds; it recommends giving
each bird anywhere from 67-86 square inches
of room.

That is slightly less than a sheet of paper.
With these recommendations, chickens aren't
able to spread their wings for all of their adult
life. Keep in mind, this is what the Egg pro-
ducers are telling you: You can use your own
mind to interpret how badly they really treat
them.

In Mr. Wingert's opinion, farmers treat ani-
mals with care. I suppose this is why we have
videos of cows and pigs being hoisted into the
air by forklifts, piglets being thrown 10 feet
into the air, farm animals unable to turn
around in their stalls, and chickens being
recklessly thrown into transport trucks before
slaughter.

These videos are not the exception. There
are dozens of investigations highlighting the
largest animal producers such as Tyson,
AgriProcessors, Butterball, and Perdue, just
to name a few, committing countless atroci-
ties. These few producers supply a vast
majority of our meat.

As the San Francisco Chronicle pointed out,
18 beef processors account for 80 percent of
the market share.

Every time we go food shopping, we are
voting with our dollar. I would hope people
choose to consume less animal products and
byproducts in turn reducing animal suffering.
And lastly I hope that people aren't hood-
winked by the propaganda that Factory farms,
where we get a majority of our meat from,
treat their animals humanely.

And the response to that:

Ignorance of meat's critics visible in uninformed views

This is in response to the many letters to the editor that talk about Meat-In Day and Meat-Out Day.

I have many friends who are vegetarians and many who aren't and either way I completely respect their decisions. My vegetarian friends, however, also respect those of us who eat meat and never call us ignorant because the decision to eat meat is not solely based on knowledge, but on personal beliefs.

I know that I am not ignorant as I grew up surrounded by farms, my roommate is a farmer, and I am a food science major. I know where my food comes from and how the animals that produce my meat products are raised. The majority of farmers focus on the safety of their animal and treat them with care.

Yes, I do realize that there are exceptions and animals are mistreated in some cases, but they are exceptions. I know all of this from my education.

Those of you who claim that you know otherwise from videos online are the ignorant ones. I actually take classes here at Penn State about where my food comes from. You look up videos on the Internet. Let me ask you which source you think is more reliable?
e

This letter was not published, however it was submitted:

“Ignorance of meat's critics visible in uninformed views”, echo’s an argument made by many. They use completely anecdotal information to claim that a majority of the animals we eat come from producers who treat animals with care. This is completely false. A majority of the animals we eat do not come from traditional farms.

According to president of the U.S. National Farmers' Union, the top four cattle producers account for 80% of the market in the U.S. In addition, the WorldWatch Institute found that 74% of the worlds chicken and nearly all of the U.S. chicken comes from factory farms. Keep in mind, medium CAFO’s (factory farms), may contain anywhere from 37,500 to 124,999 chickens at a time(EPA).

It doesn’t take much to understand there are very few practical ways to raise thousands of birds on one farm humanely. It shouldn’t come to a surprise there aren’t any pictures of the birds living or slaughter conditions on Perdue’s, Butterball’s, or Tyson’s websites; they would go bankrupt overnight.

The author also cited personal beliefs as a reason to justify killing animals for food. I would hope, in a world with a growing number of nutritionists recommending keeping animal products off your plate, some form of the golden rule could be applied here as I’m sure most would not want to be killed simply because they taste good.( I’m not comparing humans with animals, I’m merely mentioning they deserve consideration.)

I would encourage those who believe that the animals we eat are raised and killed in a humane manner, to do additional research. The farms in our neighborhoods are by no means a true depiction of how we treat the animals we slaughter. Instead, the packages of meat from the supermarket contain an animal’s abused life which we support financially every time we purchase meat. I would encourage those who eat animal products to understand how cruel those products truly are and think twice when buying their food.

Though this letter did not make it into the newspaper, there is a moral to the story. These letters are evidence that a majority of people are not aware of how much of our meat comes from factory farms. When they see a scenic farm, they think, wow they treat these animals just fine. This misconception truly subtracts from the Vegetarian/Vegan arguments validity.

Vegetarians and Vegans need to keep showing people how badly we treat animals. So long as we kill 10 Billion animals a year in the US alone, I think we can do better. For every person that goes vegetarian, over 100 animals are saved a year-- I think thats something worth working for.