Can we just make a rule? Right now, right here, let’s just agree on this handy little rule of thumb: if it’s too sick to stand on its own, we probably don’t want to eat it.
You good with that?
The USDA is. Which is why they actually do have a rule. Why, as a matter of fact, they have a rule just like that: “downer cows” — cows that can’t stand on their own — can’t enter the food supply. That little rule is part of the fallout from the mad cow scare a few years back. See, when cows have late-stage mad cow disease, they tend to become downers. Mad cow disease is not the only way they can become downers — they can also be injured, or sick from other things — but downer-ism is one of the mad cow Big Red Flags. Not to mention, when the cow’s on the ground, it gets caked in lots of doo-doo, increasing risks of E. coli.
So the rule seems like a smart one.
Cow can’t stand straight?
It don’t belong on your plate!
Cow fallin’ down?
Won’t taste too good ground!
Standing a battle?
Don’t eat that cattle!
Sure the USDA has slipped a little enforcing the rule, but no one doubts the value of the rule itself. No-can-walk, no-can-eat. It just makes sense.
The problem is that every downer cow is lost revenue for the meat processors. If they can’t slip the cow into the food supply, they can’t get their cha-ching. Which, I suppose is why it shouldn’t surprise me — after all this time writing about the food industry, it just shouldn’t surprise me — that cows that seem unable to stand up might be given a little extra encouragement in order to pass inspection.
Encouragement. Like, with a forklift.
Yeah, it’s true. The Humane Society went undercover and got a bunch of video footage of what appear to be downer cows being encouraged to stand. Not with cheerleaders, mind you. With forklifts. And electricity. And high-pressure blasts of water.
At this point, I’d like to propose another rule, another handy little rule of thumb: that if a cow can only stand with the help of a forklift, well…maybe we shouldn’t consider that “standing on its own.”
Does that one seem fair? Does to me.
Need a forklift to rise?
You’re a downer! Surprise!
Being zapped so you’ll stand?
In my burger, don’t you land!
Cow looking tipsy?
It’s just a little too risky!
The kicker to this video? The meat being processed is bound for school lunches. This particular meat processor, Hallmark Meat Packing, sells meat to Westland Meat Co., which is a major supplier of school lunch programs around the U.S. Since 2002, Westland has sold about 100 million pounds of frozen beef to the USDA’s commodities program. Including in my own home state of Vermont. Probably your state, too.
I know. I know. Now you’re calling me a downer, right? Well, at least you’re not calling me a downer cow (unless you happen to be one of those people who believes that women should be model-thin, in which case it’s not likely that we’ll ever be great friends, anyway).
But…jeesh.There are so many things we could talk about at this point. We could talk about how few cows are actually tested for mad cow disease in this country (less than 1%), even after the disease was found here. We could talk about Creekstone Farms again, how this little meat company wants to test its own product to guarantee that it’s mad cow-free and the government won’t let it. We could talk about what a really freaky disease this mad cow thing is, straight out of the pages of science fiction with its rogue proteins that turn brains into Swiss cheese.
But you don’t want to talk about those things, do you? Those things are such….downers. You want to know what you can do about them.
1. You can contact your elected official, and tell them that you’re aware of this situation, and you hate it, and you want to see more widespread testing for mad cow disease. And you want a little more care in determining who gets to supply meat to your child’s school. And, while you’re at it, you might want to mention that you think Creekstone should be allowed to test its own product.
2. You can buy less industrial meat of any kind. You can opt-out altogether, either by sourcing local meat, or by going a little more vegetarian. Even if you can’t go the whole way (for whatever reason: cost, availability, a spouse that would never-ever consider a meat-free lifestyle), any reduction in the amount of meat you consume is good. It’s good for your health, and it sends a strong signal to the meat industry that it’s time to clean up their freakin’ act.
The last thing I’d say is that you should talk about it. This is a big deal. A major supplier to school cafeterias was caught lifting cows with forklifts, because that is the only way those cows would pass basic USDA inspection. As a society, we should talk about that.
So often, I feel like we are discouraged from talking, belittled when we try to raise objections to some fundamental problems with the food we put in our bodies. It’s as if an entire industry is shouting at us through a bullhorn, “Move along. Keep moving. There’s NOTHING TO SEE HERE.” And we feel ridiculous, like Chicken Little, for raising concern. But then we get these little glimpses of how maybe there is something to see, and maybe there is something to talk about. Only then, only once we acknowledge it, can we get to the point where we actually do something about it.
Meat industry broken?
Those words should be spoken!
Can’t trust your food?
Speak your mind, dude!
Your burger couldn’t walk.
Now, THAT’S reason to talk!
Thanks to the Ethicurean, as ever, for the heads up to this one.
I started to watch that video but had to stop. It is just too much for my ol’ non-cow eating eyes. But, it makes me glad I signed up to be on the wait list for local grass fed meat—even if I won’t eat it, I couldn’t stand to feed my family meat from a downer cow.
What humans are capable of doing just stuns me.
I had to force myself to watch the whole video. You’re right when you say there is so much for us to talk about. So very, very much for us to talk about.
I could only watch part of that video. Your blog continues to shock and amaze me. I knew it was bad, I just didn’t know how bad. I hope it’s ok if I link to you (not that I have that many readers but still).
Thanks!!
Ali,
After watching those videos, I’m sitting here just so disappointed in human kind, and really overwhelmed about the cruelty inflicted on those animals. We are a meat eating family, and just writing that I feel so guilty that I am a consumer of these products and by association, supporting the injustices, suffering and torture practiced on these animals daily. I need to seriously consider how I can, as a representative of one small family, impact these cruel practices through the choices I make at the market and grocery store.
Oh, and I have no idea how long it took you to come up with all your ryhming phrases, but you made me laugh out loud a few times with your creativity. It was the “spoonful of sugar” that helped the “medicine go down.”
Information like this makes me want to cry and vomit. Then it gets me mad as hell. In vet school (at least in my vet school) the food animal medicine/surgery clinicians *stress* the fact that animal welfare is paramount to animal health and human health. I absolutely despise people who try to break the rules meant to protect animals and people simply for financial benefit.
This is so wrong. What are we doing? Yet another reason to eat less meat and to find a local, humane, grass fed source for the meat on your plate.
I am glad to see someone writing about this video. I saw it on CNN day before yesterday and meant to write a post, but have been distracted by my Dad’s impending surgery and my own sinus infection.
This video–which is not all that shocking, really, if you do keep up with what is going on in the meat industry–is disgusting, and it isn’t that unusual. The things that people will do to animals when they have decided in their own minds that the animals are not living creatures but -things- is appalling and disgusts me.
This is why I opted out of industrial meat years ago, and why, with each passing year, our family eats less and less meat.
As for the downer cows going to the school lunch program–that is not surprising, either. Have you ever come into contact with raw beef provided by the government to programs like the school lunch program or to soup kitchens and the like?
I have. It is not Grade A. It is not even Grade B. It is something along the lines of Grade C–and it has a foul oder and a slimy feel to it. I worked with the stuff in a federally funded Catholic soup kitchen in Providence, RI, when I was in culinary school. The packages the meat came in were marked as being for the school lunch program–it had been a surplus in the local school lunch program that had been donated by the school system to the soup kitchen.
We had to cook it, which meant we had to touch it. It was awful. We had brought herbs, spices and garlic with us, donated by our culinary school, to help make it taste better–but–there was no way to cover that smell. It was–it smelled diseased. Some kids who were cooking had to run away and vomit. I ended up taking charge of the beef because I had a strong stomach, and I let the ones who couldn’t stand it “reclaim” the case after case of slimy, rotted, molded broccoli donated by a local grocery store–for a tax deduction no doubt. They got to cut away the bad parts–like we were doing with the beef, and then cook the “good” parts.
The food we fed to the people that night I was ashamed of. Some of us cried. Most of the kids couldn’t stomach to eat with the poor folks who came to eat, and who were grateful to eat that godawful stuff–but I forced myself to sit and eat with them.
It was horrible. Nothing could cover the scent of diseased meat and rotten vegetable. I felt like I was feeding poison–poison donated and sanctioned by our government–to children and old people who had no choice in the matter.
I hated it.
We told our chefs about it at school the next day, and the school started donating more food to the place–just to get some good food to those people.
The things that humans will do to animals and to each other to make a profit are heinous.
Thanks for posting this, its been all over the internet recently and this pretty much sums up my view as well. (Also, nice to see I’m not the only one who disolves into a Suessian/Winnie the Pooh style when frustrated!)
Hope you don’t mind, I’ve linked you in my blog… any time I can find a good writer I want to share it.
Gosh, I always learn so much from your blog and I really appreciate it. I, like others, watched about 1/2 second of that video and had to stop. I guess it really does take all kinds of humans to make this world. Thank you again for always posting such eye-opening information.
lalala deny deny deny
I read John Robbins “Diet for a New America” many years ago. I remember reading about how it was okay to cut ONE tumor out of a chicken breast, but TWO tumors was unacceptable. It’s all disgusting and inhumane, but I don’t want to think about it or talk about it. lalalalala
Hi! I was surfing and found your blog post… nice! I love your blog.
Cheers! Sandra. R.