Meat Processing

[Scott]

Amy wrote:
"The movie "American Dream," a documentary about Hormel (which, IIRC,
is the Minnesota company to blame for Spam), is what tipped me over to
becoming a vegetarian.  The movie wasn't even about the animal side of
the meat industry--it was about a strike--but a scene-setting bit with
the hogs did the trick for me.  I suppose any trip to a slaughterhouse
would have done."

Amanda wrote:
"Well, for a semester I was an animal science major at A&M, and got 
to go watch the slaughtering and processing of cattle and hogs. It 
wasn't all that horrific to me. I think some of the "ugh" factor 
doesn't involve what the animal actually feels (which isn't much), so 
much as that we, as a culture, are pretty much insulated from dead 
animals and how they become neat little packages in stores. Coming 
from a hunting family, I didn't have a problem with the details and 
mechanics of butchering. But I can see that if you've never seen it 
before, seeing it on the scale of something the size of a pig would 
be a shock."
  
--Ok Amanda I can respect that, but honestly it is sickening just to 
think about how meat is produced. Bleah! :-( Then again I am a 
vegetarian and even though I made that choice for namely health 
reasons the moral issue of eating a living creature also came into 
play. I respect those who enjoy a juicy steack but personally the 
thought makes me nauseous.

However I've never actually seen how animals are processed even 
thought pig farms are widespread in NC. 

Scott