200,000 Animals Slaughtered in Annual Sacrifice

[Boomhauer]

I have to ask, just what the hell is the standard way of butchering in the US if kosher/halal is considered more humane than the standard way?
Over here (atleast where I work), we gas the animals (pigs), or shoot them (cattle and sheep) before desanguination takes place. I can't really imagine how it would be more humane to slit their throats without stunning them or knocking them out.
What's the procedure over there? Whack em repeatedly over the head with a huge hammer? Strangling?

We call this guy.

[Crazy-G]

Most beef slaughtered in the US are killed with a regular gun mostly .22's in small shops bigger slaughterhouses use some form of a captive bolt gun http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Captive_bolt_pistol which works as AZRedhawk44 stated, hogs are stunned/killed with electricity or gassed, same for poultry.
 My family owns a slaughterhouse so I can say for certain that 99.9% of slaughterhouses are very humane, stress makes for poor quality meat so the quicker and more humane you kill an animal the better. As for animals being aware or sensitive after stunning killing that is not true if done properly, to somebody not familiar with the slaughter process the animals could appear to be sensitive/aware but it is only nerve activity, like a chicken running around with it head cut off which really happens. Muscles in beef and hogs can twitch for over an hour after the carcass being split in half and put in a 34 degree cooler. Something to remember when you see video from slaughterhouses showing poor practices is that in most cases PETA or whomever has spent months if not longer getting the 30s of video shown.

[RevDisk]

It's ignorant barbarism because it's not about eating out of necessity, it's about propitiating a goddess to give them good luck.  A beheaded buffalo isn't going to do squat for them--and much less for the buffalo.  They've had "bad luck" for millennia--when are they going to figure out why???

And I have friends that commit symbolic cannibalism once a week.  The more devout of them believe it magically turns into actual human flesh and they believe they are actually feasting on real human flesh, but I don't think too many folks buy into it even if they're supposed to.  I do think it's friggin awesome, but wish they'd dress up as zombies while doing so.  Apparently it'd be looked down upon, as you are supposed to "dress nicely" for the symbolic cannibalistic rituals.  

Which is stranger, getting drunk and throwing a BBQ, or pretending to devour human flesh?  


(Not that I'm saying any of the above is bad or whatnot.  Just different strokes for different folks.  The only folks I give the hairy eyeball are the vegetarians.  Unnatural, that.  Humans are designed to be meat eaters, otherwise we'd have all molars.)

[dogmush]

It's ignorant barbarism because it's not about eating out of necessity, it's about propitiating a goddess to give them good luck.  A beheaded buffalo isn't going to do squat for them--and much less for the buffalo.  They've had "bad luck" for millennia--when are they going to figure out why???

And who was defending the mechanized slaughter of turkeys and pigs?  Not I, certainly.  I'll just wolf down my lentils.

I'll assume then that you've decided not to eat meat because you think it's barbarous.  Cool, at least you're consistant.  I would ask what you think those pointy teeth in the front of your mouth are for, if not meat, but hey, more for me.

I still don't see how you get ignorant though.  Absent a burning, talking bush in your yard it's just as likely they have bad luck because their godess wants 300,000 animals as that she doesn't exist.  Condeming something as ignorant when you have no evidence one way or the other seems kinda.......ignorant.

[Ben]

Wow did I start something. 

The turkey analogy is most apropos to me. And plenty of those are still killed out back with an axe.

[sanglant]

 

Damn peanut worshippers.

they are worshiping this thing?  

[longeyes]

I'll assume then that you've decided not to eat meat because you think it's barbarous.  Cool, at least you're consistant.  I would ask what you think those pointy teeth in the front of your mouth are for, if not meat, but hey, more for me.

I still don't see how you get ignorant though.  Absent a burning, talking bush in your yard it's just as likely they have bad luck because their godess wants 300,000 animals as that she doesn't exist.  Condeming something as ignorant when you have no evidence one way or the other seems kinda.......ignorant.

It's fruitless, no pun intended, to argue rationally with a guy named "Dogmush."  Actually, I'm not a vegetarian; I just eat people who disagree with me...

You want to decapitate buffalo...go, knock yourself out, but don't try to come up with sophistical pseudo-logic to justify superstitious behavior.  We've got plenty of that already coming at us from the Left.

My family owns a slaughterhouse so I can say for certain that 99.9% of slaughterhouses are very humane, stress makes for poor quality meat so the quicker and more humane you kill an animal the better. As for animals being aware or sensitive after stunning killing that is not true if done properly, to somebody not familiar with the slaughter process the animals could appear to be sensitive/aware but it is only nerve activity, like a chicken running around with it head cut off which really happens. Muscles in beef and hogs can twitch for over an hour after the carcass being split in half and put in a 34 degree cooler. Something to remember when you see video from slaughterhouses showing poor practices is that in most cases PETA or whomever has spent months if not longer getting the 30s of video shown.

Uh, yeah.  No doubt you grew up hearing that flapdoodle around the dinner table.  You have to make a living, I understand that, fine.  But don't tell me that slaughterhouses are "humane" because you knock their brains out "quickly."  Just own the fact that you have accepted that industrialized killing of animals for meat is acceptable to you.  Don't rationalize it.  For you it's worth the transient moral questions that might intrude; you have learned how to dismiss them.  Congratulations.  You'll sleep better tonight.

I have accepted the fact that in this mortal life, in a state of materiality, we are part of a vast killing machine.  I don't much like the idea, but damn if I'm not stuck here for a while, so I'll make my own separate peace with it in my own way, if you don't mind.

[Hawkmoon]

By the way, has anyone seen a recent picture of Ms. Bardot? The years have NOT been kind to her!! Maybe there's something lacking in her diet . . .

Give her a break. She has to be pushing 90 years old. She was every high school and college student's pinup girl when I was in college back in the 1960s.

[EDIT]So I'm wrong again. Google informs me she was born in 1934, which makes her 75. Not ancient, but hardly a spring chicken.

[S. Williamson]

You want to decapitate buffalo...go, knock yourself out, but don't try to come up with sophistical pseudo-logic to justify superstitious behavior.  We've got plenty of that already coming at us from the Left.

Uh, yeah.  No doubt you grew up hearing that flapdoodle around the dinner table.  You have to make a living, I understand that, fine.  But don't tell me that slaughterhouses are "humane" because you knock their brains out "quickly."  Just own the fact that you have accepted that industrialized killing of animals for meat is acceptable to you.  Don't rationalize it.  For you it's worth the transient moral questions that might intrude; you have learned how to dismiss them.  Congratulations.  You'll sleep better tonight.

Are other predators in the animal kingdom to be criticized for killing other animals so they can eat them?

I have accepted the fact that in this mortal life, in a state of materiality, we are part of a vast killing machine.  I don't much like the idea, but damn if I'm not stuck here for a while, so I'll make my own separate peace with it in my own way, if you don't mind.

Don't suppose I can fault you for that. 

[Gewehr98]

Uh, yeah.  No doubt you grew up hearing that flapdoodle around the dinner table.  You have to make a living, I understand that, fine.  But don't tell me that slaughterhouses are "humane" because you knock their brains out "quickly."  Just own the fact that you have accepted that industrialized killing of animals for meat is acceptable to you.  Don't rationalize it.  For you it's worth the transient moral questions that might intrude; you have learned how to dismiss them.  Congratulations.  You'll sleep better tonight.

Okeydokey, the level of snark in this thread has just passed the tolerable threshold.  

Lest we forget, APS is comprised of folks from all walks of life.  The sooner we grok that, and the sooner we refrain from denigrating others' chosen vocations, the better we as a forum will be.

I like Buffalo, btw.  It's great with a big baked potato and green beans.  I do plan on going to The Continent to harvest a Cape Buffalo someday, too.