TCH News

Issue date: 3/10/08 Section: News

Everyday millions of people go to McDonalds or Kentucky Fried Chicken and enjoy a juicy hamburger or consume a crispy, golden-fried chicken. Billions of families around the world eat meat and share laughs together over the dinner table. But, what goes on behind the closed doors of slaughterhouses before producers deliver perfectly packaged meat to our grocery stores?

Employees of Kentucky Fried Chicken, one of the biggest fast-food chains of poultry, were caught in July 2004, torturing their chickens for fun. Workers were videoed stomping on chickens, kicking them, and slamming them violently against floors and walls. Workers also ripped the animals' beaks, twisted their heads off, spray-painted their faces, and squeezed the chickens' bodies until they would die.

Each year a person will consume 230 pounds of meat. Together, the world consumes 2.6 billion pounds of dairy cow a year. Eight billion animals a year are slaughtered for food. However, the conditions under which they are processed are brutal. For example, animals are supposed to have space when they are transported but instead they are packed together, not having any room to move, walk, and barely breathe. This causes many animals to become sick. Some die on the way.

In fact, half a million animals a year that arrive at slaughterhouses are either dead or in unacceptable condition for slaughter. Many of the remaining animals have broken limbs. Even these are further injured when they are unloaded.

Other forms of brutality include the "Halal method," where the animal's neck is slit in two and a half spots and, while conscious, allowed to bleed to death. A similar "method" is hanging the live, fully conscious animals upside down while their carotid arteries are cut.

Once aware of these procedures, many fast-food fans are reconsidering their diets. "It is repulsive and sick what is being committed by humans to animals in the U.S.," said Ashley Coutier, a resident of Sparta. "It should be stopped as soon as possible."

In 1960, the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act was passed, but unfortunately everyday laws are violated, and the truth needs come out. "I have heard about some of the things slaughterhouses do, but there are some things I just don't want to know and I am better off not knowing about," said Steve Snow, a sophomore at Sparta High School.

Page 1 of 1

Article Tools