I was in the U.S. last weekend when news hit about the massive recall of beef, stretching back to 2002. The reported problem was that slaughterhouse workers had tormented “downer” cows to get them to walk to slaughter. If they can’t walk to slaughter, it’s generally considered that they’re too diseased to be fit for human consumption, though they can still find their way into pet foods. If you have the stomach for it, the humane society has hidden-video footage of the torment (check it out here — but be warned. It’s not for the weak of stomach:

I confess it makes me sick.
I get the whole “top-of-the-food-chain” argument and I do eat meat. However, based on my own determination NOT to be complicit in the unnecessary suffering of any living creature, I buy my meat from a farmer whose animals are pasture-raised, grass-fed and as humanely slaughtered as possible. They travel 20 minutes down the road to an abattoir that a friend who works in the food industry reports is clean and sterile.
I try hard not to sound strident, since I think PETA sometimes does itself more harm than good with its approach. But the way we treat our animals says a lot about the value we place on all life. And of course, the way we treat our animals also impacts our own health and the health of our planet. If we can’t get past the disconnect we seem to have – that what happens over there simply doesn’t affect me here – I fear we’ll never get ourselves out of the mess we’re in. Unfortunately, trying to “recall” all our bad choices is as futile as trying to recall meat that was distributed a full five years ago.