Meat Industry Musings: Salt of the Earth or Just Salty? | Rising Anxieties

Uh, so before I start, don't let me forget to say that we're a podcast and we're on YouTube. Please subscribe and hit like wherever you listen. That really helps us out, as you know, 'cause everybody says it all the time. And now I have a couple of articles. This is kind of my favorite genre of Rising Anxieties articles, and it's where the industry reveals how much it loves itself. How much, how these people think of the, just the salt of the earth, which is an expression that I looked up this week because where did that come from? It turns out it's biblical. But isn't, isn't salt bad for Earth?

I don't, I... anyway, I digress. Um, they are the salt of the earth, if that's the truth, but they really think they're, they're the best. Um, alright, from Meating Place, A Big Industry Shaped By A Small Group. And this is by, uh, this, this guy Craig Bacon Headshot. Craig Bacon Headshot. Is that possible? I think that's what it says. Um, anyway. He recently returned from IPPE, which is, you know, I didn't look it up. It's one of their many, many conferences. This is where they do the Meat Industry Hall of Fame induction. I swear that is true.

Um, and he was standing among these iconic leaders who helped shape the industry, and it was humbling and deeply meaningful. And he's been in the biz for 35 years, so you could imagine. And uh, he, he wanted to remind us of all of the principles that have guided him. First, work hard every day. This is very typical.

They think they're the only people who work hard. Like isn't that kind of, everybody has to work hard every day? Like, and the worst job you have in the meat industry, the harder you're working. Second never lose sight of the purpose. Okay. And I'm thinking, what is the purpose here? Um, we don't just make food, we influence what people eat at home, in restaurants, and what they feed the pets they love.

That's actually true. They don't influence it in a good way, and he doesn't even claim that it is. They do, they influence what, so yeah. If that's their purpose, they're fulfilling it. Collaboration is key. I thought, you know, alright, like I have to skip over this one because like, everybody has collaboration and not what, who cares?

But then I noticed what the, the key collaboration that he's talking. I was truly encouraged by the collaboration between the industry and government groups to solve complex food safety issues. Yeah, that is the collaboration that really matters because that's the one that keeps them in business and keeps them solvent.

Uh, with all of the subsidies and all the other help that the government gives them. Use data to make decisions. Well, that does seem like a good idea. He points out that hard work matters. We can't say enough about how hard these bozos work. But hard work without sound strategy falls short. Okay. Whatever.

Um, don't estimate the power of a strong culture and talent. After 35 years, I'm grateful for every step of the journey, really, and I hope the next generation of leaders will find the same sense of purpose, pride, and possibility in this incredible industry. I hope the next generation of leaders finds a way to, to, uh, transfer to, to cultivated meat. That's my hope. Um, if there is an industry at all, which, you know, I could let go. I don't need to have cultivated meat, but, you know, if we do have to have meat.

Alright, then, then there was an article in, um, Hordes Dairyman about quotes that stick, and she's talking, I, I don't go into it. Yeah. She's talking about machinery and being envious of other people's machinery. But she also, um, was talking about quotes and she gathered a few from former US presidents that feel especially relevant in today's agricultural climate. I'm gonna read a long one, but she quotes John F. Kennedy and farmers deserving praise.

Thomas Jefferson, who of course was in love with small farmers. This was a while back folks, so you know, farmers were kind of living a different life then. Um, Abraham Lincoln, same, same deal. Uh, our agriculture employed an enormous number of people and was enormously important. And you know, agriculture is still enormously important, of course, we do have to eat.

Um, William Harward Taft, uh, you know, blah, blah, blah, Franklin D Roosevelt, but it's Teddy Roosevelt's quote that I wanna, 'cause it's a great quote. It's pretty long. So I hope that that's okay.

It's not the critic who counts, not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes up short again and again because there is no effort without error or shortcoming, but who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, bends himself for a worthy cause, who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement and who at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly so that his play shall never be with those cold and timid souls who knew neither victory nor defeat.

I mean, that is a great quote. It was not about farmers. It didn't have anything to do with farmers. It was from some famous speech he gave that is known as the man in the arena. And it, it, he delivered it in Paris in 1910. And it was obviously he knew how to speak and I'm even, you know, I, I, I give a pass to the fact that, you know, they only talked about men then, 'cause they lived in the world that they lived in, though it isn't annoying.

But, uh, yeah. So she thinks that's... I don't know. I mean, she's not saying it's about farmers though all the other quotes are about farmers, but she obviously thinks that that is them. They love themselves. They just love themselves. Alright. Uh, you know, I'm sure a lot of them are, except for what they do for a living, you know, perfectly fine people.

Life is complicated. People are complicated. Um, all right. AG Daily is pointing out to us, um, in an article by Michelle Miller, Farm Babe, talking about, uh, loving yourself. Poultry genetics, not 'roids, allow birds to grow bigger. This whole article is about, I mean, obviously this is very defensive because there's, you know, a lot of campaigning about the fact that, that we grow, quote unquote broiler chickens, chickens raised for meat, really, really big so that they, it really affects their health in really terrible ways. There's a big push to use different breeds, which of course would mean that they would have to raise more birds to raise the same amount of, of dead, dead flesh. Um, so, uh, so they don't like that.

And she is, is countering the supposition, the belief on all these people's parts, that it's steroids, not genetics, that cause these, these birds to grow so big. And she said it's not steroids, we're not even allowed to give them steroids. Nobody thinks it's steroids. Everybody knows it's genetics. Uh, yeah. Talk about straw men.

Today's chickens grow faster and bigger than ever before. She thinks that's a good thing. While this might not sound like a good thing, oh, she really recognizes that it doesn't sound good. It is. These birds are also healthier, yeah maybe not, more affordable to grow. Yeah, maybe so. And feed more people than ever before.

Yeah. But feed them, you know, dead bird flesh, which isn't the best thing to eat. In the 1920s, the average chicken at market weight was two and a half pounds. Today is at above, it is above six pounds. I mean, just imagine. Just imagine. But she wants to explore why. Lots of people think that things like hormones or genetic engineering is the cause of chickens.

Well, hormones or genetic engineering, like what do we mean by genetic engineering? And, uh, she said they're never genetically modified. But genetic engineering, I think what most people mean when they see it is that they're bred that way. Like they breed really big ones to really big ones and that focuses their genetics.

But, but you know, she seems to think of things it's all about GMOs and we all should all be against GMOs, but that's not what people... this whole article is countering things that nobody believes. Um, but then she does concede, but in a way, every single thing is genetically modified. Every single thing? Well, not really every single thing. But she's saying that pretty much everything has been genetically modified through thousands of years of elective breed.

Not everything has been selectively bred. Like farm animals have, but yeah, selective breeding is, um, is, is, yeah, that's the problem. They got so good at it that they created monsters. That's the problem. We know that's the problem, honey. And she feel, but she feels that poultry breeding has improved drastically over the years.

Yeah, well, not so much. Not from what I'm reading. Obviously we're reading different things. Um, and also nutrition is so much better. They're always getting exactly what they need. Yeah. Uh, let's ask a chicken. They're watched closely by veterinarians. Are you kidding me? I mean, honestly. Oh yeah, they have veterinarians walking around like taking, taking the temperature of each little chicken, each poor little baby, baby bird.

Um, despite labels on a chicken in a store saying, no hormones raised without hormones leading you to think that some chickens are raised with these things. They never are. That is true. And that is the other e other players in the meat industry lying to people to create this. So, uh, yeah, maybe, maybe you folks should get it together and stop lying, um, to compare, uh, one dead bird to another in ways that are unfair. Yeah. I'm all for that.

Um, birds are raised in large open barns where they have room to roam, room to roam, and access to food and water at all times. Yeah, except when they're crippled and they can't get to the food and water. Farmers and their employees are also trained in animal welfare.

Yeah, I bet that's a, that's a great training program. Even with all these amazing advancements... I mean, the big advancement has been that they get bigger... some people are still a little... and we, we kill 'em when they're so young, like six weeks old, that, you know, uh, it, it avoids them dying, which they otherwise would. Uh, many of them do die, but you know, they still are able to, uh, slaughter a lot of them.

Some people are still a little critical of how big and fast birds grow. Actually, some people are very critical, like extremely critical. But you can be assured that poultry farmers, they're veterinarians and their nutritionists are experts at what they do. Yeah, I, I don't find that reassuring. Like I've seen factory farms, or at least I've seen pictures of them and it doesn't look like those people are experts at what they do.

I mean, I guess they are experts at what they do, which is grow a lot of food really cheap and get a lot of government subsidies. But, uh, taking care of birds? Not so much.

All right. That's enough. That's enough. Um, this is from Meatpoultry.com. UWRF, debuts AR Reality Goggles for Animal Handling Training.

This is a weird one. And, uh, they're talking about advancements in animal, animal handling, which, you know, it's mainly be mainly because we exist that they even think about these issues. And so, UWRF is the University of Wisconsin River Falls, and they have a Humane Handling Institute. And, um, they have, uh, I don't think they invented these reality goggles, uh , but, uh, they're learning how to use them.

And so this got this woman, Ashlyn Kirk, the program manager, says the simulators allow the person that is wearing them to see the world like a cow would, or a pig would, or a horse would. We wanted to incorporate them into our training for animal handling to build empathy and help people who handle livestock get a better idea what cattle are seeing and experiencing as they move... seeing and experiencing as they move through a facility.

Alright, that last thing that I pointed out- seeing? Maybe, maybe you can see, you know, like their, their color perception is different. Their, you know, their, their eyes are, are directional in a different way. There's lots of d I'm sure they see things differently. Experiencing? They're experiencing a whole lot more than what they see.

And I'm not sure that teaching people that, as long as you can see things in the same like color spectrum or whatever as an animal, that you know what they are experiencing when everything else they're experiencing is terrifying and horrible. And is, is that all that, that an animal's experience is about what they can see?

That's what they want you to think. I mean, I think it's really important to think about that because that's what they want people to think. Um, so they introduced the goggles to slaughter plant personnel. Yeah. The only problem in a slaughter plant for the animals is, is like people don't understand like, how they perceive shadows.

Um, I mean, it probably does help people understand how better to control the animals. I'm not saying it doesn't, um.

It will help handlers understand why cattle tend to stop or be fearful at certain points. Maybe because they're about to have their throat slit, but maybe it's something else. I don't know.

You experience the world like the animal that you're handling, she said, then you can take that into consideration in your facility design. How you're moving them, where you're standing, different lighting, different colors.

I would say that if you're actually are able to experience the world like the animal, you just close, close the doors. Stop doing this. I mean, come on. Are you a monster?

Um, another, another animal handling article. I'm sorry. I know there's a lot of 'em. I know they're depressing, but you know, it is kind of what we do. This is, uh, from Meating Place, um, by Erica... i'm sorry, like, this isn't showing me the, the, the names right.

Erica Vugata- something. Um, and she's an animal handling expert, I think particularly in slaughterhouses, though I'm not sure about that. And she's talking about having taught an animal auditor class in Brazil a few years ago and visiting two pig plants. Don't you just love how they call them plants? I know I say that every week.

Just, I just think it's hilarious in a gruesome kind of way. Alright, so the, she's talking about them unload... they had... the plant employees had a goal of unloading about three trucks per hour. Apparently that is not movable. So we have to figure out what to do within that time, that time span. Um, so she talked about things that they had problems uh, uh, making it go fast. They were using an e empty pet bottle. Is that a soda bottle? I don't know. Attached to a stick as a driving tool. Uh, only the best equipment. They hit some of the pigs, they hit the side of the trailer to make noise, um, which they thought would hasten the pigs. Um, there was no bedding in the truck, so it was extremely slippery because they'd been in there for, um, for several hours.

I bet several is a flexible word. And so there was a lot of urine and manure on the metal floor. Yeah. A lot of them, some of them fell. What a surprise. Uh, she's, she's disapproving of this, to be fair. Um, one pig had to be removed with a sled because it had become non, non-ambulatory. Uh, a second pig was so stressed from the noise that it could not walk further than the unload ramp.

These animals are terrified. Terrified. Just this article just shows it, even though that's not what she's saying. Then they had to be given a tattoo and they were able to see the tattoo operator and that slowed them down. One pig fell after unloading from the truck. And then so, so she suggested some simple modifications about not making noise, uh, with this like bottle that they're supposedly driving with.

And, uh, and, and, uh, going slower. Even... and, and because if you go slower and none of them like get so stressed that they, they have to be moved, uh, that, that actually makes you go faster. This is sick. It's all just sick. I'm reading it so that you know how sick it is. We're talking about living animals here.

By reducing animal's stress and quote/unquote hospital pigs, the plant can achieve higher meat quality and yields. Labor costs are less, as fewer weak and injured animals require extra handling. This is how they think. This is the mindset, I think it says it all.

The plant is continuing to monitor the unload process to determine that the implemented measures are working effectively. Well, good for them. I just think that most people reading this, like it fools them somehow and they're going, oh yeah, that's good. And you take one step back and think about what these animals are going through and it's like a horror movie.

Alright, um, US Egg Industry needs HPAI vaccination, not litigation. This is from, uh, wattpoultry.com, the Hens and Trends, um, Blog by Meredith Dawson. And, uh, she's talking about pretty interesting, um, litigation 'cause the US Department of Justice has filed a lawsuit against the Michigan Cage free law. And based on, you know, this is the whole thing, can they do a sales ban?

And apparently the Department of Justice is alleging that Michigan ban... why is it the Department of Justice... um, ban on the sale of eggs produced by hens housed in cages is preempted. Um, that's when you know a federal law, it takes precedence over a state law. And there's this federal law called the Egg Products Inspection Act.

And they say, because that that law, um, exists, Michigan can't, can't ban the sale of, um, caged eggs in, in, uh, in Michigan. And, you know, it's the same thing as prop 12. It's, and apparently they're also suing California. So they're trying again. They're trying, they keep trying new methods of trying to make this work and, uh.

If the DOJ were to win the lawsuits cage free compliant producers in Michigan and California could potentially find themselves competing against conventionally produced eggs from out-of-state producers who never made the investment to convert. And her point here, which is on an egg industry site, is that this is bad.

She doesn't think they should do this. Um, she thinks it's unfair. That's pretty interesting because that has not been, um, the message from anybody in the pork industry over similar, uh, kinds of things. So the egg industry has always been more eager to be compliant with these kind of limitations than the pork industry.

So, yeah. So why is the Department of Justice doing this if the egg industry... well, of course there's, there's some members of the egg industry and there's other members of the egg industry, and of course the government is taking, taking the side of the worst of the worst.

Um, all right. I'm not gonna talk about this article in, in detail because it's complex, but I suggest that you, um, read it. It's from Sentient Media. Do Trucker Log Loopholes Put Animals at Risk? This is by our, one of our favorite authors, Jessica Scott Reid. And it has a lot to do with, um, well, obviously it's about transport. It has to do with, um, the 28 hour law, which has been in existence for a very long time and provides that animals in transport have to be taken out, unloaded, fed, and watered every 28 hours, which means that... for a long time, the USDA said, well, it doesn't apply to trucks, but it obviously applies to trucks, so they had to concede that.

And so it means that really the trucks have to get from where the animals are raised... the plant, no, is the plant, the slaughterhouse or the factory farm? I can't remember. Um, to the slaughterhouse in 28 hours because they, they're not gonna unload them and feed them and water them because that would be ridiculously expensive.

So what do they do if they can't get there in time? What do you think? Like guess? Um, and there are also, it's not just the 28 hour law, there's laws for truckers, um, which are designed to avoid truck driver fatigue because, you know, they're on the road where we drive and drive these really big things and, uh, it's really good if they don't fall asleep.

So, you know, what do they do? Apparently, uh, they fudge it. Um, and, uh, it's pretty bad. This is a little long article. It's about an investigation done by two of our favorite organizations, Strategies for Ethical and Environmental Development, or SEED, and Animal Partisan. And this should be really interesting.

We'll be watching that develop. All right. I, I'm kind of losing my voice. I keep losing my voice. I think I talk too, I don't talk right. Um. Alright, this is my last article is from Hoardes Dairyman. I just wanna cover it quickly. It's not a long article, New Year, More Protein. And it's just this article about how it's so great that everybody wants more protein.

Um, everybody already raised their protein and they want even more protein. It's protein, protein, protein. It's time for us to stop fighting it. Like at, you know, for the moment that's gonna be the trend. And they're giving a bunch of dairy recipes and they think this is great news for dairy. I think that we have to pay attention to the fact that the other trend, this isn't killing the protein trend, but fiber maxing is really becoming a big trend. And that is an excellent trend because fiber is really, really good for you in ways that they didn't even understand until recent. I mean, they've always known it was good for you because you know, it would make you poop and whatever, but it's way beyond that.

Fiber is crucially important. I feel like I said this last week, I might say this every week from now on, um, animal foods have no fiber whatsoever. It's the best thing for you. Well, it's one of the really best things for you. And they have no fi, it has no fiber. None.

Um, instead it combines generally protein and saturated fat. Those are, its two main ingredients, you know, a few other, uh, nutrients, Now, um, uh, and plant-based foods combine protein, as we know there's loads of protein in plant-based foods, and it's just about time we got people to really understand that.

Like it's so crazy that people don't know that plants, especially vegetables, many vegetables, um, fruit isn't, not so much, but um, are loaded with protein. They combine protein and fiber. The two best things for you. Come on, people. I don't know. Who am I talking to? You already know that. Anyway, let's, let's work on that one.

Tell everybody about fiber. Uh. How it's, you can get both fiber and protein at the same time instead of saturated fat. Like, doesn't that sound like just an inevitably good deal. Anyway, I'll stop now.

Um, thank you so much for, for putting up with me today on Rising Anxieties. As I said before, don't forget to subscribe, like, and comment on your favorite pod catcher and also tune into our other podcast, The Hen Report and the Our Hen House interview.

Thank you so much for being here today.