Behind+Closed+Doors+-+The+true+cost+of+meat+consumption

Damian Kukulies student number : N8880395 Tutor: Judith Meiklejohn Behind Closed Doors - The true cost of meat consumption

This is an image from a typical slaughter house. It may be confronting to some or even sadistic to others, yet is the truth and what happens on a large scale every single day. This gruesome image is the result of the world’s alarming appetite for meat. The animals must pay the ultimate price to keep meat prices low and consumption levels high. In slaughterhouses cattle are typically stunned and hung up by their hind legs, then their carotid artery and jugular vein are severed with a knife causing death by exsanguination. Unfortunately factory farmed animals must suffer a life of torture before even entering the slaughterhouse.


 * Public health issue:**

Over the last 50 years Factory farming has been the number one cause of animal cruelty (Animals Australia, 2012). Factory farming raises some major ethical issues regarding animal rights. It affects not only animals but also the environment and the health of society (Pluhar, 2010). Factory farming should be a major issue fiercely debated by society yet it remains in the dark and the suffering of animals goes unnoticed. Factory farming only exists to supply societies hunger for meat (Animals Australia, 2012). The major public health is factory farming and society’s awareness of the topic.


 * Literature Review**

The issue of factory farming has been analysed by the academic community for some time now. There are three key recurring arguments against factory farming. The first is the ethics of factory farming regarding the rights of animals. The second is factory farming's detrimental impacts on human health. And the final is Factory farming impacts on the environment, unfortunately there is no current (last ten years) journal articles written primarily on factory farming and the environment.

Nancy Williams, 2008 declares that as a society we are in a state of affected ignorance. She further defines affected ignorance as //“the phenomenon of people choosing not to investigate whether some practice in which they participate might be immoral or rife with controversy” (p.1)// //(////__Williams, 2008__////)////.// Nancy Williams managed quite effectively to explain why as a society we seem to be blind and deaf to the impacts of factory farming. She further scrutinises society for not being more critical in its analysis of factory farming. She does concede that factory farms are hidden from society and this distances many from the issues. But a large majority of society do not want to acknowledge the impacts of factory farming rendering themselves ignorant. We are treating animals as products and this leads to a disassociation between the product (meat) and the animal. Williams calls for society to step out of its induced state of affected ignorance and critically analyse factory farming. Evelyn B. Pluhar, 2010 discusses the need for the world to reduce its hunger for meat and find alternatives to factory farming. Her key arguments are from a morality and ethics basis, stating that there is a struggle to find any ethical theory that justifies factory farming. She does admit that it is an impossible task to allow no violence to occur to any sentient beings. But illustrates that factory farming is not sustainable, environmentally friendly, safe or ethical. Her publication displays the genuine need to reduce global meat consumption and explores options such as moves returning to traditional farming, vegetarianism and even futuristic in-vitro meat. The primary purpose of Pluhar’s publication is to express that our current meat consumption levels are unacceptable for the environment, our health and animals. The daunting reality is though that the population will grow as well as our meat consumption levels unless a change is made. Kevin Apple and Jared Prunty, 2013 analyse factory farming on an ethical basis in similar fashion to Nancy Williams. They explain society’s attitudes towards eating meat as cognitive dissonance which is a state of avoidance or coping with being in two minds over an important issue. Their article points out the hypocrisy of our apparent compassion towards treating animals humanly yet we still are eating factory farmed meat. They reveal studies which prove animals can feel pain and psychological stress confirming the need for humans to respect animal rights. The article blames a lack of awareness of factory farming and animal cruelty as the reason that many decide to continue to consume factory farmed products. Later in the article Apple and Prunty present their study regarding raising awareness of factory farmed animal cruelty and lowing meat consumption and their results showed that after raising awareness of factory farming there was an increased commitment to lowering meat consumption by their subjects.
 * Ethical basis**

Craig Holdrege, 2007 describes that even factory farming of plants can lead to problems regarding the health of society. His article was written after a factory farming facility attempted to blame a salmonella outbreak on organic farming. In addition to Craig Holdrege’s arguments Stephanie Ross, 2010 has written a detailed report regarding factory farming and its detriment to human and nonhuman health. She discusses the shift from natural farming where knowledge was passed down through generation and animals where cared for more, to factory farming where animals are treated as a product to be mass produced. She illustrates the clear link between how we treat animals and public health. A Clear example of this is bovine spongiform encephalopathy (mad cow disease) which originated in factory farms from feeding cattle cows blood, dead cow meat and chicken manure. Even more prominent than mad cow disease is salmonella which infects 180 000 annually in America. Ross continues to explain that factory farming chickens is a large contributor to egg born salmonella. The cruel practices such as battery cages, spent hen meal, forced starvation malting and physiological stress are all contributory factory to salmonella infection. Later Ross draws a comparison between factory farmed eggs verses free range and shows that free range eggs are 98% less likely to contain salmonella than factory farmed eggs. Ross’s article is an illustration of the effects of product quality during factory farming and a comparison to traditional farming.
 * Factory farming and human health**

After reviewing all current scholarly literature on the issue of factory farming it is apparent that it is detrimental to society on a number of different levels. Whether it be on an environmental level, public health level or ethical level all conclude that factory farming is harmful. The most publicised element was the ethical debate on factory farming. Nancy Williams, Jared Prunty, Kevin Apple and Evelyn Pluhar all illustrate the need to stop factory farming on an ethical basis. Surely the ethical dilemmas of factory farming are enough to see that it be stopped or at least regulated by legislation, not to mention in conjunction with its detrimental effects on the environment and societies health. The literature of today conclusively agrees that factory farming is harmful to society, the environment and animals. A limitation of the current scholarly literature on factory farming is that it is all ready to criticise factory farming yet Pluhar is the only writer to offer suggestions to help reduce our demand for meat. The lack of alternatives or solutions displays complexity of the issue of factory farming and society’s hunger for meat.
 * Analysis**


 * Cultural and social analysis**

Mcdolaldisation is a sociological theory that many sectors of society are following the four fundamental principles of Mcdonaldisation. The four key Principles of Mcdolaldisation are efficiency, predictability, calculability and control ( __Ritzer, 2013__ ). Mcdonaldisation aims to increase productivity while keeping cost minimal. In terms of efficiency factory farming has streamlined the process of meat production. Animals are kept in the least amount of space possible and killed in a far shorter space of time due to increased feeding and selective breeding. An example of this is broiler chickens, 50 years ago it took 98 days to grow a chicken to 1.6 kilograms. In 1986 chickens were selectively bred and it now took just 37 days for them to grow to the same size, this was an early sign of Mcdonaldisation (Animals Australia, 2012). There is now an emphasis on quantification of meat products rather than a focus on quality. An example of this is the heightened rates of salmonella in chicken eggs that are factory farmed in comparison to those that are free range ( __Ross, 2010__ ). There is also an element of predictability in factory farming. All animals are fed anti-biotics regardless of whether they are sick or in good health, they all have virtually the same life, all of their living conditions are standardised and they all grow at a similar rate ( __Pluhar, 2010__ ). Control and introduction of non-human technology has found its way into factory farming to further streamline this process. Nancy Williams, 2008 acknowledged the Mcdonaldisation of the farming industry when she stated that //“Raising animals for mass food consumption has become a competitive business, managed and owned primarily by large corporations, which rely on animal confinement and assembly-line methods of production to maximize profit” (P.3)//.
 * Mcdonaldisation**

Peter Singer an important advocate for the fight against factory farming explained that no matter which way you look at it there is a moral onus on humans to care for animals ( __Singer, 2013__ ). Whether it has spurred from religious texts such as love thy neighbour or secular principles such as the equal consideration of interests it is clear that we as humans should care for animals ( __Singer, 2013__ ). The only reason factory farming exists is to supply our growing demand for meat (Animals Australia, 2013). It is crucial to raise societies awareness of what factory farming is and the living conditions animals endure before making it to the shelves of the supermarket. Lynn White, campaign director of Animals Australia is an advocate for the fight against factory and she explained that people are generally kind, loving and compassionate towards animals, but we are blind to the cruelty which occurs behind closed doors. Unfortunately animals don’t have a voice in society but organisations such as Animals Australia are at the forefront fighting for animal rights. Animals Australia was founded by Peter Singer and Christie Townsend in 1980. It has received growing support in its fight for animal welfare from various Australian identities such as Pat Rafter, Missy Higgins, Peter Siddle and many more. It is clear awareness is the key in the fight to lowering meat consumption and reducing factory farming because many consumers are not aware of the animal cruelty that occurs in factory farms ( __Prunty & Apple, 2013__ ). Factory farming can be reduced and eradicated by consumers because it is only driven by demand as shown in Animals Australia’s video below.
 * Social movements for change**

@http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_EsC6UtBUbA

It would seem that if any change is to occur it must be initiated by the consumers. A quote that sums up this predicament quite well is, “//if one person is unkind to an animal, it is considered to be cruelty, but where a lot of people are unkind to animals, especially in the name of commerce, the cruelty is condoned and, once large sums of money are at stake, will be defended to the last by otherwise intelligent people”// (p.2) //(////__McLeod-Kilmurray, 2012__////)////.//

My cultural artefact represents the brutal reality of how our meat comes onto the table. It may seem like common knowledge that animals must be killed so we can eat them. So why is this picture confronting? I think because we live in an age now that if we want meat it is nicely packaged in supermarkets with no blood or story of what type of life the cow lived beforehand. We do not have a personal association with the animal we are eating ( __Williams, 2008__ ). None of us could even fathom consuming our household pet! Yet we are fine with eating farm animals by the kilo. Are they less important than our pets or do they not deserve a life worth living? This is a good case in point of my topic because it raises these questions and displays the harsh reality of the price animals pay for us to consume them. Personally this image is a wakeup call for me because I did consume a great deal of meat previous to studying the topic for the assessment. Eating meat is all about where you personally draw the line. I believe if an animal is raised naturally on a farm, has a natural life and if killed humanly there is no issue with eating it for me personally. But what I do believe to be ethically and morally wrong is the factory farming industry which has turned living breathing animals into products on an assembly line. Before studying this topic I never thought to think of the injustices done to animals in factory farms because a lot of the cruelty isn’t publicised. Since commencing this course I have learnt to critically analyse information, look for both sides to the story and search for why something is happening instead of simply accepting it.
 * //Analysis of artefact and learning experience//**

Animals Australia, 2012. Fact Sheet. Retrieved 19 October, 2013, from []
 * References**

Glenn, C. B. (2004). Constructing Consumables and Consent: A Critical Analysis of Factory Farm Industry Discourse. //Journal of Communication Inquiry, 28//(1), 63-81. doi: 10.1177/0196859903258573

Holdrege, C. (2007). Blame factory farming, not organic food. //Nature biotechnology, 25//(2), 165; discussion 165-165. doi: 10.1038/nbt0207-165a

Keeney, D. (2012). Michael Morris: Factory Farming and Animal Liberation in New Zealand: Earl of Seacliff Art Workshop. Wellington NZ, 2011. meBooks. ISBN: 978-0-9876536. //Journal of Agricultural and Environmental Ethics, 25//(4), 633-634. doi: 10.1007/s10806-011-9327-1

Lutz, B. J., & Lutz, J. M. (2009). Factory Farming and Potential Problems in International Trade. //Global Economy Journal, 9//(3).

McLeod-Kilmurray, H. (2012). Commoditizing Nonhuman Animals and Their Consumers: Industrial Livestock Production, Animal Welfare, and Ecological Justice. //Bulletin of Science, Technology & Society, 32//(1), 71-85. doi: 10.1177/0270467612444585

Michael, W. F. (1998). Manure, minerals, and methane: How factory farms threaten the environment. //The Animals' Agenda, 18//(3), 30.

Pluhar, E. B. (2010). Meat and Morality: Alternatives to Factory Farming. //Journal of Agricultural and Environmental Ethics, 23//(5), 455-468. doi: 10.1007/s10806-009-9226-x

Prunty, J., & Apple, K. J. (2013). Painfully aware: The effects of dissonance on attitudes toward factory farming. //Anthrozoos, 26//(2), 265.

Ritzer, G. (2013). //The McDonaldization of society//. Thousand Oaks, Calif: SAGE.

Ross, S. M. (2010). Food for thought, part I: foodborne illness and factory farming. //Holistic nursing practice, 24//(3), 169-173. doi: 10.1097/HNP.0b013e3181dd4711

Singer, P. (2013). //In Defense of Animals//. Hoboken: Wiley.

Williams, N. M. (2008). Affected Ignorance And Animal Suffering: Why Our Failure To Debate Factory Farming Puts Us At Moral Risk. //Journal of Agricultural and Environmental Ethics, 21//(4), 371-384. doi: 10.1007/s10806-008-9087-8

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 * Reflection**

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