…is it ethical? I like the idea of meat from a vat, myself, but it’s a lot farther off.
13 thoughts on “Pain-Free Cattle”
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…is it ethical? I like the idea of meat from a vat, myself, but it’s a lot farther off.
Comments are closed.
Ethical per se? Sure. However, I’d be more concerned about the animal getting infections from injuries it cannot feel and handlers being careless and cruel because they think they this gives them lease.
It doesn’t matter if it is ethical- it’s pointless. To keep the animals healthy and growing quickly until slaughter, they are protected from most sorts of stress, let alone painful events (stress and stress hormones really *do* affect the taste of the meat). Any creature without pain receptors would accumulate minor injuries that can become life threatening. To go through genetic engineering, causing increased problems with veterinary care and handling, merely to spare the animals an instant of pain before oblivion, is simply irrational.
The use of captive-bolt stunners puts the animal out in milliseconds with no time to experience pain. Having once been knocked unconcious by a blow to the head, I can assure that it is a painless experience. Waking up wasn’t painless, but the cattle won’t get to wake up again, of course- if you’re going to eat meat, don’t be squeamish about it, grow up and admit that creatures must die to put meat on your table.
Plus, doesn’t nature already provide prey animals with a mechanism to shut down their pain receptors? At least that is what the naturalists always tell us when we see a pack of wolves tear open an animal’s gut and start eating them while they are still alive.
I would think the choice would be simple for a cow. Show the cow one path to a bunch of inviting happy smiling humans waving them into a cushy and cozy stall. Then, show them another path into a denizen of angry wolves violently fighting over entrails while a cow feebly tries to crawl away. Let the cow decide — democratic slaughter.
Plus, doesn’t nature already provide prey animals with a mechanism to shut down their pain receptors? At least that is what the naturalists always tell us when we see a pack of wolves tear open an animal’s gut and start eating them while they are still alive.
Why should evolution create such a mechanism? If the animal is being torn apart by predators, it’s already gone from an evolutionary point of view.
I think what Josh is referring to is “shock,” which isn’t limited to prey animals. If it allows the occasional fortunate victim to escape and recover and subsequently breed, it could become a consequence of evolution (evolution “creating” traits is a tad ID-ish…).
Here in Seattle, they’re marketing “Washington State” beef as coming from the “happiest cows on the planet.” They’ve got foam rubber beds for the cows, omnipresent misters, and entertainment. (No, I don’t know what “entertainment” means.)
We’ll be weeping over the inhumanity of vat-beef here in Seattle. Even while eating live oysters.
“O Oysters, come and walk with us!”
The Walrus did beseech.
“A pleasant walk, a pleasant talk,
Along the briny beach:
We cannot do with more than four,
To give a hand to each.”
Yum yum…
1.) Yes, we eventually are going to figure out how to grow meat in sheets.
2.) Funny, my initial thought is “unethical”, even though of course it very well may be completely ethical. I think that is because perhaps we should realize we are killing something when we eat, and never make it too easy to forget our essential animal nature or the brutal wilderness we came from, so that we cherish civilization and intellect all the more. I think the “unethical” part comes from concerns of too-easy “dehumanizing” industrial production–which of course we have already. I would far prefer that we have humane conditions for the life of these creatures instead of industrial farming, and perhaps this should be looked at in greater detail. I will never go vegan, but I can be humane.
3.) Finally, I believe Douglas Adams may have had something to say on this subject, once upon a book…
I think this is what you’re thinking of:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C1nxaQhsaaw
That’s the pig bred to want to be eaten.
It’s been years since I’ve seen this (and this PC doesn’t have sound), but that must be the one.
Not having pain could be dangerous. The ability to turn it off at will like a switch would be nice.
“Not having pain could be dangerous. The ability to turn it off at will like a switch would be nice.”
Fifth of Beam…
“That’s the pig bred to want to be eaten.”
I remember it being a cow in the book, though I could be wrong, because it talks about its flank. Read it 25+ years ago, though.
It’s a cow in the movie too — the waiter even says so at the beginning.