Vegetarian Star

Temple Grandin isn’t always revered in the vegetarian and animal activist community because she’s a partner with the animal agriculture business. She’s helped designed slaughterhouses.

But Grandin’s goal is to make conditions less stressful on the animals, and until we’re churning out test tube meat or the entire world go veg, Grandin’s work will continue to make an incredible difference in the treatment animals receive until their death.

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A good  portion of “The Oprah Winfrey Show” where Oprah‘s staff went vegan for a week is now posted online.

Scenes of Oprah’s staff eating vegan in the Harpo cafeteria, getting coached by Kathy Freston, the discussion with Michael Pollan and Lisa Ling‘s glimpse into a meat processing plant are all included.

Cargill, one of the largest producers of meat products, agreed to let the cameras behind the scenes when 20 other producers refused.

There was only one graphic part that was not allowed to be shown on camera, and that was stunning the cow before it was slaughtered. However, Ling’s reaction to the ordeal was caught on camera. And it does say much.

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Temple Grandin, a scientist who’s contributed to reducing stress on slaughter animals, has consulted with two U.S chicken companies who worked with a business, Anglia Autoflow, that designed a system to allow them to kill chickens using carbon dioxide, considered a more humane alternative to electrical stunning used by most American chicken producers.

Bell & Evans in Pennsylvania and Mary’s Chickens in California are making the switch to putting chickens to sleep using the gas before they are turned upside down to have their throats slit and will have the first such chickens slaughtered available for purchase in April and June, respectively.

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Dr. Temple Grandin, scientist who has worked with the animal agricultural industry to bring change to way animals raised for food and handled, spoke with Food Safety News on the Conklin Dairy Farm investigation that uncovered a worker beating and torturing a cow. Grandin feels these incidents are not the norm, as many activist insists.

“Most places are not doing stuff that horrible. To say that every dairy treats their animals that way, no, that’s wrong, they’re not. But on the other hand, the truth is usually somewhere in the middle, between the animal rights advocates that say everything is an atrocity, to the industry who says everything’s just fine. I’ve worked in a lot of places. It’s somewhere in the middle. It’s a constant battle. You can’t under staff and overwork. Tired people are more likely to get angry, and so are overworked people.”

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Temple Grandin, scientist who made contributions to the livestock industry praised by those in the business and animal rights activists, says dairy and egg farms need to step up their level of care for the animals.

The subject of a recent HBO movie chronicling her life, Grandin said farmers have gotten used to keeping animals and the conditions they’re kept in unhealthy.

At an organic food industry conference, Grandin said, according to the Des Moines Register. “The bad has become normal.”

Grandin said battery cages used to house hens aren’t large enough to allow the birds to continue their normal behavior, such as scratching, nesting and perching.

But she is concerned that too many regulations will cause farmers to take their business to other countries to save money, thus causing Americans to lose their jobs.

She’s also worried about low-income people being able to afford the price of the cage-free eggs.

One suggestion Grandin has is to use larger cage systems that Europe already has, which allows the birds to do normal behaviors.

Could America be on its way to adopting a similar practice?

Lee Kilmer, a dairy extension specialist at Iowa State University said, “California is five years ahead of the Midwest, and the European Union is five years ahead of California. I’m hoping we can get producers in the Midwest to deal with some of these practices that deal with animal welfare before we have legislation requiring it.”

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Temple Grandin, renowned scientist who’s been honored by animal rights activists for her design of a system that puts less stress on an animal before slaughter, is inviting all slaughterhouses to do what Paul McCartney suggests–have glass walls.

Technically, Grandin wants these facilities to have live camera feeds so the public can see what goes on in them.

During a recent visit to Fresno State University, Grandin said the meat industry needs “to do a better job of communicating with the public about their animal handling practices.”

Not a vegetarian herself, Grandin even suggests it would behoove the companies to do so, as this could provide transparency to the public.

Would this mean no more covert visits to the factory by animal rights groups to expose unethical and possibly illegal practices?

Big Money had this to say about the matter:

“Of course, the kinds of companies that have been exposed by undercover cell-phone videos of suffering, abused cows aren’t the kinds that are interested in transparency. And the feeds don’t exactly sound like something to munch popcorn to. Still, employing live feeds seems like it might be a good way for responsible companies to differentiate themselves.”

No, live feeds aren’t the kind of video you eat popcorn to or “popcorn chicken” from KFC either.

But they would sure make a viral set of clips on YouTube.

And these would make an excellent medium for activists in teaching people how their food is brought to their plate–whether they want to be educated or not.

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The story of Temple Grandin is depicted in a new HBO movie starring Claire Danes.

Although not a vegetarian, Grandin’s work in animal behavior resulted in her designing more humane methods to apply to the livestock industry.

PETA’s president and co-founder Ingrid Newkirk has written a piece in the Sacramento Bee on Grandin’s work.

A few highlights:

“I admire her work in the field of humane animal slaughter. PETA would prefer, of course, that no animals be killed for food, but we won’t ignore the horrors of factory farms and slaughterhouses just because we wish that they didn’t exist.”

“Throughout her career as an animal-science professor at Colorado State University and a consultant to the American Meat Institute, Grandin has worked to improve animal-handling systems at slaughterhouses – markedly decreasing, although never able to stop completely, the amount of fear and pain that animals experience.”

“This may seem like a small victory – the cows are still going to be killed after all – but until the day that we get animals off the dinner plate altogether, is it too much to ask that we do everything we can to reduce the fear and suffering that they experience in the slaughterhouse?”

Read more at the Sacramento Bee.

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Claire Danes is starring in the HBO movie Temple Grandin, the story of a woman with autism who went on to become a professor in science and develop a more humane system of transporting cattle to slaughter.

Danes got the chance to work with cattle in the film, an experience she found rewarding.

“The scariest scene was lying prostrate on the ground with all of them circling me,” Danes said, but added the cows were “very passive.”

“It was fascinating to learn about them and learn about the cattle industry at large.”

Although Danes isn’t vegetarian, she praises methods that put less stress on an animal that will eventually be slaughtered.

“It’s not a paradox to eat meat. You just have to treat the animals in a humane way and with respect while they’re alive.”

Grandin has won an award from animal rights group, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, and was quoted as saying, “I think using animals for food is an ethical thing to do, but we’ve got to do it right. We’ve got to give those animals a decent life and we’ve got to give them a painless death. We owe the animal respect.”

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