I picked this up from Stan's blog. It's his entry for March 10.

There's a piece in the Washington Post about using of electronic sensors to taste food and drink. A Japanese group, for example, has developed a "Health and Food Advice" robot that can identify and distingush among various wines, cheeses, and breads. (And apparently warn its owners not to eat unhealthy food. In which case, I'm not interested. The damn thing probably hates pate.) Presumably it's possible to create a device that can also "taste" and identify flavors in beer.

Anyway, apparently robotic devices some American slaughterhouses are testing these electronic devices, using them to sort and grade sides of beef in accordance with federal standards.

I need to think about this some more, but that's fascinating. The meatpacking industry serves up some of the nation's most unpleasant jobs -- there's a reason illegal immigrants end up there; no one else wants these jobs, which are low-paying, foul, and dangerous -- but it's also the kind of work that is hard to mechanize.

If packinghouse owners could use sensors to grade meat, or even distinguish tainted from safe meat, well, that's probably a good thing. Maybe the brains behind these "robots" could also figure out how to slaughter and butcher cattle and pigs, eliminating human labor altogether.

Yes, okay, the economy needs jobs. But packinghouse work is truly the bottom of the employment ladder. People only work in packinghouses when there's no alternative.

On the other hand, well, taking humans out of the equation only adds to the already vast distance between we Americans and our food. Soooooo........ maybe not so good.

As I say, I need to think about it. But hey, I'm writing a book about the history of meat in America. I might as well keep thinking about it. If I have any brilliant insight, I'll pass it along.

Posted by Maureen Ogle at 10:20 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

There's a comment from a reader regarding my previous post about the meat recall. He says my attitude is callous.

Perhaps I wasn't clear enough in my original post. I'm not advocating cruelty to animals. My first point was that there's nothing unusual about what happened at that meatpacking plant (which is apparently now closed).

My second point was that IF Americans want animals treated more humanely, they're going to have to adopt new methods of meat processing.

Right now, meatpacking houses are factory operations that prize efficiency and speed. If packinghouse employees are told to slow down, wait for the animals, move lame animals out of the way carefully rather than with forklifts-- well, that kind of humane operation is going to move more slowly than an inhumane one.

Packers won't be able to process as many animals in a day as they do using forklifts. The company won't make as much profit, in part because its labor costs will rise, and the owners will compensate for that by raising prices.

Think of a widget factory: one factory makes the widgets by hand. Workers carve each one, using hand lathes and planes, and plenty of human labor. The factory turns out one hundred widgets a day. The supply is relatively small, and consumers pay high prices for those "natural" hand-crafted widgets.

Now consider a second widget factory. The owners have mechanized the entire operation, eliminating all hand craftsmanship. The widgets are made entirely by machine, rather than by humans. The factory cranks out thousands of widgets a day, and the price of one widget is half the price of the widgets made by hand.

The analogy holds true at meatpacking plants: treat each animal with respect and dignity, and workers will turn out fewer carcasses in a day. The packinghouse owners will have to pay the workers more money per carcass. That price will be passed on to consumers.

Is that good or bad? Depends on what you value. If you don't like seeing images of lame cows being tossed around by forklifts, then you'd better be prepared to pay more for your meat.

If what you value, however, is hamburger that only costs two dollars a pound, then you have to accept that you live in a society where packinghouses use "inhumane' and "callous" practices.

Bottom line: Americans want something for nothing. They want "pure" meat and happy cows, but they don't want to pay the higher price necessary to make that happen.

We can't have it both ways.

Posted by Maureen Ogle at 12:58 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

So the US Department of Agriculture is recalling 143 million pounds of beef.

Why? Because of alleged "animal cruelty."

According to a report in the New York Times, the "Humane Society of the United States showed videotapes on January 30 showing workers at the plant using several abusive techniques to make animals stand up and pass a pre-slaughter inspection. These included ramming cattle with forklift blades and using a hose to simulate the feeling of drowning."

I don't know whether to laugh or cry. Does someone actually think this is new or unusual activity in American slaughterhouses?

Answer: it's not. I'm writing a book about meat in America since just after the Civil War, and this news report sound exactly like newspaper reports from the 1870s!

Folks, this is how you get affordable meat. This is it. This is business as usual in American meatpacking.

You want "humane" meat? Okay. Fine. Great and noble goal.

You prepared to pay, oh, $20.00 a pound for hamburger?

I didn't think so.

I don't have any great conclusions to draw here (except the questions I just posed). But before people get all excited and huffy and carried away ... well, a little perspective works wonders.

Posted by Maureen Ogle at 10:27 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Meat is much on my mind these days, thanks to my work-in-progress, a history of meat in America from just after the Civil War to today. (Tentative title Carnivore Nation: Meat and the Making of Modern America, or something like that...)

Anyway, there was a fascinating piece by Mark Bittman in yesterday's New York Times, "Rethinking the Meat-Guzzler."

Check it out. (It's amazing that the Times is so generous with its content. That newspaper is a national treasure.)

Posted by Maureen Ogle at 08:58 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)