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After reading Gail A. Eisnitzs Slaughterhouse, Ive developed an allergy to the idea of eating meat, especially meat produced in the United States. I stress that on top of finding meat inedible, I even have an allergy to the idea of consuming it. Her book is an alarming account of the horrors that go on in American slaughterhouses, the filth that they produce and sell to consumers, and the disgusting corruption that dominates the arm of government that is supposed to be regulating them. Reading Slaughterhouse is like getting hit in the head with a blunt object over and over. Its repetitive in nature because Eisnitz chose to repeat the same grotesque story in most of the chapters of her book. In her first chapter, we are introduced to the problem: Animals go into a slaughterhouse to die humanely (at least in the case of cows and hogs), but some of them are killed in horrifying fashion. Eisnitz starts by explaining this process in cows: First, they are beaten and electrocuted in order to get them to enter the building; they driven into a knock box or restrainer; then they are meant to receive a blow to the head from a captive bolt device; they are shackled and hoisted by a chain running on the ceiling; they are stuck to allow them to bleed out; then they are skinned, their legs are removed, and they are decapitated; last they are eviscerated and cut in half. This process is horrible to begin with. But it becomes horrifying when the cow misses the key second step. Because the speed of this disassembly process has been accelerated in the recent past, often the knocker fails to deliver a good blow to the head from the captive bolt device and cows remain conscious. This means that they are shackled, hoisted, stuck, bled, skinned, and cut despite their remaining conscious. The first chapter of Slaughterhouse gives this repulsive account as it is told by a whistleblower USDA inspector at a former Kaplan Industries plant in Florida. It was enough to make me grimace as I read it. However, Eisnitz retells this account as she discovers it in Nebraska, Iowa, Washington State, etc. She discovered

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that this process is standard practice across the country. It is appalling. Her investigation leads her to find that the same injustice is happening to hogs and horses, as well. It seems like every few pages, she finds a new slaughterhouse employee to tell the same story. By the end of the book, the reader has memorized the atrocious process, and can recite it by memory. In this sense, it seems like Eisnitz tries to make you feel like a slaughterhouse employeeor rather, she tries to make you feel like all of them. This is true especially for those with the most gruesome jobs: the knocker, the shackler, the sticker, and the skinner; but it is also true for other, cleaner, jobs like the veterinarian and the USDA inspector. By the middle of the book, you feel like you have done each of those jobs because you hear the same story from so many of them. At first, I thought that I saw Eisnitzs use of repetition as a weakness in the book, but now I see it serves a purpose. She literally repeats the same questions during each of her interviews. Paraphrased examples include: Do animals ever make it to your station still conscious?, How do you know that they are conscious?, and, Why dont you report it? And it seems like during each of her interviews she gets the same answers: Of course!, Because they are kicking, moaning, and biting when they get to me!, and, No one cares! Management only cares about one thing, keeping the line moving! Reading the same thing over and over again becomes redundant, but it also seems like in this case, it has an additive property. The sheer sum of her accounts makes it all the more disturbing to process. By the end of the book, the reader has been forced to commit the process of memory, and he/she will never look at meat the same again. Apart from describing the horrors that occur to live animals in slaughterhouses, Eisnitz serves up more frightening facts to alarm her readers. For example, for those who are capable of

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disconnecting themselves from the pain and suffering experienced by all those billions of cows, hogs, chicken, horses, rabbits, etc., she presents the growing problem of contamination in these massive slaughterhouses. She doesnt provide pictures any pictures of what these plants actually look like, but she provides the filthy details, and lets the readers imagination run wild. Personally, I imagine one of these slaughterhouses to be dirtier than a garbage dump after reading this book. She describes plants in which there are holes in the walls of the blood pits out of which streams of cockroaches flow. She also included an account about how slaughterhouse workers have no choice but to urinate on the floors by their stations because they are not given enough time to leave their stations. The conditions under which this meat is produced are appalling. Eisnitz explains how these deteriorating conditions have led to an increase in food-borne E. coli outbreaks. These outbreaks are deadly, especially to the most immunologically vulnerable groups of the overall population: children. In fact, Eisnitz devoted a few of her early chapters to driving this point home: How a child life can go from fine to utterly miserable within a few days of eating a fast food hamburger. In fact, she provides accounts of how children only had to taste a morsel of raw meat to contract HUS (hemolytic uremic syndrome), which can burn the entire lining of a persons stomach. These children have to deal not only with stomach failure, but the failure of several organs. Eisnitz tells only one story of a fatal case of E. coli contamination, the rest she features are so sad that it makes the reader wish that these children had died out of mercy. If a reader isnt moved by stories of children moved by stories of animal cruelty or dying children, then Eisnitz presents the slaughter industry as an occupational safety hazard. She makes it clear that workers in these plants are among the most overexposed to danger and under

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protected in the country. She writes: With nearly thirty-six injuries or illnesses for every one hundred workers, meat packing is the most dangerous industry in the United States. In fact, a workers chances of suffering an injury or an illness in a meat plant are six greater than if that same person working in a coal mine (Eisnitz, 2007, p. 271). There are stories of workers whose faces are slashed and others who almost slit their own throats after being hit by the hooves of hogs kicking in agony. With so many cases of hoisted cattle falling from the production line, I am surprised Eisnitz could not find an account in which a worker was killed by one. The book also features a couple of chapters that deal with the psychological toll that this type of work takes on workers. The stickers in particularwho are responsible for slitting the throats of these animals, often while they are still kicking in painbecome desensitized to violence, leading to outbreaks of aggression and domestic violence. Eisnitz makes it clear that the turnover rate is high among these workers. The account of pain and suffering that impacted me the most was that of the animals in transport. The book exposes the fact that animals are not protected by any governmental regulation in the United States during transport as long as it lasts less than two days. Obviously, the lack of food, water, or space to rest is cruelty in itself. However, Eisnitz goes on to write about how the winter months are especially horrible for these animals in the backs of trailers. They are exposed to freezing temperatures and those on that find themselves against the walls of these containers are often found frozen to those walls. Workers testify that these animals are often still alive despite being frozen stuck. Pitchforks are used to pry them from the walls, resulting in their frozen flesh being ripped off their bodies. Eisnitz does not spare any punches with these emotionally-scarring stories.

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For those who cannot relate to pain and sufferingwhether it be by humans or nonhumansthe book drives a sense of disappointment in the American government for failing to address these obvious problems. In this respect, the book almost becomes a mystery novel as Eisnitz tries to identify why nothing is done. After all, there are thousands of inspectors at these facilities, but nothing changes. Of note is that the reader never made to feel contempt for these USDA inspectors because Eisnitz portrays many as whistleblowers that go unheard. On the other hand, veterinarians arent spared the blame, portrayed as bureaucrats that often come from foreign countries, to establish themselves in the United States, and keep their white coats and noses clean. They somewhat have the power to make changes in these plants, but when they want to say something they get instructions from their superiors to stay quiet. Eisnitz takes the problem all the way to the top of the USDA, which is exposed to be a farce as a regulatory agency. Apparently, beginning with the Reagan administration and continuing with the Bush Sr. and Clinton administrations, the top USDA officials have been picked directly out of the slaughterhouse industry. For some asinine reason, these presidents chose those executives that were some successful at taking the meat industry to new heights to regulate it from Washington. These individuals then proceed to implement programs that deregulate the industry, all the while claiming that they are providing more oversight. Eisnitz makes how they sell these programs comical: more oversight with fewer inspectors. It is utterly disappointing to read. In this sense, Slaughterhouse is also a despicable story of corruption. This book is alarming on many levels. It deals with the animal cruelty that occurs to billions of animals every year. It deals with the terrible conditions that thousands of slaughterhouse workers have to deal with. It deals with hundreds of children who die or are

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disabled by contaminated meat. And, it deals with ineffectiveness of the American government to keep its citizens safe. It exposes shockingly filthy industry from all sides.

REFERENCE LIST Eisnitz, G. A. (2007). Slaughterhouse: The shocking story of greed, neglect, and inhuman treatment inside the U. S. meat industry. Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books.