For those of you who have worked in a meat packing plant or butchershop, etc...?

Question

...do you still eat meat, or has what you've seen turned you off? If you still do, what will you eat, and what do you stay away from?

Wow... lots of great answers already! Raters please be kind- Alan was simply sharing the facts of his experience- you can't downgrade him for that! Alan- thanks for the interesting info, I recognize there's a difference between people food and pet food, but going through that'd still probably turn me off to pork forever (the smells).

Answer 1

I grew up on a ranch & have been around horses, cattle sheep, pigs & chicken my whole life. I know where meat comes from so when I went to work at a meat plant in highschool that was owned by a family friend it didn't bother me a bit to still eat meat. I still eat meat. I have never been a fan of organ meat & I am still not (liver, kidneys, etc.) & I have never like beef tongue & still don't.
Here is the odd part I guess....I did not & still do not mind seeing a dead animal, BUT I do NOT like seeing it killed. Even a deer, but I will eat the meat. Weird HUH???

Answer 2

My hubby's started off way at the bottom in a HUGH beef packing plant, after 25 years and several moves, he has moved way up. He LOVES beef and is disgusted by people who spread false information when they've never even set foot in a beef packing plant. That includes the propaganda spread about how the animals are treated..........which, by the way, is very carefully as a stressed animal is not profitable. It also includes what goes into a hot dog which is not all the crap many people think it is.
Government inspectors are in the plants 24/7, so reputable plants that want to make money are all about making sure they're reputations and integrity are well maintained.

Answer 3

My husband had dealings at a beef rendering plant... he still loves a good filet mignon or rib-eye!

Answer 4

This is a very good question!
In 1982 and 83, I worked as a livestock hauler in Oregon. I hauled cows from the old Portland Livestock auction to Carlton, Oregon to a slaughterhouse. They always bought the sick and dying animals very cheaply and they contracted everything to the State of Oregon Corrections Department to feed to prisoners. This guy made out like a bandit! The cows I hauled could barely walk onto the truck and most of them were down when I arrived and had to winch them off. I saw the pigs being slaughtered. It wasn't really pretty. The pig would be stunned by electric shock first. The guy had a big Y shaped electric stunner that had two electric leads. He placed it on the pigs neck and pulled the trigger. The pig collapsed and was shaking from the shock, paralyzed, not dead. Then he put this skarp hook attached to a winch through the hind leg of the pig and lifted him upside down. The hook was put onto an overhead rail that ran through the slaughterhouse assembly line (or you could say disassembly line). As soon as the pig was secured, he took a huge razor sharp knife and slit the pigs throat and the blood all gushed out in a few seconds and the pig was dead in maybe 5 seconds or less. It was gruesome to watch. Then the pig went through these plastic curtains into the slaughter area where I wasn't able to see from where I was. I know that the pigs get cut up in there.

I also hauled pigs to another slaughterhouse in Portland every week. I never was there for slaughter time, but the smell of pig urine is similar to the pork smell in cooking sausage. After hauling those pigs every week, I couldn't stand the smell of pork. I didn't eat it for about 15 years, the smell would gag me.

Many years later, I hauled meat by-products to a rendering plant in Seattle. They made dog and cat food and chicken feed. I swear, if you knew what went into cat food and dog food, you would be like me and NEVER feed your pet anything but homemade food.

The people I worked for picked up the bones and fat and stuff from butcher shops and I hauled them to Seattle from Portland. While at the plant in Seattle, I saw things that would make you puke your guts out. You would NEVER feed you pets that crap.

A rendering plant is like any other recycling facility. If it is a dead animal, it is recycled. There was one guy who went around to all the animal shelters and veterinarians and got all the dead dogs and cats. He was weighed just like I was and then he dumped all his dead dogs and cats into the same pit as I did my fat and bones. He would also pick up roadkill and bring it in too, possums, raccons, deer, badgers, dogs, cats, skunks, whatever. I assume he was paid around ten cents a pound for all these dead things. My load was around 60,000 pounds so it was worth about $6,000.00. That came to around $30, 000.00 a week for those bones and fat. If the guy who brought in the dead dogs and cats had 2, 000 pounds a day, he was making $200.00 a day or about a grand a week. Not bad considering that he most likely charged the shelter and the vets to take the crittters away.
52k+ a year to recycle free stuff!

This is real! I heard a lady on the radio who wrote an expose on the pet food industry and she confirms what I saw. It is common practice to render dogs and cats into dog and cat food all over the USA. She, like me, will never feed her pet commercial pet food again!

Then again, I have worked in the vegetable canning industry too and you would never eat canned or frozen food again if you saw what THAT looks like! Come to think of it, if you knew what went on in the grocery distribution industry, you would never eat anything but food you grew yourself!

Our food supply is NOT safe nor secure. Almost NO ONE seals or secures truck loads of foods except Wal-Mart and Malt O Meal. I am sure others do too, but MOST do not. ANYONE has access to food on trucks.