Customer Reviews

Slaughterhouse: The Shocking Story of Greed, Neglect and Inhumane Treatment Inside Th U.S. Meat Industry

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This book is for everyone to read, not just animal activists or vegetarians. This is a book about corporate greed and government ineffectiveness, and how absolutely everyone in the room refuses to see the Pink Elephant at the table, stuffing itself at the expense of your health and hard earned money.

Pay Attention! Virtually every piece of meat you purchase from your supermarket with the "USDA Inspected" safety stamp on it HAS NEVER BEEN INSPECTED AT ALL. USDA inspectors are no longer responsible for "Contamination Control", which amounts to debris coating the carcass such as feces, urine, mucus, pus, hair, dirt, grease, rat droppings, blood clots, etc. Their only responsibility is to examine the organs and head for gross malformations, and the inspectors are severely reprimanded or even fired for stopping the line, so virtually every filthy and disease ridden corpse makes its way to your table anyway.

A) Taking the butchering of animals away from the smaller, pride-of-ownership slaughterhouses and moving virtually all of the animal product production to high-speed, high profit corporations was a deadly move, and it is up to the working-class people to stop it.

B) The US is the only industrialized country that cools their chicken carcasses in water instead of air cooling, creating a virtual disease pool filthier than a public toilet next to a crack house. Why? Because water adds weight, so you get the privilege of actually paying increased poundage for the putrid and infected water your chicken soaked in.

C) Going against the National Academy of Science recommendations, the USDA relaxed standards and cut back on inspections while allowing production to increase over 40%. The question is no longer "IF" there is fecal matter on your meat, but "HOW MUCH IS ACCEPTABLE". Feces has been reclassified from a "Dangerous Contaminant" to a "Cosmetic Blemish". So has hair, mucus, dirt, droppings, etc.

D) With greed and profit being the only driving force behind the industry now, they have tried to pass the buck to you, the consumer, by telling you that the process of decontamination is up to YOU; i.e. cook your meat before you eat it. When did the decontamination issue switch from containment BEFORE occurring to recovery AFTER they allowed the feces to literally pass under their noses?

E) Working conditions in these Flesh Factories are deplorable, with chances of injury or illness six times greater than working in a coalmine. Workers cannot leave the floor to take a bathroom break, and often urinate into the blood trench or on themselves. If a worker removes a carcass as "condemned", the Supervisors at the plant often put it back into production and reprimand the worker.

F) Slaughterhouses take advantage of immigrant labor, knowing they are too poverty stricken or scared to protest their working conditions. The USDA Veterinarians who oversee the Plant's Inspection Line are mostly Foreigners, who fear for their jobs more than American workers.

G) Animals go through the Kill Line ALIVE all the time, it is so common that slaughterhouse workers do not even see it as an infraction any longer, they are more worried for their own safety from dropped carcasses, flying hooves, slashing knives, faulty equipment, and inhumanely high speed Lines.

So, are you scared yet? I simply skimmed the surface of this book, and if you are not already terrified by these seven points, you should be.

This isn't just about animal cruelty, or poor working conditions; its about the unfathomable corporate greed that we the people have let our Politicians slip past us, where only a few come out ahead and millions of others will suffer. From the mistreated workers and their families, to taxpayers whose hard earned dollars are now paying for a toothless agency (USDA), all the way down to the victims of the tainted food passed down to us by an industry no longer accountable for its own greed.

Ms. Eisnitz has sworn affidavits from people all across the industry, from plant workers and plant supervisors, USDA Inspectors and USDA Veterinarians, even a letter from the (then) Secretary of Agriculture Edward Madigan (who not only denied any wrongdoing in a letter, but also unwittingly documented that the USDA was breaking the law) stating that inspectors were not allowed near the line.

She took her entire caseload of documented proof of the industry's greed, neglect, and cruelty to the shows 20/20, 60 Minutes, and other prime time media, but was told that her story was "Too Graphic" for the public-at-large to handle.

Too Graphic? We see war, murder, rape, incest, child abuse and more just on the 30 minute segment of news, and the media felt this would be "too graphic" for you, the consumer, to handle. I found this horribly pompous of them, and have since written a letter to both shows.

The only thing I didn't like about the book was its lack of a reference listing; web sources and whatnot. But Eisnitz does name names, and references the Human Farming Association if you want further information. Overall, I highly recommend this book, but don't read it before dinner. Enjoy!!

Ms. Eisnitz is frank and candid in her exposure of the uglier side of factory farming. Slaughter of live animals is never pretty, but in many of the USDA supervised plants, the conditions are unbelievably cruel and digustingly filthy. The workers are exploited, placed in harm's way, and are treated little better than the animals they have to process. The animals themselves meet terribly slow deaths when stun bolts fail and stick pit knives don't cut deep enough to allow them to bleed to death before skinning and gutting. And if the cruelty isn't enough to grab you, wait until you read about the offal blocked drains that flood slaughterhouse floors with blood and fecal material. Wait until you read about manure being classified as a "cosmetic defect" that can simply be rinsed off and the meat passed off as USDA select to an unsuspecting public. This book will turn your stomach and make you angry.

You have probably already read many of the reviews and a majority of them come from vegans and vegetarians. Well, I'm not one of them. I raise meat animals and I eat meat. This book is important to me because I believe that Americans have a right to eat meat and not worry about it killing them with E. coli or Clostridia infections. I believe Americans should be able to believe that the USDA seal means the meat is safe and was killed in a humane fashion. Right now the American meat eating public is being betrayed by the USDA and "Slaughterhouse" details this with painstaking research and first-hand accounts.

"Slaughterhouse" is graphic and readers should expect it to be disturbing. But it is also very, very accurate. I've toured several slaughterhouses myself and found conditions similar to what Ms. Eisnitz has described. The USDA needs to step up enforcement of the Humane Slaughter Act, they need to POLICE the industry they oversee, not just sit idly by.

In short, this book might not make you a vegetarian, but it WILL make you an activist.

The format was easy to read, short concise stories, but the material was hard to stomach. Gail is a wonderful author and has brought to light all sides of the meat industry. Including the impact to the animals, children, workers, inspectors and vets. It shows that there is no one guilty party, there is a guilty industry in need of radical change, and an uninformed public - (one that in my limited experience would rather stay blind to these issues).

On a personal note, I never understood what my decision to eat meat meant for the meat I was eating. I could never have comprehended how horrible their deaths are, I was already aware their lives were not pleasant, but I was not prepared for the suffering that awaits them after a life of strife. Cows, pigs and chickens are taken through the slaughter house alive. Cow's are often alive all the way through the line, this includes while they are getting their legs chopped off with cutters - imagine that... They do not stop the line for these inconveniences. The workers shove electric prods in their rectums and eyes - deep into the sockets occasionally pulling out the eye to get them moving to the slaughter line.

After reading this I will never eat another piece of meat again. It is not my decision to make any other living thing suffer. But I find it amazing that when you go to share this book, people don't want to know. They would rather stay ignorant and that in itself has shocked me tremendously.

This book questions the notions that the government ensures the wholesomeness of our food and insures that slaughter technique is free from any form of animal cruelty. It is a stinging indictment of the meat industry and the USDA and if true will make you stop eating meat and wonder where the government and industry in general, and humanity in particualr is heading. I read this book in one sitting two weeks ago and haven't eaten a single piece of meat since. I could not turn away.

If you are quite content to eat the food that is placed in front of you, don't read this book. If you love animals and couldn't concieve of hurting one of them, don't read this book.

If you wonder why restaurants refuse to serve rare meat read this book. If you want to follow the path path of an animal from the farm to your table read this book. I walked away from its reading ashamed.

This is a guided tour through hell.

Do yourself a favor, read this book.

I just finished Slaughterhouse...all I can say is wow. I feel like I've been living under a rock not to have known this stuff, but then how could I, the average consumer, know? To tell you the truth, I'm angry, outraged. The things I learned about the USDA are more than shocking. Nightmarishly shocking doesn't even begin to cover it.

There are far too many things I could list in this book that shocked me to my foundation. And I considered myself informed.

If I consider just the conditions in the slaughterhouses, I'm revolted, disgusted and my stomach is still churning. Animals aside, those poor people who are forced, because of circumstances, to work in those places...I'll say it again, I was shocked. I had no idea. Torturing those animals not by choice or indifference but because their only option is unemployment is, well, shocking. As Ms. Eisnitz pointed out through example, as have many behavior studies, cruelty to animals, despite the reason, effects people, changes them, into something less than human.

I truly believe that future generations will look back at this time, right now, of great leaps in technology and vast increases in understanding of animals, and yet complete and unmitigated disregard of animal, and human, rights and safety, and in most cases increased safety risk and cruelty due to 'demand' and 'modernization', with revulsion, shame and contempt.

Since the days of Upton Sinclair the name of the game in the meatpacking industry has been profit through volume. During the New Deal unionized workers won gains in areas such as wages, hours,and in working conditions. Men like Frank Ellis fought to hold back unreasonable demands of greedy management. Left unchecked, the meatpacking industry has never had a glowing record, either with working conditions, or sanitary conditions. Over several decades a new generation of writers including; James R Barrett, Carol Andreas,and Deborah Fink a have tried to awaken America to the dangers meatpacking plants posed to workers and communities. Now the reporting of Gail Eisnitz is added to the list. In Slaughterhouse our consummers, our animals, and our workers cry out for justice. Sinclair would be proud of Eisnitz,as she has written a book that aims at both the heart and the stomach. This book is a must read. I was unable to put it down! As a historian however, I regret that Ms. Eisnitz has not included a bibliography.

_Slaughterhouse_ is a comprehensive and highly readable expose of how the modern meat industry needlessly tortures animals and endangers both workers and consumers. As a cruelty investigator for an animal welfare organization, Eisnitz began her exploration of slaughterhouse conditions after getting a tip from a USDA inspector that cows were being skinned while alive and conscious at the plant where he worked. The many slaughterhouse and USDA informants Eisnitz interviews all describe similar acts of cruelty and neglect for safety that occur daily in modern slaughterhouses. Eisnitz reveals that the Humane Slaughter Act is at base a dead letter law in the modern industry and that USDA safety inspections are not much better off. Ever wondered why you could order medium-rare meat in a restaurant 20 years ago, but today many restaraunts refuse to cook it that way? It's not just because people are more willing to sue today--deregulation makes your meat dirtier, and Eisnitz tells you how in disgusting detail. She talks to slaughter workers who have been chewed up and spit out by their employers--physically injured and often psychologically damaged by the stress of working an inherently unsavory job at an inhuman pace. Finally, her descriptions of what happens to animals in this environment makes a lie out of any notion that the meat we eat is killed "humanely." The issues Eisnitz brings up should make any compassionate person stop and think. My main criticism is that she doesn't provide any activism tips or resources for interested readers. Overall though, a very compelling and important book.

This book is extremely powerful and raw. I learned things about the "packing industry" that I never would have known. It is actually quite shocking. I am surprised that this information has not been exposed to the public. It is scary to think that most people have no clue as to what happens in these death houses. It reminded me of Auschwitz. I became a vegetarian after reading this book and also watching a couple of videos of what goes on in slaughterhouses. I think everyone should have to read this book.

In 1989, Gail Eisnitz recieved a letter from Timothy Walker, a well known whistleblower. His letter stated that he has first hand knowledge that a slaughterhouse (Kaplan Industries) was skinning live cattle. At first, she didn't know what to believe so she called the USDA. A USDA inspector called her back with the findings: no cattle were being skinned alive at Kaplan.
She decides to contact Walker by phone. When asked how he knew that Kaplan was skinning live cows, he stated that he was a USDA employee. He begins to tell Eisnitz a few more details.
In the US alone, over one hundred and one million pigs are slaughtered each year. Thirty seven million cattle and calves, more than four million horses, goats and sheep and over eight BILLION chickens and turkeys are killed.

Millions of chickens leaking yellow pus, stained green feces, contaminated by harmful bacteria and tumors are shipped for sale to customers.

At a Perdue plant, there is so much fecal contamination on the floor from chickens that it leaked into a workers boots and burned his feet so badly that his toenails had to be amputated. The company won't even allow workers to leave the line to go to the bathroom so they relieve themselves on the floor. Sometimes the chickens that are hung, fall to the floor that is covered with roaches, feces and blood. The chickens that fall aren't even washed off before being hung back up on the line. One worked said that he "saw flies on the chicken as it went down the line and maggots in boxes which contained bags that the chickens would be wrapped in." Occasionally, maggots were ground up with everything else and remained in the final product.

This is disturbing, and it should be. I hope that those who read this book will do something. Write to your senator or member of parliament, stop eating meat or even distribute this book among friends. Just do something. These are animals. They feel pain just like you do. Would you allow this to happen to a dog or cat? They why allow it to happen to farm animals.
This is a book that everyone needs to read. A lot of people believe or like to believe that their dinner arrived on their plate humanely. People need to know about wrongdoings like this. It's inhumane and it's wrong, plain and simple.

I've just read _Slaughterhouse_, by Gail Eisnitz (Prometheus Books, December 1997). It's the story of the author's investigation and collection of overwhelming evidence of the egregious abuse of animals without any regard for the Humane Slaughter Act, utter contempt for the safety and well being of workers, and outrageous disregard for the Federal Meat Inspection Act and public health.

It is the story of how the US government is shirking it's responsibility to ensure that meat and other animal products are not diseased or contaminated, but is placing that responsibility in the hands of consumers. The government now teaches consumers how to cook their meat in order to kill the germs even though it's obvious that cooking cannot solve the problem, since infected meat will contaminate your hands, kitchen surfaces, and anything else either you or it touches.

It exhaustively documents the routine skinning, scalding, and butchering of live, fully conscious and sentient animals.

Equally disturbing is the author's story of the refusal of the major television network news magazines to let the masses know about what is actually happening in the slaughterhouses of America. Using excuses such as 'too disgusting' or 'too graphic', which loose all credibility in light of the daily torrent of graphic and disgusting television violence with which we are all too familiar, TV news executives are responsible for obstructing the dissemination of the information which must reach the masses if we are to have any chance of developing the political will which is necessary to put and end to these atrocities and outrages. The national news media, with their skewed priorities based on arbitrary and unjustifiable taste preferences, apparently won't consider the consequences of their decisions.

I strongly urge you to read this book, which was written because of the news media's negligence.