My Year Without Meat by Richard Cornish

Author:Richard Cornish
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780522864120
Publisher: Melbourne University Press

EVERY BIRTH, EVERY DEATH, IS DIFFERENT

No animal wants to die. We are all hardwired for survival. In an abattoir, animals are trucked in and unloaded. There they are generally left with shelter and water, sometimes not shelter, for twenty-four hours to purge themselves—shit themselves out. They are herded to the door of the abattoir, which opens and lets one in at a time. There is the kill box. The animal is in a small space and cannot move. One slaughterman administers a blow from a bolt gun that stuns the animal—those who have seen the film No Country for Old Men might recall Javier Bardem’s Chigurh and the creepy catch phrase he uses on unsuspecting humans: ‘Would you hold still, please, sir?’ Another slaughterman cuts the animal’s neck to let it bleed out.

They say animals smell fear. I have watched cattle slaughtered at an abattoir. I have never seen a cow go into the kill box willingly. They need to be goaded and forced. Is it the blood or adrenalin they smell? Either way, they snort, and mucus sprays and swings from the nostrils, their legs splay as they try to get purchase with their hooves. Their eyes roll back in their head as the slaughterman approaches with the bolt gun. There’s a ‘whack’ and the animal is rendered senseless, and the transformation from live animal to meat-in-a tray starts, a lethal reverse transubstantiation from body of life into meaty host.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.