$JES 921 Book of Compassion Reverence For All Life Reference Book

Author(s): Pramoda Chitrabhanu, Pravin K Shah
Publisher: JAINA Education Committee

Page 20

2. - DAIRY COWS - LIFE USAGE SUFFERINGS
from fast-food joints and meat meal which may include mashed pancreas, kidney and heart, and those parts that even packers wouldn't dare shove into luncheon meats or head cheese
Cannibalism down on the farm? You betcha....... Baby chick is growing strong and healthy on what's left from mom after she's been shipped off as atomic wings, drumsticks and boned breasts. "We use everything but the squeal, the cluck and the moo," says Dr. Raymond L. Burns, coordinator of the alternative uses program for the Kansas Department of Agriculture in Topeka. Welcome to the world of offal, rendering and carcasses, an industry that gives a new meaning to the phrase "You are what you eat."
Question:
Once you have carved away the T bone steaks and London broils, the pork chops and sides of Canadian bacon, the leg and the rack of lamb, what to do with the rest? With the hearts, kidneys and pituitary glands? The horns, hoofs, toenails, skulls and intestines? How about the "paunch material" undigested stomach contents?
Answer:
More than you can imagine. The abattoir's detritus is used in a dizzying array of products, including lifesaving medicines, life enhancing beauty aids, soaps, candy, clothing, upholstery, shoes and sporting goods. Not to mention crayons, floor waxes, antifreeze, matches, cellophane, linoleum, cement, photographic paper and weed killers. For while the renewed outbreak of mad cow disease in Britain led to no small panic as humanity imagined a world without Big Macs or Quarter Ponders, the fact is, the doomsday scenario is much worse. "Take away cows or pigs and you change life as we know it," said by Dr. Jerry Breiter, vice president of allied products for the American Meat Institute, a trade association.
Although mad cow disease is not a threat to the United States cattle industry, there are other concerns. Persistent problems are E. coli bacteria which killed three children in 1993 who ate undercooked hamburgers at Jack in The Box restaurants and salmonella contamination afflict many thousands of Americans a year. While the meat industry downplays the threat, it has taken steps to clean up its act. Most large meat facilities now spray steam on
THE BOOK OF COMPASSION
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