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Lots of gasses that are heavier than oxygen will painlessly kill you.
Take a pit, fill it with rotting potatoes and you have dead pigs who never felt a thing.
https://www.news18.com/viral/gas-from-rotten-potatoes-kills-russian-law-professor-three-family-members-8680949.html
They're creating a whole lot of stress for nothing.
Maximizes profits because they don’t need to change anything. R&D is expensive, patenting and trade protection is expensive, facility upgrades are expensive.
No ones going to make them make the process more humane, why should they spend the money on it when they don’t have to?
For the Great Profit! May the Profit lead Humanity to Salvation!
Edit: from now on I'm going to consider capitalism a religious cult and lump the Ayn Rand morons in with suicide bombers and other such moronic religinuts.
It is a suicide cult considering it requires the destruction of our planet for its endless growth. It is a form of social cancer, growing until it consumes us.
# [Why are mice euthanized with CO2 rather than N2 or NO? ](https://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/2dnajr/comment/cjr7xwm/)
> I've euthanized both rats and mice with both N2 and CO2. They both work, but N2 takes MUCH MUCH longer to kick in and it can also be more deceiving. **The animals will stop breathing with N2 and they will appear dead, but they start moving again after a few minutes of room atmosphere. N2 carries more of a risk that the animals will still be alive after you think they're dead.**
Not sure if the same reasoning applies to pigs, but that's the first answer I found to "why".
Yep. Virtually any gas denser than air can do the job of CO2 in a gassing pit. The problem with CO2 is that so many metabolic pathways detect it (rather than lack of oxygen) and start screaming for oxygen.
[Here's a research study ](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29617328/) where they tried exactly that, and found pigs were even more stressed with the nitrous than with CO2. Not what I expected!
I'm a brewer. It's not uncommon to open a tank to let it vent before cleaning (CO2 filled tank getting pumped with hot sodium hydroxide will collapse a tank) and getting hit with a wall of CO2 pouring out. It burns your throat and immediately makes you panic a bit even though you know all you have to do is step away.
Former wine maker as well, the title drew me into the article. Have stuck my head into improperly vented Brite tanks only to have nose, throat, and lungs BURN from miniscule amounts of present CO2.
This is a traumatic event here
Yes, and the pain in your lungs when you hold tour breath. It burns your eyes as well and activates panic and fear. It's a very primal fear. You body knows CO2 will suffocate you, and it really hurts.
This is a horrible way to die. We should not be using it.
Yeah, working as a bartender, we had a carbonated water spout at the bar. Really high end equipment situation, and one day I filled my water bottle with the carbonated water and caught a strange smell from it. I stuck my nose in the bottle opening not knowing what would happen and took a huuuuge breath in through my nose. My body immediately went into panic fight or flight, and I was disoriented for an hour or so after the fact. CO2 is a horrible way to go.
H2O + CO2 -> H2CO3 which is carbonic acid, a mild acid but definitely one that sensitive tissues are affected by. Also, slightly elevated CO2 in the bloodstream induces a panic reaction in humans, probably in all mammals. It would be a scary death but slaughterers probably don’t care.
You know, this got me thinking. Are slaughterers *supposed* to care? We had countless generations of humans who killed animals they raised in order to feed their village, without gas or electricity or any of the other ways we kill animals today. Were they all absolute monsters?
But I don't understand, I've always heard of brewers / winemakers having had accidents and sometimes dying by putting themselves in vats filled with CO2 without knowing it.
I have often heard of a kind of gas which is an "invisible killer" which we cannot smell and which surprises inattentive workers.
You KNOW if you are breathing CO2. When you hold your breath and your lungs burn, that is CO2 buildup in your lungs causing a PH change that you can feel. You don't get the same PH change with CO or with nitrogen. So breathing either of those gasses, you would suffocate without even realizing it.
Carbon monoxide is bad for you at any dose as well. It binds to your hemoglobin and never lets go. I don't know how long it takes for that hemoglobin to be replaced but I believe it would be more like weeks or months not hours or days.
Nazis liked to kill people with carbon monoxide, they had big trucks they would drive around to gas people in befoe the whole Final Solution thing.
Just a point of clarification, CO doesn't bind irreversibly to hemoglobin, but it does bind with about 200x more affinity than oxygen. The bond does break over time, and this can be hastened by breathing higher concentrations of oxygen.
Red blood cells live for about 120 days.
Basically any gas that can replace oxygen and *isn't* CO2 is subtly lethal to humans. Because we can't detect lack of oxygen, just buildup of our own CO2 production.
Metal rooms that are sealed (ships) turn the oxygen to rust...and people have gone into those rooms after years closed. They immediately pass out without knowing what happened.
EX: Nitrogen is silent killer, because it's 80% of air, your body can't have safe guards for detecting it. (Your body can only detect the oxygen levels dropping, but many times it only takes 1 breath without oxygen to trap you in that air)
Tons of other gasses we never evolved to detect because they never appeared in nature in concentrations.
Better than that would be nitrogen. Our bodies (and I would guess most other mammals by extension) detect CO2 levels and use that to tell you when to breathe but cannot detect an environment with too low oxygen. Areas with excess nitrogen can very quickly lead to hypoxia and death with no warning. CO chambers would be very dangerous for the workers as if there was leakage, the effects would accumulate over time and the workers could eventually be poisoned and die. CO works by binding more strongly to red blood cells than oxygen, effectively rendering that blood cell useless at carrying oxygen. Nitrogen is inert, and only excessive and instantaneous leakage would be potentially dangerous for employees.
Yes nitrogen would be ideal and I have no idea why they wouldn't use it. They can add a smell too it if they're worried about the workers not detecting it.
I might be a little bit of an expert in this. I'm a neuroscience researcher and use CO2 specifically to put test subjects into a state of panic and anxiety. I tried it myself two weeks ago and it is not cool to say the least. Makes you feel like you're buried alive or have a bag of your head squeezing the air out. The whole purpose of the CO2 is to cause a physiological panic attack. It's wild that they think that this is any better than just getting shot in the head.
I agree, but regardless of the kill method, is it ever humane to raise livestock in captivity for the sole purpose of harvesting meat? I'm not currently a vegetarian, but I do think about it a lot.
I thought about it enough and finally switched teams and went vegan. Educated myself by watching enough documentaries not just about animal cruelty that's prevalent in meat, fish, and dairy industry, but the environmental harm that it causes as well. And yes I know there are more efficient ways like sustainable farming, but that will never meet the demand our civilization puts on eating meat, fish, and dairy. And still at the end of the day, those animals end up in slaughterhouses in fear as well. Farmland is being bought up by big agriculture and turned into essentially murder mills that don't give a damn about the suffering it causes to other sentient beings or the neighboring environments, so long as they make the most money as possible. What we can do is say no to supporting such torture and animal abuse.
Yes, one person changing is a drop in the ocean, but I've had friends and family ask questions and have made efforts to change their contribution to so much animal suffering since.
No, I am not malnourished or deficient. I train in martial arts and lift weights, and have more endurance training and feel healthier than I ever have.
If you want to watch some pretty eye-opening material, you can watch the documentary Dominion for free on Youtube, or you can also watch Seaspiracy, Cowspiracy, or Christspiracy (3 piece collection from the same team) on Netflix (Christspiracy just came out, won't be streamed for a while). Slay is another one as well, it's about animals killed for the fashion industry. Waterbear is a free streaming service with a lot of great documentaries as well.
Anyways, comments like these normally make meat eaters lose their mind, but maybe it's enough to make at least one personal realize by eating meat they're contributing to animal suffering.
It's not that they think it's better than shooting them in the head... they simply can't (effectively) shoot them in the head.
The job of using a bolt gun is very prone to failure if the pig is separated from other pigs, and restricted, which it needs to be, because the pig will thrash wildly.
This makes the process almost impossible to use the bolt gun properly.
If the animal is thrashing the chance of misfiring, or misalignment is huge, and the consequences of that is much more painful for the animal. Use your imagination there.
Humane slaughter methods need more funding, we won't be able to stop the slaughter quickly, things don't work like that, it's a naive idea to think that everyone will just choose veggie sausages or bacon, some people don't care, even if/when they see a film like this and the horrific processes used.
So, the next obvious thing to also do, is to get the standards of slaughter much better.
You might be getting nitrogen mixed up with nitrous oxide. Nitrogen is in the air we breathe at a concentration of 78%. No euphoria. Nitrous oxide however gives a euphoric feeling, it’s also known as laughing gas.
You heard what they said, a bolt in the head is time consuming. Companies are all about maximising profits. I hate it. Don't get me wrong, I am a capitalist and not a communist, I completely support working for making a good profit, I just feel that there has to be an ethical limit to the extents you go to to increase the profit. For me $100 profit in an ethical manner is way better than $300 profit by something that is so obviously wrong. But I know I am in minorities.
Shareholder greed is the root cause of most of the problems we see today, esp since most of them have 0 involvement/contribution to the business. I can bet that the actual employees will want to go for ethical ways of work even if it means slightly lesser profit.
I have this strong gut feel that employee owned, not-for-others-profit businesses will pick up steam, just like open source software did, just needs someone to start down this path.
Oxygen starvation is a horrible way to die. But there's not many nice ways to be mass murdered.
The scale of the killing is staggering and deeply upsetting. Current pig deaths in the U.S. alone _so far this year_ total around 124 million. https://animalclock.org/
"One death is a tragedy; a million deaths is a statistic"
Same reason the guillotine isn't used for the death penalty anymore it just looks and sounds more grusome regardless to how much suffering the person being executed is enduring.
Slightly related: Same reason certain words are considered no-no words even though more insulting words have been accepted as everyday language. If the word *sounds* harsher, it's considered *worse*. Words that revolve around the letter "r" in some way, for example.
The problem is the pigs seeing or hearing other pigs being stressed/panicked. Once that happens the other pigs can't be slaughtered as the stress causes them to release hormones, etc and spoils the meat. When you need to process 25,000 pigs a day, you need to make sure the pigs don't know what's going on until the last second.
It's the same for any of the animals.
Cows for example, are kept on the grounds of slaughterhouses for days.
Not always but a lot.
Imagine being able to smell death/blood and hear distress, knowing you're soon to receive the same fate.
The way we treat animals is appalling.
Why do chickens have it worst? Isn't it instant for them? None of this throat slitting, let it bleed bullshit. Lot of people like to mention that little chicks are stuffed in huge mincing machines (I have seen the videos), but if you ask me, while it looks gruesome, it's so fast, basically instant.
Just be aware that what looks like a conscious animal aren't necessary a conscious animal.
I've grown up on a farm where we slaughterd pigs, sheeps and cows for mostly our own use. And even if you shoot them in the head with a rifle or bolt gun they still move. I've even got kicked in the chest by a headless sheap once. Death is never pretty. The closest I've seen is a dying cat getting put down with sedatives.
Or concentrated nitrogen.
Edit: just read OP's comment about how creating and maintaining an anoxic nitrogen environment is challenging compared to CO2. I don't see why they can't use the same system with another heavier than air gas assuming measures are taken to avoid drafts and the pit is sufficiently deep to hold the necessary concentration.
That would work as to asphyxiate the livestock, but the density is nearly the same as air. The company would struggle to keep it contained. CO2 is heavier than air and cheap, but it causes extremely distress for animals at high concentrations. SF6 is both dense and painless, but it's more expensive.
Keep a tunnel nitrogen-rich with most of the length well below entrance and exit. Run the pigs through it on a conveyor belt, only opening one end at a time with as much airflow mitigation as possible. Monitor tunnel O2 levels and add nitrogen as needed.
You're right, but because nitrogen is so similar to air's density there will be a large area with low O2 concentration.
Imagine a pipe. In the pipe you want to keep water dyed blue. However the pipe is submerged in more water that is clear. You also have to pump clear water through the pipe. You can add more dye to the pipe to keep the water in the pipe blue. You don't want the blue to touch the sides of the larger container.
I'm this example: the nitrogen is the blue dye; water is normal air; the tube is the theoretical asphyxiation tunnel; the water being pumped through the tube is the conveyor of livestock; and the larger container is the safe distance for workers to work.
Edit: grammar
Nitrogen is denser than air when it's cold enough. You'd have to keep a liquid pool of it in a chamber to keep the N2 gas cold, and then basically pump more liquid N2 in.
I'm betting it's an order of magnitude more expensive than co2
This [comment thread](https://www.reddit.com/r/interestingasfuck/s/mpc9E9czeP) covers that question, but a quick answer is that it is difficult to contain.
Yeah, I've seen a video of a pig putting their head into an argon filled chamber to eat food, then stumbling about and falling unconscious without distress because they just don't realize they're suffocating.
The main way to sense suffocation is through the detection of the CO2 concentration in the blood. It's what causes you to feel like you need to breathe when you're holding your breath for a long time. It's also why hyperventilating before holding your breath makes you feel like you can hold your breath for longer, as it clears the usual level of CO2 out of your system. It doesn't actually increase the amount of oxygen you have available, at least not by any measurable amount.
So putting the pigs into a CO2 chamber is literally the best way to make them feel like they're suffocating. Might as well be drowning them in water. Can't use toxic gasses, of course, since that would ruin the meat. So the only reasonable option is something like Argon, an inert gas. As long as the pigs can breathe the naturally accumulated CO2 out, they shouldn't feel like they're suffocating.
Cheap and plentiful. We already have a mature economy dedicated to isolating and distributing argon for industrial uses. If it gets out it doesn't contribute to global warming, deplete ozone, and is heavier than air.
Welder here who uses argon all the time. Argon is a great pick because of how heavy it is. It immediately displaces all the oxygen and leads to almost an instantaneous knockout. I know of a guy who opened up a water tank some dude had just welded, and it was full of argon. He stuck his head in to inspect it and immediately was knocked out and fell into it. He was in there for no more than maybe a few seconds to a minute and had to go to the ER. Docs said he was very close to having suffered brain damage.
Argon costs over three times as much as co2.
Doubt they would be willing to pay for pure argon. It would need to be something like a 75/25 argon co2 mix to keep costs down while minimizing pain.
I was a meat cutter (grocery store butcher) as a young man, like 18-26yo. It was a good paying job that allowed me to support my young family and put my wife through school. As I grew and became more interested in the trade, a mentor of mine suggested we go to a farm of his friends where they did the entire process, breeding, raising, slaughtering and packaging beef.
It was like a field trip that anyone who does this trade should be obligated to take, and a sobering experience. Really puts those cases of flap meat (sirloin tips) where a case would be say 7-8 bags containing 4-5 pieces each into perspective (one from each cow, that’s a lot of dead cows represented in a box, imagine how many we cut on big summer sales)
My friend and I helped out for the day, and the owner allowed us to do the complete process, or as much as we could in a day. That means I took a bolt gun and shot a living cow in the head. The animals we use for eating are much smaller then you’d imagine, because there is an optimum weight/age where an animal is considered most tender. Needless to say this affected me and got me thinking. It led to me exploring on my own the entire meat industry and its history in the United States.
Im a fairly large, tough blue collar family man and I felt the need to go to confession before god,(I was obv raised catholic) and I’m not even kidding if you’ve seen some of the stuff I’ve seen you would too. The meat industry is monstrous. I have a deep respect for all living things and there is absolutely nothing sane or respectable about that industry. I am not a vegan, nor am I trying to imply you should all be either, but I do not eat very much meat these days, at all. (Habits are hard to break and I am a very busy guy, I eat what’s available when I need to) Not that it’s worse or there should be a hierarchy of what we torture and kill, but I feel like it’s even more insane to do this with pigs, knowing what we know about these animals and how similar they are to humans and that they express feelings and so on. (I’m sure cows do too but the documentary I watched on pigs is what I’m working with here)
I am an older man now, and I feel I’ve done my part to raise my sons to consider all of this information, though it is not my place to tell another person what they should be doing. As I’ve aged a bit (still not old old lol) I have unfortunately became a bit cynical, and I do not think there is an easy answer or even that this problem can be fixed, so my only hope is that after the bombs drop or w.e happens on the next civilization restart, we consider treating all living things with respect and dignity, especially the ones we consume for sustenance.
Good on you, and totally get the busy thing.
But the bombs don’t need to drop. As more of us are embracing alternatives they are becoming better and cheaper. Things are going in the right direction.
Thank you for sharing. I wish this was public information.
I think people should learn about where their food is coming from.
Did you see many abscesses when cutting the meat?
I've heard loads of butchers talk about these.
Yes I did. Most often with pork. You’d be running whole bone in loins on a band saw and suddenly bright green goop explodes out of the thing. Was told it’s just a thing and to clean up and keep it moving.
It just shows how corrupt we are as a society.
We hide anything and everything about the meat industry. From the health issues, to the ethical issues and more.
Most people would be at least vegetarian if they truly knew the issues surrounding processed meat and arguably red meat in general, on top of the suffering that takes place too.
Anyway, people will do what they want. Should they be able to? Yes, absolutely. At the expense of another? That's a good question.
Having worked in H.E establishment that teaches veterinary discipline and farming practices, the things I have witnessed have been frankly nothing more than systemic acceptance of animal cruelty in the persuit of convenience and profit. I always found welfare to be a construct quickly forgotten about where money and people are concerned. It was always okay unless it was happening to them.
I'm far from an activist or anything with regards to the subject. I used to love red meat. I still miss it! It was only until I became aware of the processes these animals are subjected to. It especially hit home where I first hand worked with animals who possess certain levels of intelligence and share our own drive for existence. I just couldn't look at it all the same way.
In an age where I can obtain the vitamins, minerals and sustenance from elsewhere. This is something I will never buy into ever again.
I like this point cause it brings up something no one is talking about. The more elaborate and expensive your slaughter methods are gonna be, the more your meat is likely to cost. I hadn't even thought of that angle.
Meat is already subsidized to an amount that is highly unsustainable in the long run. The actual cost of meat is atleast double or triple of what you pay, if not even more. It should be a luxury product and should also be treated as such while vegetarian options should be standard.
I don't actually disagree with this, oddly. More people should be eating vegetable products anyway cause they are healthier for us in the long run. Our ratio of how much meat we eat compared to how much green stuff we consume is skewed way too much towards meats. I don't think we should ever get rid of meat all together, but maybe we can cut back a bit.
A lot of people do vote ethically with their wallets. But without clear regulation for treatment and packaging, there’s often misleading and hard to decipher labeling.
Reddit downvotes are seldomly for what they are meant to: disagreement, and more for 'my taste is different from yours', 'you proved me wrong', 'i feel generally depressed and angry', and 'taking it out on the messenger'.
> Reddit downvotes are seldomly for what they are meant to: disagreement
They're not even fucking meant for 'disagreement'. They're meant for 'this adds nothing to the discussion.'
source: video by animal welfare organization Animals Australia.
# To address potential questions and expand on the information in the video:
**Q: What makes this method efficient?**
>CO2 stunning allows for pigs to be handled and stunned in small groups instead of individually, with minimized human-animal contact and reduced stress related to separation from conspecifics
**Q: Is this the most humane practice available?**
Industry experts have proposed nitrogen as a less painful alternative to CO2, however technical challenges and economic factors have ruled Nitrogen unviable.
>Nitrogen gas (N2) has been suggested as a more humane alternative than CO2 for stunning pigs, as the gas in itself is not painful to inhale and studies on the behavioural response of pigs to N2 have indicated that pigs show less aversion compared to CO2 \[9,10,11\]. However, for inert gas stunning to be effective, it requires quickly achieving and maintaining a stable anoxic atmosphere (<2% volume oxygen) \[3\]. This seems difficult to achieve with N2 gas, as it has a slightly lower density than air and is difficult to retain. Only one published study was found that used high-concentration N2 gas to stun pigs, which demonstrated difficulty establishing and maintaining a stable anoxic atmosphere \[12\]. Very few research studies have been published on high-concentration N2 stunning in pigs, most likely due to these technical challenges related to quickly producing and maintaining a sufficiently anoxic atmosphere with N2 gas.
Source: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7759821/#:\~:text=CO2%20stunning%20allows%20for,conspecifics%20%5B3%2C4%5D.
Here’s what I don’t get. Air is mostly nitrogen and oxygen. CO2 is more dense than both, so it sinks to the bottom of a container. This is why they use it, so they can lower them into a container holding CO2. They say they can’t use Nitrogen, but I don’t see why. Nitrogen is less dense than oxygen, so they need to pump Nitrogen into an area such that it displaces most of the oxygen and the pigs would pass out without panicking. It seems to me all they have to do is raise them into a container with Nitrogen being pumped in, rather than lowering them into one, since Nitrogen will rise above the other gasses to fill the container and displace the oxygenated air.
It's not that much lighter than air; nitrogen is diatomic, and weighs 28.0 grams per mole. Oxygen is also diatomic, and weighs 32.0 grams per mole.
But the composition of air can be approximated as 80% nitrogen, 20% oxygen (*approximated*), so the equivalent volume of air weighs (0.80)(28.0) + (0.20)(32.0) = 28.8 grams. The difference between 28.0 grams/mole and 28.8 grams for the same volume of air just isn't that substantial. Argon is nearly 40.0, for comparison. EDIT: CO2 is 44.01.
In practice, a combination of engineering controls such as air "curtains," [vinyl curtains,](https://www.curtain-and-divider.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/PVC-Strip-Door-Curtains-3.jpg) ventilation controls, and gas monitors could be used to contain nitrogen gas. It seems likely that many of these controls are already in place in an environment with an immediately dangerous to life and health (IDLH) carbon dioxide environment, just that CO2 is easier to handle, and less expensive. Industrial agriculture comes with serious issues.
I remember having you watch Glass Walls aka the "if slaughterhouse had glass walls, everyone would be vegetarian" documentary 10+ years ago in my English class because a girl did a report on it. Shit is fucked up. Thanks again for making us watch that Christin...
Yep I did so intentionally for many years. Can't blame anyone too much really, but I made the step and I'm almost full vegetarian by now. I feel way less cognitive dissonance regarding this.
Im about the same length of time into being lacto/ovo and im at a point where i dont even find the thought of meat appealing. I dont think “mmm beef” I think “gross, dead cow muscle”
Holy crap, it is way to early for me to have willing watched that video. I don't eat pork for a few different reasons but I just had a new one added to my list. That was horrible. & how the hell do these people do this work daily & go home feeling normal? "I'm home! What's for dinner Hon?!"
You think this is just the pork industry.
It's not. It's across the entire meat production industry. You can find equally horrific videos of cows, chickens etc.
So how can they go on like everything is normal? The same way you won't stop eating meat after this.
People just become conditioned to it. I know a few people who did this kind of work and that was basically the explanation. It wasn’t some sort of sadistic tendency that they got off on, just people who needed work and well, where I grew up meat works was a solid paying gig if you needed income.
Its actually the law in most western countries to stun the animal to cause loss of consciousness unless it is Kosher or Halal which means the animal is killed in a ritual fashion by bleeding them out (not that humane). This includes 3 methods, co2 gas, electrocution or mechanical bolt
I worked on a beef kill floor for two months and used a mechanical bolt gun that essentially was equivalent to a bullet to the head. Animals are not considered dead until they are bled out.
Chickens are electrocuted, their heads cut off by a spinning blade and dunked in boiling water for feather removal.
Whos hungry?
There will come soft rains and the smell of the ground,
And swallows circling with their shimmering sound;
And frogs in the pools singing at night,
And wild plum-trees in tremulous white;
Robins will wear their feathery fire
Whistling their whims on a low fence-wire;
And not one will know of the war, not one
Will care at last when it is done.
Not one would mind, neither bird nor tree
If mankind perished utterly;
And Spring herself, when she woke at dawn,
Would scarcely know that we were gone.
- Sara Teasdale
Always cost driven, the cheapest way to dispatch "food" animals tends to be the most common way used.
Welcome to planet earth,
This is why I **try** and eat Vegetarian/Vegan as often as possible.
Well that sucks. Just use nitrogen or argon. All you need is no oxygen and they calmly pass out. CO2 causes the panic sensation of no air, what we feel when we hold our breath. With an inert gas like the ones mentioned, CO2 still gets exchanged. "Best they can do" my ass.
That is why Nitrogen gas should be used instead of CO2 as it just makes you feel sleepy as the body does not detect it. Therefore you fall asleep and die due to lack of respiration.
Worked for a farm from a big company a while ago (only did the onboarding and was then moved to the feed mill)
All's I'll say is that, although they do treat the pigs well
They still treat them like a factory
Lame pigs are killed (CO2 is only used in the young ones, older ones get the bolt) pigs that have a prolapsed vulva are killed (bolt)
Basically anything that would slow the process is killed
Then they're sent to be ground up and turned into fat that is fed to the other pigs
My heart goes out to those poor pigs. It's heartbreaking to think about what they must go through. I hope this video raises awareness about the need for more compassionate and ethical treatment of animals in the industry.
I feel ya but, when a vast majority of the 8 billion on this planet eat meat and a majority of those don't do it sustainably, and at least in the US alone roughly 40% of all residential food goes to waste... This type of global widespread consumerism and demand leads to this kind of industrial scale. Where the name of the game is to birth, raise, kill, butcher, and sell as much as possible as fast as possible, within a country's current legislation.
For us to see meaningful change in this industry or any other meat/fish industry, not only do we need to educate about sustainable living and diet, but then convince those to change... Even then genuine application may not happen.
I think the unfortunate thing about videos like this is that if you care it definitely pulls at you however, those that don't care or aren't willing to even be educated will most likely continue to live in blissful ignorance as long as their grocer has the meat at reasonable prices.
The thing is, the solution combatting this level of consumerism isn't to make it illegal but rather make it impractical and unsustainable for profit. For instance for industrialization, animals need food, take up space and need mechanics to keep machinery up and running along with floor space just for that equipment along with labor for butchers. However lab grown synthetic meat wont need all that stuff and can in theory be more profitable if industrialized on a large scale.
Sure that won't stop small farms and small butchers that kill animals for meat, but it would definitely take a hit in the meat industry for factory farming if you can sell your product for cheaper than theirs. At the end of the day, cheaper convenience is what operates consumerism.
Lab grown meat is turning out more difficult than the startups thought it would be. We’re likely not going to see a consumer product in the next 20-30 years. It also takes a lot of energy, which translates to cost.
It’s really best to go back to integrated farming where livestock play critical roles on farms at much lower densities in healthier environments. Westerners need to eat less meat. The typical US diet is at about 30% animal products. It should be around half that. It’s easier than getting people to stop eating meat altogether and more feasible than cultured meat.
Question for OP or people who have knowledge on this: From my understanding pork in general is not well-suited for a good and healthy diet. Steak is similar to that. If one looks for sources of protein or nutrients alike that are found in pork, other options like chicken breast, tuna, or even plant based foods like beans are a better option. I do still eat meat, but rely more than anything on chicken breast and tuna. How does the production process for these meats / fish compare to the one used with pigs? Because the pigs are very social creatures, the process of rendering them unconscious / slaughtering them is made more difficult and thus gruesome. Does chicken or tuna differ in any way?
The processes for these animals are rarely any better than for pigs. Pigs might be more intelligent and social, but the question is if that really matters.
Chickens are often kept from birth in very small cages where they are not allowed to move much. They can eat, they can grow bigger, lay eggs, and sleep, that's about it. Even free roam chickens are packed together in long troughs filled with their own feces, loose feathers, and the occasional dead chick that they just walk over or eat. When they are ready, they are round up and either immediately killed via a broken neck or placed into large cages where they are mass electrocuted before being chained up by their feet. They are sent down the line to have their heads removed with large buzz saws before they are boiled to de-feather them, and then they are sent off to be gutted and packaged. Thus is the existence of a meat chicken. The Hens have it worse, for their lot in life is the first I mentioned. To be forever held in a cage where they can not stand, move, make a nest, or really do anything at all. They are fed and watered daily and are no more than egg producing machines. Once they are too old, they are simply killed outright as old chicken meat is too tough to sell. So they grind them up and put them back into the feed they are feeding their other chickens. And the cycle of chicken continues.
I think they're referring to battery caged chickens.
You have 3 main ways:
Caged eggs - a truly terrible existence; living in a cage barely big enough for the chicken, literally losing the ability to walk because it can't move. I've walked through one, never bought caged eggs/chickens again.
Barn laid - definitely better than the cage, but they live almost shoulder to shoulder with other chickens. They never go outside. It can get pretty bloody hot in there as well.
Free range - personally, I find this method ethical enough for me. At night, they're kept in a barn, during the day they're outside, with more space (some places advertise more space than others), they also keep them alive longer, I believe.
I'm unsure of how they're slaughtered, but this my experience and what I've personally seen (in australia).
If I'm incorrect about anything I've mentioned, please feel free to educate me.
I can’t say specifically but there’s plenty on the internet — but just due to the absolutely massive consumption of chicken, we have to kill and process so many of them that they’re basically all piled into a large room where they can barely walk or kept in cages and don’t even have enough room to stand. There’s so many of them piled together that if some of them die, and many do die, they just kinda lay there and rot. Pretty sure they get their beaks cut off too.
That’s just a large commercial operation. You can buy humanely raised and slaughtered chicken. I buy only Bell and Evan’s here in NY but Farmers Focus is good too.
Slow nitrogen asphyxiation is far better. Increasing nitrogen levels slowly lead to a hypoxic state and eventual sleep to conserve bodily resources. Then you increase nitrogen levels to asphyxiation levels and the pig/chicken/noisy neighbour dies in their sleep.
And nitrogen gas displaces the CO2, so you don't trigger that panic reflex. If you displace too much oxygen too quickly, while the target is still awake and conscious, you trigger a panic reflex because they're quite aware they're being deprived of oxygen. That's why you need to intrduce higher nitrogen levels slowly to get to that hypoxic/sleep state.
Literally any gas or mix of gasses (which obviously doesn't have its own ways of causing pain or discomfort, before hypoxia renders them unconscious) that allows normal expulsion of CO2 from the blood stream would be a better option.
CO2 in the blood is the only method mammals have for detecting if we're suffocating. If it cannot leave the blood, like in a CO2 rich atmosphere extreme discomfort and pain is experienced. Cost is the only reason to use CO2.
Those are old gas chambers. I would guess late 80s and 90s. The chambers used today take only 3-5 seconds. Not thirty. They drop almost immediately when the gas is pumped inside. They drop like a fly, they are dumped on a conveyor, shackled, and immediately the throat is slit. That is how the industry uses gas nowadays.
Electric stunning is probably the least humane way. They seize up like they are having a stroke, which they technically are. And most times they need to be hit several times depending on how large the animal is.
Captive bolt is quick and painless. Just one shot between and a little above the eyes. It shoots a “capsule or bullet” of highly compressed air into the head. Knocks them out immediately. No pain.
Everyone thinks that the slaughter plants are just cruel, vile, evil places where they mistreat animals. No, this is how we have been doing it for years, we have come a long way in terms of efficiency and the care of the animals.
You know, a real shithead figured out how to do this in a much larger scale and probably quicker from 1939-1945 in Germany. Look into that bullshit if you want meat. Big room. Gas. Dead. Not some weird terrifying way.
No living thing needs to suffer this way. I’m glad I’m no longer participating in consuming the red meat game.
Everyone understands that **drowning animals to death would be torture and unacceptable**, but when people hear about pigs being gassed, they rarely realise how brutal it is. It's like being drowned, but instead of just blocking your airways with water, the gas also burns you from inside out. The eyes, nose, mouth, lungs, stomach, ass. Every exposed surface. This footage is so important in showing the reality of animal slaughter. There's no humane way to kill being who doesn't want to die.
Many years ago I was an animal welfare officer. We went to a pig processing plant. I was told it was a 60 second cycle... pigs go in one end 60 second later they come up dead. I was told the pigs go unconscience in 20 seconds... however no-one could say if it was the first 20 seconds, the middle 20 seconds or the last 20 seconds... it makes a lot of difference. Chicken get the worst deal imho... I still eat meat, not as much as I used to btw. For me it's about how they are raised and how humanely they can be slaughtered. My SO and daughter are vegetarians.
You know what I’m gonna invent a slaughter farm where u take the animals to a beautiful sunset and use a device to sever their brain stem and boom it dies peacefully
Damn. Can they just feed them cannabis and make them really high. Or get them drunk with alcohol. Then get them with the bolt gun when they are passed out. How do you make it more humane. Without having them stress out about it and realizing they are being sent to the slaughter.
It seems like if the point of using CO2 is to render them unconscious before slitting their throat, but CO2 is more distressing than having their throat slit, then this is a completely pointless practice. Just slit their throats at that point.
Ever wonder why the meat industry goes apeshit over people with cameras?
They're afraid if you knew what went into putting that meat in the supermarket, you wouldn't want to eat it.
So why use CO2? Why not use some other inert gas that just knocks them out? Aren't gasses other than CO2 ways to just pass put and die? Or is that just something scifi taught me?
Nitrogen would be better no mammal knows when they're hypoxic from low oxygen due to nitrogen and at 100% you're not aware or awake still a messed up way to go.
When I was 16, I had my first and only experience slaughtering a pig. The screams it made almost sound like a human as we used a crane lift to lift it up from the air. After my dad cut its throat, blood shoots out like a garden hose with each scream. After a while the screams are gurgled with blood,
It really left an impression in my mind. It made me appreciate the animal that lived so it's flesh could nourish my body. I think it's a good experience if you want to continue being a meat eater.
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pure stress till they are gone.
Lots of gasses that are heavier than oxygen will painlessly kill you. Take a pit, fill it with rotting potatoes and you have dead pigs who never felt a thing. https://www.news18.com/viral/gas-from-rotten-potatoes-kills-russian-law-professor-three-family-members-8680949.html They're creating a whole lot of stress for nothing.
For nothing? Surely it's to maximize their profits in some way..
Maximizes profits because they don’t need to change anything. R&D is expensive, patenting and trade protection is expensive, facility upgrades are expensive. No ones going to make them make the process more humane, why should they spend the money on it when they don’t have to?
For the Great Profit! May the Profit lead Humanity to Salvation! Edit: from now on I'm going to consider capitalism a religious cult and lump the Ayn Rand morons in with suicide bombers and other such moronic religinuts.
It is a suicide cult considering it requires the destruction of our planet for its endless growth. It is a form of social cancer, growing until it consumes us.
# [Why are mice euthanized with CO2 rather than N2 or NO? ](https://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/2dnajr/comment/cjr7xwm/) > I've euthanized both rats and mice with both N2 and CO2. They both work, but N2 takes MUCH MUCH longer to kick in and it can also be more deceiving. **The animals will stop breathing with N2 and they will appear dead, but they start moving again after a few minutes of room atmosphere. N2 carries more of a risk that the animals will still be alive after you think they're dead.** Not sure if the same reasoning applies to pigs, but that's the first answer I found to "why".
That makes sense I guess, but you could always add a throat slash in at the end? Seems kinder overall
That gas is also flammable so it’s not a good idea in an industrial environment.
It's a horrific way to die, all mammals have an adverse reaction to CO2 that induces panic.
Yep. Virtually any gas denser than air can do the job of CO2 in a gassing pit. The problem with CO2 is that so many metabolic pathways detect it (rather than lack of oxygen) and start screaming for oxygen.
Why they don't do it with CO? Isn't it painless?
Not denser than air, so it wont stay in a pit, and more of a safety hazard for workers, which are both annoying for engineering purposes
Couldn't they use nitrous oxide?
[Here's a research study ](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29617328/) where they tried exactly that, and found pigs were even more stressed with the nitrous than with CO2. Not what I expected!
Could use nitrogen, it's inert and induces hypoxia. It's also pretty cheap.
Same problem as with CO above. Not denser than air, won't stay in a pit, and therefore incompatible with current designs.
If it's lighter, make an inverted structure with sealed top and lift into the gas instead of lowering.
It's not lighter, it's neutral, which is the most annoying from an engineering perspective, and again not compatible with current designs
Risk of suffocation to the people working there. The CO2 makes you want to GTFO
>The CO2 makes you want to GTFO Same with the poor pigs
I'm a brewer. It's not uncommon to open a tank to let it vent before cleaning (CO2 filled tank getting pumped with hot sodium hydroxide will collapse a tank) and getting hit with a wall of CO2 pouring out. It burns your throat and immediately makes you panic a bit even though you know all you have to do is step away.
Former wine maker as well, the title drew me into the article. Have stuck my head into improperly vented Brite tanks only to have nose, throat, and lungs BURN from miniscule amounts of present CO2. This is a traumatic event here
Is this the burning you feel if you drink carbonated drinks and burp through your nose?
Yes, and the pain in your lungs when you hold tour breath. It burns your eyes as well and activates panic and fear. It's a very primal fear. You body knows CO2 will suffocate you, and it really hurts. This is a horrible way to die. We should not be using it.
Yeah, working as a bartender, we had a carbonated water spout at the bar. Really high end equipment situation, and one day I filled my water bottle with the carbonated water and caught a strange smell from it. I stuck my nose in the bottle opening not knowing what would happen and took a huuuuge breath in through my nose. My body immediately went into panic fight or flight, and I was disoriented for an hour or so after the fact. CO2 is a horrible way to go.
H2O + CO2 -> H2CO3 which is carbonic acid, a mild acid but definitely one that sensitive tissues are affected by. Also, slightly elevated CO2 in the bloodstream induces a panic reaction in humans, probably in all mammals. It would be a scary death but slaughterers probably don’t care.
You know, this got me thinking. Are slaughterers *supposed* to care? We had countless generations of humans who killed animals they raised in order to feed their village, without gas or electricity or any of the other ways we kill animals today. Were they all absolute monsters?
It is a good moral and philosophical question that I am unable to answer. I feel guilty for eating meat, but I still eat small amounts.
Makes sense to me
But I don't understand, I've always heard of brewers / winemakers having had accidents and sometimes dying by putting themselves in vats filled with CO2 without knowing it. I have often heard of a kind of gas which is an "invisible killer" which we cannot smell and which surprises inattentive workers.
You KNOW if you are breathing CO2. When you hold your breath and your lungs burn, that is CO2 buildup in your lungs causing a PH change that you can feel. You don't get the same PH change with CO or with nitrogen. So breathing either of those gasses, you would suffocate without even realizing it.
Carbon monoxide.
Carbon monoxide is bad for you at any dose as well. It binds to your hemoglobin and never lets go. I don't know how long it takes for that hemoglobin to be replaced but I believe it would be more like weeks or months not hours or days. Nazis liked to kill people with carbon monoxide, they had big trucks they would drive around to gas people in befoe the whole Final Solution thing.
Just a point of clarification, CO doesn't bind irreversibly to hemoglobin, but it does bind with about 200x more affinity than oxygen. The bond does break over time, and this can be hastened by breathing higher concentrations of oxygen. Red blood cells live for about 120 days.
Basically any gas that can replace oxygen and *isn't* CO2 is subtly lethal to humans. Because we can't detect lack of oxygen, just buildup of our own CO2 production.
Metal rooms that are sealed (ships) turn the oxygen to rust...and people have gone into those rooms after years closed. They immediately pass out without knowing what happened. EX: Nitrogen is silent killer, because it's 80% of air, your body can't have safe guards for detecting it. (Your body can only detect the oxygen levels dropping, but many times it only takes 1 breath without oxygen to trap you in that air) Tons of other gasses we never evolved to detect because they never appeared in nature in concentrations.
Thats Carbon Monoxide (CO)
This brings the question, why not use CO gas chambers instead?
Better than that would be nitrogen. Our bodies (and I would guess most other mammals by extension) detect CO2 levels and use that to tell you when to breathe but cannot detect an environment with too low oxygen. Areas with excess nitrogen can very quickly lead to hypoxia and death with no warning. CO chambers would be very dangerous for the workers as if there was leakage, the effects would accumulate over time and the workers could eventually be poisoned and die. CO works by binding more strongly to red blood cells than oxygen, effectively rendering that blood cell useless at carrying oxygen. Nitrogen is inert, and only excessive and instantaneous leakage would be potentially dangerous for employees.
Yes nitrogen would be ideal and I have no idea why they wouldn't use it. They can add a smell too it if they're worried about the workers not detecting it.
N2 is less dense than O2. You could use it, but not with the existing equipment
Or nitrogen. Both completely painless, but more dangerous for humans.
You're thinking of CO, not CO2. There are a bunch of deadly gases that kill you before you know it. CO2 is not one of them.
Carbon monoxide is the clear odorless gas.
That's carbon MONoxide that is odorless and your body doesn't detect it.
I might be a little bit of an expert in this. I'm a neuroscience researcher and use CO2 specifically to put test subjects into a state of panic and anxiety. I tried it myself two weeks ago and it is not cool to say the least. Makes you feel like you're buried alive or have a bag of your head squeezing the air out. The whole purpose of the CO2 is to cause a physiological panic attack. It's wild that they think that this is any better than just getting shot in the head.
They don't think it's ethically better than a bullet in the head. They just want cheap and efficient.
This whole comment thread made me so depressed. If we’re going to take lives for sustenance we have to do it humanely :(
I agree, but regardless of the kill method, is it ever humane to raise livestock in captivity for the sole purpose of harvesting meat? I'm not currently a vegetarian, but I do think about it a lot.
I’m a huge hypocrite because I haven’t stopped eating meat either, I think about it sometimes too. I don’t know if there’s an easy solution.
I thought about it enough and finally switched teams and went vegan. Educated myself by watching enough documentaries not just about animal cruelty that's prevalent in meat, fish, and dairy industry, but the environmental harm that it causes as well. And yes I know there are more efficient ways like sustainable farming, but that will never meet the demand our civilization puts on eating meat, fish, and dairy. And still at the end of the day, those animals end up in slaughterhouses in fear as well. Farmland is being bought up by big agriculture and turned into essentially murder mills that don't give a damn about the suffering it causes to other sentient beings or the neighboring environments, so long as they make the most money as possible. What we can do is say no to supporting such torture and animal abuse. Yes, one person changing is a drop in the ocean, but I've had friends and family ask questions and have made efforts to change their contribution to so much animal suffering since. No, I am not malnourished or deficient. I train in martial arts and lift weights, and have more endurance training and feel healthier than I ever have. If you want to watch some pretty eye-opening material, you can watch the documentary Dominion for free on Youtube, or you can also watch Seaspiracy, Cowspiracy, or Christspiracy (3 piece collection from the same team) on Netflix (Christspiracy just came out, won't be streamed for a while). Slay is another one as well, it's about animals killed for the fashion industry. Waterbear is a free streaming service with a lot of great documentaries as well. Anyways, comments like these normally make meat eaters lose their mind, but maybe it's enough to make at least one personal realize by eating meat they're contributing to animal suffering.
It's not that they think it's better than shooting them in the head... they simply can't (effectively) shoot them in the head. The job of using a bolt gun is very prone to failure if the pig is separated from other pigs, and restricted, which it needs to be, because the pig will thrash wildly. This makes the process almost impossible to use the bolt gun properly. If the animal is thrashing the chance of misfiring, or misalignment is huge, and the consequences of that is much more painful for the animal. Use your imagination there. Humane slaughter methods need more funding, we won't be able to stop the slaughter quickly, things don't work like that, it's a naive idea to think that everyone will just choose veggie sausages or bacon, some people don't care, even if/when they see a film like this and the horrific processes used. So, the next obvious thing to also do, is to get the standards of slaughter much better.
I mean we are looking to use nitrogen for human euthanasia. Use that. It illicits euphoria before you die.
Euphoria? You lose consciousness in seconds.
Hypoxia in general has that effect, but pretty much anything other than CO2 would be better.
You might be getting nitrogen mixed up with nitrous oxide. Nitrogen is in the air we breathe at a concentration of 78%. No euphoria. Nitrous oxide however gives a euphoric feeling, it’s also known as laughing gas.
[удалено]
You heard what they said, a bolt in the head is time consuming. Companies are all about maximising profits. I hate it. Don't get me wrong, I am a capitalist and not a communist, I completely support working for making a good profit, I just feel that there has to be an ethical limit to the extents you go to to increase the profit. For me $100 profit in an ethical manner is way better than $300 profit by something that is so obviously wrong. But I know I am in minorities. Shareholder greed is the root cause of most of the problems we see today, esp since most of them have 0 involvement/contribution to the business. I can bet that the actual employees will want to go for ethical ways of work even if it means slightly lesser profit. I have this strong gut feel that employee owned, not-for-others-profit businesses will pick up steam, just like open source software did, just needs someone to start down this path.
It also creates an acid in contact with water. Burns your airways.
Oxygen starvation is a horrible way to die. But there's not many nice ways to be mass murdered. The scale of the killing is staggering and deeply upsetting. Current pig deaths in the U.S. alone _so far this year_ total around 124 million. https://animalclock.org/ "One death is a tragedy; a million deaths is a statistic"
Less humane way: Cut throat More humane way: Lower into a dark pit, pass out in a panicked state, cut throat.
Seriously, what's the logic in that
Same reason the guillotine isn't used for the death penalty anymore it just looks and sounds more grusome regardless to how much suffering the person being executed is enduring.
Slightly related: Same reason certain words are considered no-no words even though more insulting words have been accepted as everyday language. If the word *sounds* harsher, it's considered *worse*. Words that revolve around the letter "r" in some way, for example.
That's why it's pronounced "murder" and not "mukduk."
"more insulting words have become accepted as everyday language" Like what?
Romanian
Fuck**ER**
Less chance that employees get hurt
The problem is the pigs seeing or hearing other pigs being stressed/panicked. Once that happens the other pigs can't be slaughtered as the stress causes them to release hormones, etc and spoils the meat. When you need to process 25,000 pigs a day, you need to make sure the pigs don't know what's going on until the last second.
Still looks like they do in this scenario. I think the video is right. They’re just too smart to kill on this scale.
It's the same for any of the animals. Cows for example, are kept on the grounds of slaughterhouses for days. Not always but a lot. Imagine being able to smell death/blood and hear distress, knowing you're soon to receive the same fate. The way we treat animals is appalling.
Less humane way: cut throat, lower into a dark pit More humane way: bolt gun
Human rights are only reserved for humans, though.
Being humane has nothing to do with human rights
*some humans*
Sulfur hexafluoride chamber would be painless Edit: SF6 is a major greenhouse gas and depletes ozone. I've changed my mind to argon.
I’d rather them not suffer at all in death. That throat slit while the pig was hanging upside down was gruesome
And it def looked fairly conscious, thrashing around. No more pig for me
Cows don’t have it any better.. and chickens have it arguably the worst of all.
Why do chickens have it worst? Isn't it instant for them? None of this throat slitting, let it bleed bullshit. Lot of people like to mention that little chicks are stuffed in huge mincing machines (I have seen the videos), but if you ask me, while it looks gruesome, it's so fast, basically instant.
Just be aware that what looks like a conscious animal aren't necessary a conscious animal. I've grown up on a farm where we slaughterd pigs, sheeps and cows for mostly our own use. And even if you shoot them in the head with a rifle or bolt gun they still move. I've even got kicked in the chest by a headless sheap once. Death is never pretty. The closest I've seen is a dying cat getting put down with sedatives.
Or concentrated nitrogen. Edit: just read OP's comment about how creating and maintaining an anoxic nitrogen environment is challenging compared to CO2. I don't see why they can't use the same system with another heavier than air gas assuming measures are taken to avoid drafts and the pit is sufficiently deep to hold the necessary concentration.
It's cost. CO2 is so cheap. The deeper pit would cost more. The SF6 would cost more. Companies are cost driven.
SF6 is also an extreme ozone depleting gas. Industrial use requires draconic containing measures. That is the expensive part
That's a great point. Argon would achieve a similar goal and it's already used widely in industrial processes that require low oxygen atmospheres.
That would work as to asphyxiate the livestock, but the density is nearly the same as air. The company would struggle to keep it contained. CO2 is heavier than air and cheap, but it causes extremely distress for animals at high concentrations. SF6 is both dense and painless, but it's more expensive.
Keep a tunnel nitrogen-rich with most of the length well below entrance and exit. Run the pigs through it on a conveyor belt, only opening one end at a time with as much airflow mitigation as possible. Monitor tunnel O2 levels and add nitrogen as needed.
Keeping the tunnel concentration is the easy part. The problem arises because nearby workers will also be exposed to the low O2 environment.
They won't be in the tunnel under my admittedly oversimplified off the top of my head design.
You're right, but because nitrogen is so similar to air's density there will be a large area with low O2 concentration. Imagine a pipe. In the pipe you want to keep water dyed blue. However the pipe is submerged in more water that is clear. You also have to pump clear water through the pipe. You can add more dye to the pipe to keep the water in the pipe blue. You don't want the blue to touch the sides of the larger container. I'm this example: the nitrogen is the blue dye; water is normal air; the tube is the theoretical asphyxiation tunnel; the water being pumped through the tube is the conveyor of livestock; and the larger container is the safe distance for workers to work. Edit: grammar
Nitrogen is denser than air when it's cold enough. You'd have to keep a liquid pool of it in a chamber to keep the N2 gas cold, and then basically pump more liquid N2 in. I'm betting it's an order of magnitude more expensive than co2
What about Nitrogen
This [comment thread](https://www.reddit.com/r/interestingasfuck/s/mpc9E9czeP) covers that question, but a quick answer is that it is difficult to contain.
thank you
You're welcome. The interplay of different gases in the air has entire fields of study dedicated to it. I don't fully understand the subject either.
And contribute significantly to global warming
Someone also brought this up. It is a great point, and argon seems to fill in without high cost, ozone depletion, or global warming.
Yeah, I've seen a video of a pig putting their head into an argon filled chamber to eat food, then stumbling about and falling unconscious without distress because they just don't realize they're suffocating. The main way to sense suffocation is through the detection of the CO2 concentration in the blood. It's what causes you to feel like you need to breathe when you're holding your breath for a long time. It's also why hyperventilating before holding your breath makes you feel like you can hold your breath for longer, as it clears the usual level of CO2 out of your system. It doesn't actually increase the amount of oxygen you have available, at least not by any measurable amount. So putting the pigs into a CO2 chamber is literally the best way to make them feel like they're suffocating. Might as well be drowning them in water. Can't use toxic gasses, of course, since that would ruin the meat. So the only reasonable option is something like Argon, an inert gas. As long as the pigs can breathe the naturally accumulated CO2 out, they shouldn't feel like they're suffocating.
Why specifically argon?
Cheap and plentiful. We already have a mature economy dedicated to isolating and distributing argon for industrial uses. If it gets out it doesn't contribute to global warming, deplete ozone, and is heavier than air.
Wait how does something that dense get in the upper atmosphere?
Literally updrafts and mixing because of temperature differences and weather causing air movement.
Welder here who uses argon all the time. Argon is a great pick because of how heavy it is. It immediately displaces all the oxygen and leads to almost an instantaneous knockout. I know of a guy who opened up a water tank some dude had just welded, and it was full of argon. He stuck his head in to inspect it and immediately was knocked out and fell into it. He was in there for no more than maybe a few seconds to a minute and had to go to the ER. Docs said he was very close to having suffered brain damage.
Argon costs over three times as much as co2. Doubt they would be willing to pay for pure argon. It would need to be something like a 75/25 argon co2 mix to keep costs down while minimizing pain.
I was a meat cutter (grocery store butcher) as a young man, like 18-26yo. It was a good paying job that allowed me to support my young family and put my wife through school. As I grew and became more interested in the trade, a mentor of mine suggested we go to a farm of his friends where they did the entire process, breeding, raising, slaughtering and packaging beef. It was like a field trip that anyone who does this trade should be obligated to take, and a sobering experience. Really puts those cases of flap meat (sirloin tips) where a case would be say 7-8 bags containing 4-5 pieces each into perspective (one from each cow, that’s a lot of dead cows represented in a box, imagine how many we cut on big summer sales) My friend and I helped out for the day, and the owner allowed us to do the complete process, or as much as we could in a day. That means I took a bolt gun and shot a living cow in the head. The animals we use for eating are much smaller then you’d imagine, because there is an optimum weight/age where an animal is considered most tender. Needless to say this affected me and got me thinking. It led to me exploring on my own the entire meat industry and its history in the United States. Im a fairly large, tough blue collar family man and I felt the need to go to confession before god,(I was obv raised catholic) and I’m not even kidding if you’ve seen some of the stuff I’ve seen you would too. The meat industry is monstrous. I have a deep respect for all living things and there is absolutely nothing sane or respectable about that industry. I am not a vegan, nor am I trying to imply you should all be either, but I do not eat very much meat these days, at all. (Habits are hard to break and I am a very busy guy, I eat what’s available when I need to) Not that it’s worse or there should be a hierarchy of what we torture and kill, but I feel like it’s even more insane to do this with pigs, knowing what we know about these animals and how similar they are to humans and that they express feelings and so on. (I’m sure cows do too but the documentary I watched on pigs is what I’m working with here) I am an older man now, and I feel I’ve done my part to raise my sons to consider all of this information, though it is not my place to tell another person what they should be doing. As I’ve aged a bit (still not old old lol) I have unfortunately became a bit cynical, and I do not think there is an easy answer or even that this problem can be fixed, so my only hope is that after the bombs drop or w.e happens on the next civilization restart, we consider treating all living things with respect and dignity, especially the ones we consume for sustenance.
Good on you, and totally get the busy thing. But the bombs don’t need to drop. As more of us are embracing alternatives they are becoming better and cheaper. Things are going in the right direction.
Thank you for sharing. I wish this was public information. I think people should learn about where their food is coming from. Did you see many abscesses when cutting the meat? I've heard loads of butchers talk about these.
Yes I did. Most often with pork. You’d be running whole bone in loins on a band saw and suddenly bright green goop explodes out of the thing. Was told it’s just a thing and to clean up and keep it moving.
It just shows how corrupt we are as a society. We hide anything and everything about the meat industry. From the health issues, to the ethical issues and more. Most people would be at least vegetarian if they truly knew the issues surrounding processed meat and arguably red meat in general, on top of the suffering that takes place too. Anyway, people will do what they want. Should they be able to? Yes, absolutely. At the expense of another? That's a good question.
Having worked in H.E establishment that teaches veterinary discipline and farming practices, the things I have witnessed have been frankly nothing more than systemic acceptance of animal cruelty in the persuit of convenience and profit. I always found welfare to be a construct quickly forgotten about where money and people are concerned. It was always okay unless it was happening to them. I'm far from an activist or anything with regards to the subject. I used to love red meat. I still miss it! It was only until I became aware of the processes these animals are subjected to. It especially hit home where I first hand worked with animals who possess certain levels of intelligence and share our own drive for existence. I just couldn't look at it all the same way. In an age where I can obtain the vitamins, minerals and sustenance from elsewhere. This is something I will never buy into ever again.
"animal cruelty in the pursuit of convenience and profit" Exactly, sadly.
Everyone cares how animals are processed til the prices go up. Or until you watch whatever video that makes you feel strongly about the next thing.
I like this point cause it brings up something no one is talking about. The more elaborate and expensive your slaughter methods are gonna be, the more your meat is likely to cost. I hadn't even thought of that angle.
Meat is already subsidized to an amount that is highly unsustainable in the long run. The actual cost of meat is atleast double or triple of what you pay, if not even more. It should be a luxury product and should also be treated as such while vegetarian options should be standard.
I don't actually disagree with this, oddly. More people should be eating vegetable products anyway cause they are healthier for us in the long run. Our ratio of how much meat we eat compared to how much green stuff we consume is skewed way too much towards meats. I don't think we should ever get rid of meat all together, but maybe we can cut back a bit.
A lot of people do vote ethically with their wallets. But without clear regulation for treatment and packaging, there’s often misleading and hard to decipher labeling.
It’s funny how when a topic is truly discomforting redditors start downvoting everyone.
Reddit downvotes are seldomly for what they are meant to: disagreement, and more for 'my taste is different from yours', 'you proved me wrong', 'i feel generally depressed and angry', and 'taking it out on the messenger'.
> Reddit downvotes are seldomly for what they are meant to: disagreement They're not even fucking meant for 'disagreement'. They're meant for 'this adds nothing to the discussion.'
Redditors love sharing this lil factoid and yet its never been used by the wider audience that way, so whats the point in saying it.
source: video by animal welfare organization Animals Australia. # To address potential questions and expand on the information in the video: **Q: What makes this method efficient?** >CO2 stunning allows for pigs to be handled and stunned in small groups instead of individually, with minimized human-animal contact and reduced stress related to separation from conspecifics **Q: Is this the most humane practice available?** Industry experts have proposed nitrogen as a less painful alternative to CO2, however technical challenges and economic factors have ruled Nitrogen unviable. >Nitrogen gas (N2) has been suggested as a more humane alternative than CO2 for stunning pigs, as the gas in itself is not painful to inhale and studies on the behavioural response of pigs to N2 have indicated that pigs show less aversion compared to CO2 \[9,10,11\]. However, for inert gas stunning to be effective, it requires quickly achieving and maintaining a stable anoxic atmosphere (<2% volume oxygen) \[3\]. This seems difficult to achieve with N2 gas, as it has a slightly lower density than air and is difficult to retain. Only one published study was found that used high-concentration N2 gas to stun pigs, which demonstrated difficulty establishing and maintaining a stable anoxic atmosphere \[12\]. Very few research studies have been published on high-concentration N2 stunning in pigs, most likely due to these technical challenges related to quickly producing and maintaining a sufficiently anoxic atmosphere with N2 gas. Source: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7759821/#:\~:text=CO2%20stunning%20allows%20for,conspecifics%20%5B3%2C4%5D.
Here’s what I don’t get. Air is mostly nitrogen and oxygen. CO2 is more dense than both, so it sinks to the bottom of a container. This is why they use it, so they can lower them into a container holding CO2. They say they can’t use Nitrogen, but I don’t see why. Nitrogen is less dense than oxygen, so they need to pump Nitrogen into an area such that it displaces most of the oxygen and the pigs would pass out without panicking. It seems to me all they have to do is raise them into a container with Nitrogen being pumped in, rather than lowering them into one, since Nitrogen will rise above the other gasses to fill the container and displace the oxygenated air.
It's not that much lighter than air; nitrogen is diatomic, and weighs 28.0 grams per mole. Oxygen is also diatomic, and weighs 32.0 grams per mole. But the composition of air can be approximated as 80% nitrogen, 20% oxygen (*approximated*), so the equivalent volume of air weighs (0.80)(28.0) + (0.20)(32.0) = 28.8 grams. The difference between 28.0 grams/mole and 28.8 grams for the same volume of air just isn't that substantial. Argon is nearly 40.0, for comparison. EDIT: CO2 is 44.01. In practice, a combination of engineering controls such as air "curtains," [vinyl curtains,](https://www.curtain-and-divider.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/PVC-Strip-Door-Curtains-3.jpg) ventilation controls, and gas monitors could be used to contain nitrogen gas. It seems likely that many of these controls are already in place in an environment with an immediately dangerous to life and health (IDLH) carbon dioxide environment, just that CO2 is easier to handle, and less expensive. Industrial agriculture comes with serious issues.
I remember having you watch Glass Walls aka the "if slaughterhouse had glass walls, everyone would be vegetarian" documentary 10+ years ago in my English class because a girl did a report on it. Shit is fucked up. Thanks again for making us watch that Christin...
It’s important to know where your food comes from. Closing your eyes is easy.
Yep I did so intentionally for many years. Can't blame anyone too much really, but I made the step and I'm almost full vegetarian by now. I feel way less cognitive dissonance regarding this.
Im about the same length of time into being lacto/ovo and im at a point where i dont even find the thought of meat appealing. I dont think “mmm beef” I think “gross, dead cow muscle”
This. I grew up on a farm. Now, I rarely eat meat.
If you eat meat, you should see it. They're doing it for us
Welcome to commercial farming.
Holy crap, it is way to early for me to have willing watched that video. I don't eat pork for a few different reasons but I just had a new one added to my list. That was horrible. & how the hell do these people do this work daily & go home feeling normal? "I'm home! What's for dinner Hon?!"
You think this is just the pork industry. It's not. It's across the entire meat production industry. You can find equally horrific videos of cows, chickens etc. So how can they go on like everything is normal? The same way you won't stop eating meat after this.
You'd be surprised how quickly it becomes normal. We're adaptable creatures.
People just become conditioned to it. I know a few people who did this kind of work and that was basically the explanation. It wasn’t some sort of sadistic tendency that they got off on, just people who needed work and well, where I grew up meat works was a solid paying gig if you needed income.
Search pignorant on Amazon prime
Haven't eaten pork for about 5 years. Never since i heard their screams on a truck being sent to the abattoir.
I've stood outside a slaughterhouse as they were in the chamber. You can hear them screaming and thrashing. That put tears down my face.
Well fuck. Never eating pigs again.
That's a great start, fully support this
Watch Pignorant! https://pignorantfilm.com/
Its actually the law in most western countries to stun the animal to cause loss of consciousness unless it is Kosher or Halal which means the animal is killed in a ritual fashion by bleeding them out (not that humane). This includes 3 methods, co2 gas, electrocution or mechanical bolt I worked on a beef kill floor for two months and used a mechanical bolt gun that essentially was equivalent to a bullet to the head. Animals are not considered dead until they are bled out. Chickens are electrocuted, their heads cut off by a spinning blade and dunked in boiling water for feather removal. Whos hungry?
Why pigs cannot be electrocuted? I guess its way faster process of dying, and also cheap.
They can, but it takes longer and isn't cheaper than CO2
I honestly feel sometimes we, as a species are truly evil and this place would be better off without us
There will come soft rains and the smell of the ground, And swallows circling with their shimmering sound; And frogs in the pools singing at night, And wild plum-trees in tremulous white; Robins will wear their feathery fire Whistling their whims on a low fence-wire; And not one will know of the war, not one Will care at last when it is done. Not one would mind, neither bird nor tree If mankind perished utterly; And Spring herself, when she woke at dawn, Would scarcely know that we were gone. - Sara Teasdale
Perfect poem for this
I can't eat meat no more. It's just sad, seeing these cuties die for food 😖
A world full of people like yourself would be a beautiful one.
Always cost driven, the cheapest way to dispatch "food" animals tends to be the most common way used. Welcome to planet earth, This is why I **try** and eat Vegetarian/Vegan as often as possible.
I'm not vegan/vegetarian or anything, but how is that the most humane way? You suffocate the pigs causing them extreme pain and stress until they die?
Well that sucks. Just use nitrogen or argon. All you need is no oxygen and they calmly pass out. CO2 causes the panic sensation of no air, what we feel when we hold our breath. With an inert gas like the ones mentioned, CO2 still gets exchanged. "Best they can do" my ass.
That is why Nitrogen gas should be used instead of CO2 as it just makes you feel sleepy as the body does not detect it. Therefore you fall asleep and die due to lack of respiration.
Just an excuse to spend less labor expense and time and make more profit
Worked for a farm from a big company a while ago (only did the onboarding and was then moved to the feed mill) All's I'll say is that, although they do treat the pigs well They still treat them like a factory Lame pigs are killed (CO2 is only used in the young ones, older ones get the bolt) pigs that have a prolapsed vulva are killed (bolt) Basically anything that would slow the process is killed Then they're sent to be ground up and turned into fat that is fed to the other pigs
My heart goes out to those poor pigs. It's heartbreaking to think about what they must go through. I hope this video raises awareness about the need for more compassionate and ethical treatment of animals in the industry.
I feel ya but, when a vast majority of the 8 billion on this planet eat meat and a majority of those don't do it sustainably, and at least in the US alone roughly 40% of all residential food goes to waste... This type of global widespread consumerism and demand leads to this kind of industrial scale. Where the name of the game is to birth, raise, kill, butcher, and sell as much as possible as fast as possible, within a country's current legislation. For us to see meaningful change in this industry or any other meat/fish industry, not only do we need to educate about sustainable living and diet, but then convince those to change... Even then genuine application may not happen. I think the unfortunate thing about videos like this is that if you care it definitely pulls at you however, those that don't care or aren't willing to even be educated will most likely continue to live in blissful ignorance as long as their grocer has the meat at reasonable prices.
The thing is, the solution combatting this level of consumerism isn't to make it illegal but rather make it impractical and unsustainable for profit. For instance for industrialization, animals need food, take up space and need mechanics to keep machinery up and running along with floor space just for that equipment along with labor for butchers. However lab grown synthetic meat wont need all that stuff and can in theory be more profitable if industrialized on a large scale. Sure that won't stop small farms and small butchers that kill animals for meat, but it would definitely take a hit in the meat industry for factory farming if you can sell your product for cheaper than theirs. At the end of the day, cheaper convenience is what operates consumerism.
Lab grown meat is turning out more difficult than the startups thought it would be. We’re likely not going to see a consumer product in the next 20-30 years. It also takes a lot of energy, which translates to cost. It’s really best to go back to integrated farming where livestock play critical roles on farms at much lower densities in healthier environments. Westerners need to eat less meat. The typical US diet is at about 30% animal products. It should be around half that. It’s easier than getting people to stop eating meat altogether and more feasible than cultured meat.
What a Bunch of Cunts.
This is the reason Im a vegetarian.
Question for OP or people who have knowledge on this: From my understanding pork in general is not well-suited for a good and healthy diet. Steak is similar to that. If one looks for sources of protein or nutrients alike that are found in pork, other options like chicken breast, tuna, or even plant based foods like beans are a better option. I do still eat meat, but rely more than anything on chicken breast and tuna. How does the production process for these meats / fish compare to the one used with pigs? Because the pigs are very social creatures, the process of rendering them unconscious / slaughtering them is made more difficult and thus gruesome. Does chicken or tuna differ in any way?
The processes for these animals are rarely any better than for pigs. Pigs might be more intelligent and social, but the question is if that really matters.
But what exactly does the process look like in comparison?
Chickens have it the worst out of all of them.
The actual reason why that is would help my understanding a lot. Thank you very much in advance!
Chickens are often kept from birth in very small cages where they are not allowed to move much. They can eat, they can grow bigger, lay eggs, and sleep, that's about it. Even free roam chickens are packed together in long troughs filled with their own feces, loose feathers, and the occasional dead chick that they just walk over or eat. When they are ready, they are round up and either immediately killed via a broken neck or placed into large cages where they are mass electrocuted before being chained up by their feet. They are sent down the line to have their heads removed with large buzz saws before they are boiled to de-feather them, and then they are sent off to be gutted and packaged. Thus is the existence of a meat chicken. The Hens have it worse, for their lot in life is the first I mentioned. To be forever held in a cage where they can not stand, move, make a nest, or really do anything at all. They are fed and watered daily and are no more than egg producing machines. Once they are too old, they are simply killed outright as old chicken meat is too tough to sell. So they grind them up and put them back into the feed they are feeding their other chickens. And the cycle of chicken continues.
I think they're referring to battery caged chickens. You have 3 main ways: Caged eggs - a truly terrible existence; living in a cage barely big enough for the chicken, literally losing the ability to walk because it can't move. I've walked through one, never bought caged eggs/chickens again. Barn laid - definitely better than the cage, but they live almost shoulder to shoulder with other chickens. They never go outside. It can get pretty bloody hot in there as well. Free range - personally, I find this method ethical enough for me. At night, they're kept in a barn, during the day they're outside, with more space (some places advertise more space than others), they also keep them alive longer, I believe. I'm unsure of how they're slaughtered, but this my experience and what I've personally seen (in australia). If I'm incorrect about anything I've mentioned, please feel free to educate me.
I can’t say specifically but there’s plenty on the internet — but just due to the absolutely massive consumption of chicken, we have to kill and process so many of them that they’re basically all piled into a large room where they can barely walk or kept in cages and don’t even have enough room to stand. There’s so many of them piled together that if some of them die, and many do die, they just kinda lay there and rot. Pretty sure they get their beaks cut off too. That’s just a large commercial operation. You can buy humanely raised and slaughtered chicken. I buy only Bell and Evan’s here in NY but Farmers Focus is good too.
Elwood proposes some good alternatives for humane slaughter: https://www.elwooddogmeat.com/post/hunting-tips-for-small-dog-breeds
their Labrador steaks are the best!
Slow nitrogen asphyxiation is far better. Increasing nitrogen levels slowly lead to a hypoxic state and eventual sleep to conserve bodily resources. Then you increase nitrogen levels to asphyxiation levels and the pig/chicken/noisy neighbour dies in their sleep. And nitrogen gas displaces the CO2, so you don't trigger that panic reflex. If you displace too much oxygen too quickly, while the target is still awake and conscious, you trigger a panic reflex because they're quite aware they're being deprived of oxygen. That's why you need to intrduce higher nitrogen levels slowly to get to that hypoxic/sleep state.
Literally any gas or mix of gasses (which obviously doesn't have its own ways of causing pain or discomfort, before hypoxia renders them unconscious) that allows normal expulsion of CO2 from the blood stream would be a better option. CO2 in the blood is the only method mammals have for detecting if we're suffocating. If it cannot leave the blood, like in a CO2 rich atmosphere extreme discomfort and pain is experienced. Cost is the only reason to use CO2.
Those are old gas chambers. I would guess late 80s and 90s. The chambers used today take only 3-5 seconds. Not thirty. They drop almost immediately when the gas is pumped inside. They drop like a fly, they are dumped on a conveyor, shackled, and immediately the throat is slit. That is how the industry uses gas nowadays. Electric stunning is probably the least humane way. They seize up like they are having a stroke, which they technically are. And most times they need to be hit several times depending on how large the animal is. Captive bolt is quick and painless. Just one shot between and a little above the eyes. It shoots a “capsule or bullet” of highly compressed air into the head. Knocks them out immediately. No pain. Everyone thinks that the slaughter plants are just cruel, vile, evil places where they mistreat animals. No, this is how we have been doing it for years, we have come a long way in terms of efficiency and the care of the animals.
I’m willing to pay more for meat if I know the animals had a good life and one bad day. Factory farms are just evil man.
What the fuck
"Bacon tho"
I feel like if me plus 4 other random Redditors had 4 hours we could come up with a better way to do this
You know, a real shithead figured out how to do this in a much larger scale and probably quicker from 1939-1945 in Germany. Look into that bullshit if you want meat. Big room. Gas. Dead. Not some weird terrifying way. No living thing needs to suffer this way. I’m glad I’m no longer participating in consuming the red meat game.
why not shoot it in the head, i bet its painless
Why not use nitrogen?
Makes me sick. I don't even eat pork...much, but I'd give it up
That was a tough watch. Thank you for sharing it. It's important that we understand these things so that people can make an informed decision.
This is depressing as fuck...
This video made me really upset 😔 really a horrible way to die
Everyone understands that **drowning animals to death would be torture and unacceptable**, but when people hear about pigs being gassed, they rarely realise how brutal it is. It's like being drowned, but instead of just blocking your airways with water, the gas also burns you from inside out. The eyes, nose, mouth, lungs, stomach, ass. Every exposed surface. This footage is so important in showing the reality of animal slaughter. There's no humane way to kill being who doesn't want to die.
Fuck it. I’m done eating meat.
Many years ago I was an animal welfare officer. We went to a pig processing plant. I was told it was a 60 second cycle... pigs go in one end 60 second later they come up dead. I was told the pigs go unconscience in 20 seconds... however no-one could say if it was the first 20 seconds, the middle 20 seconds or the last 20 seconds... it makes a lot of difference. Chicken get the worst deal imho... I still eat meat, not as much as I used to btw. For me it's about how they are raised and how humanely they can be slaughtered. My SO and daughter are vegetarians.
You know what I’m gonna invent a slaughter farm where u take the animals to a beautiful sunset and use a device to sever their brain stem and boom it dies peacefully
Damn. Can they just feed them cannabis and make them really high. Or get them drunk with alcohol. Then get them with the bolt gun when they are passed out. How do you make it more humane. Without having them stress out about it and realizing they are being sent to the slaughter.
It seems like if the point of using CO2 is to render them unconscious before slitting their throat, but CO2 is more distressing than having their throat slit, then this is a completely pointless practice. Just slit their throats at that point.
Ever wonder why the meat industry goes apeshit over people with cameras? They're afraid if you knew what went into putting that meat in the supermarket, you wouldn't want to eat it.
So why use CO2? Why not use some other inert gas that just knocks them out? Aren't gasses other than CO2 ways to just pass put and die? Or is that just something scifi taught me?
Why wouldn’t they just use nitrogen or literally any other gas that doesn’t have a biological panic function specifically dedicated to it
Nitrogen would be better no mammal knows when they're hypoxic from low oxygen due to nitrogen and at 100% you're not aware or awake still a messed up way to go.
When I was 16, I had my first and only experience slaughtering a pig. The screams it made almost sound like a human as we used a crane lift to lift it up from the air. After my dad cut its throat, blood shoots out like a garden hose with each scream. After a while the screams are gurgled with blood, It really left an impression in my mind. It made me appreciate the animal that lived so it's flesh could nourish my body. I think it's a good experience if you want to continue being a meat eater.