Slaughterhouse Blues: The Meat and Poultry Industry in North America (Case Studies on Contemporary Social Issues)

Exactly the book I needed for college

I read this book while we were fighting a massive hog slaughter plant that tried to locate in our town in Iowa. It was VERY helpful. Lots of good information about the destruction of small towns when huge slaugherhouses move in to use and abuse the town's resources and use and abuse the workers they move into the town. We beat the plant. I hope others who read the book win their war with big ag, too. We even had a community meeting with the author attending by video hookup. He is very accessible and willing to help his readers.

As a textbook, Slaughterhouse Blues is successful on several levels. It covers the meat and poultry processing industry from various angles - that of the consumers, the communities, the business interests, and the employees. If you are studying social aspects of the business, or the ethical issues, or the logistics of locating in an existing community, or the labor side of things, you will find several chapters to address your questions. In fact, you'll probably come up with two questions for every one that is answered by the book. This will be great material for discussions and problem solving exercises.The authors have real life experience in advising communities how to deal with the changes that a large meat or poultry processing plant brings. They've spent years at different locations in the U.S. and Canada observing, studying, interviewing, and advising.Slaughterhouse Blues also works as a very informative and provocative account of the meat and poultry processing industry for the general reader. I read it straight through and I'm neither a teacher nor a student. The opening chapters on how beef, chicken, pork processing works is fairly graphic, but if you are reading this far, you're probably already familiar with the general nature of processing. It's no less disturbing for being familiar, and you'd think that anyone who knows what goes on in one of these plants would be an avowed vegetarian. But the authors claim to be enthusiastic meat eaters, and I can believe it. I still eat meat, although it seems to be less every year.By far the most interesting chapters, in my opinion, are about how the plants affect communities. No matter how eager a community is for the new jobs a plant will provide, there are never enough residents to fill the jobs. They always have to recruit from outside the community. Whether because the jobs are unpleasant and physically demanding and many North Americans don't want those jobs, or because the plant owners want to hire the cheapest possible labor, the majority of jobs end up being filled by new immigrants. This creates new demands on community resources due to language differences and new customs (such as the abusive treatment of wives and children in some cultures). The low wages create a need for food and housing assistance. The nature of meat processing causes issues of waste disposal, water usage, the smell, the effects of byproducts (such as ammonia) on residents and employees. And so on.Slaughterhouse Blues has vital information for those involved in labor relations, public health issues, local government planning, anthropology, social work, or those who are studying for careers in those fields.

This book, Slaughterhouse Blues: The Meat and Poultry Industry in North America, by Donald Stull and Michael Broadway, is really a terrific overview of the beef, pork, and poultry industries in the US. I would rate is as very critical of the industrialization of the meat industry, and sympathetic to the animal and human costs of this industrialization. This complements other books targeting the consequences of a demand for meat (for example, and appropriately named,  Meat: A Benign Extravagance . It does not discuss seafood and the seafood industry, nor the sheep, goat, or turkey industries.You'll get a taste (pun intended) for the history and evolution of beef, poultry, and pork production practices, learn about the folk who are against meat-eating or want to reform the treatment of food animals, and read about the cost and benefits of these industries to local communities.The book length makes this a great, short read for discussion groups and classrooms.

This is a serious academic study of the impact of slaughterhouse technology on its workers and on the American food system. Particularly interesting is the relationship between increased efficiency/productivity and the injury rate among workers. You may never forget the description of a hog-raising facility in chapter 4 or the discussion of the difference between stated company objectives and real work-place culture. There is an excellent discussion of the effects of the industry on the small communities in which they tend to be located.For any student of the history and culture of food, it's an indispensable book, one that's likely to be cited more than it's read. Unfortunately for that student, the prose makes for pretty rough going and the editing makes things worse. One fellow is charged with cropping hogs' 'tales' and a few paragraphs later, cheerfully 'waives' goodbye. Still, taken a chapter at a time, or used as a reference, it's extremely worthwhile.

Written for classroom use, Slaughterhouse Blues offers a concise look at American meat proceessing and the complex social and economic factors that have created today's industry. As other reviewers have correctly stated, the information will not be new to people who already question the long term benefits of factory farms, the diversion of grain from human consumption to animal diet, the increased use of GMOs and the many ways that individuals and communities are negatively impacted by these mega meat producers. For those who may just be starting to ask questions, this book does offer the average adult reader a comprehensive and comprehensible introduction to an important contemporary issue. I would also recommend  Animal Factory: The Looming Threat of Industrial Pig, Dairy, and Poultry Farms to Humans and the Environment and  Forks Over Knives .

Vegan groups like to expose the hidden practices of the meat industry as reasons why people shouldn't eat meat, but there are ways to raise and process meats humanely. SLAUGHTERHOUSE BLUES shares what it is like behind-the-scenes in the meat-making process to see what impact it has on our society. Gory at times and downright frightening at others, I bet you won't be able to stop reading.