The industrial slaughter of animals for food is not something that we like to think about – and thanks to modern production methods, we don’t have to. From the point of view of most consumers, the whole messy business takes place out of sight and out of mind.
But what would we see behind the slaughterhouse doors if we could? The answer, according to the author Timothy Pachirat, is surprisingly little – a conclusion based on his own experience as a worker at an industrial abattoir in Kansas. Interviewed in the Atlantic he describes just how few people actually witness the process of killing:
One might think that this effort to minimise human exposure to the act of slaughter would represent a bottleneck in terms of meat production. Yet, astoundingly, abattoirs (of the kind that Pachirat worked in) ‘process’ five animals every minute – hence the title of his eye-opening book: Every Twelve Seconds.
Of course, the efficiency of this killing infrastructure is a key reason why meat is so abundant and affordable. With vegetarianism apparently in decline, one can therefore expect the slaughterhouse conveyor belts to keep turning. But that is no reason not be aware of what others do on our behalf.