Environmentalists caution that we need to slow carbon emissions quickly or risk a catastrophic change to our climate. With world leaders and non-profit organisations meeting this month at COP26 in Glasgow, one thing is certain, say representatives from the Slow Food movement, based in Italy: 

The same old corporate solutions of a tech fix such as hydroponics and fake meat (see Leonardo Dicaprio and meatballs) will not save us from climate change. 

This announcement was made by Slow Food after a two-day summit on nature and land use to slow carbon emissions was concluded. 

Slow Food leaders say we are just about sustainable agriculture without considering the food system as a whole. The proposed solutions that emerged seemed to go in two different and separate directions, presented as complementary: reforestation on the one hand and technological innovation in agriculture on the other.

“The only approach that can effectively contribute to building a truly sustainable food system is that of agroecology,” Slow Food makes clear. “It should be recognized as a central tool to tackle the multiple crises we face, including the climate crisis: agroecology is rooted in rebuilding relationships between agriculture and the environment, and between food systems and society.

If not agroecology and regenerative agriculture we are witnessing the recycling of an old model, which keeps considering food as a series of commodities to be produced on a large scale, with monocultures assisted by futuristic technologies that will make farmers increasingly dependent on large multinational companies and their patents.

To shift our global economy to a low carbon model, authorities want to continue following the corporate narrative of high tech, centralised industrialised farming and fake meat, Slow Food criticises.  

“One of the events at COP today was about ‘Accelerating a just rural transition to sustainable agriculture’. For us, a just transition must be based on biodiversity, agroecology and social justice – and not on techno-fixes,” says Marta Messa, Director of Slow Food Europe, comments: 

She adds: “Agricultural ecosystems must be restored in harmony with the natural environment. Techno fixes are a false solution, they are not based on the real innovations that communities come up with to be resilient. We want to see by the end of COP26 binding commitments and no empty promises”. 

Agroecology, or regenerative farming, is sustainable farming that works with nature. Ecology is the study of relationships between plants, animals, people, and their environment – and the balance between these relationships. Agroecology is the application of ecological concepts and principals in farming.

I think one of the problems about the climate change discussion at COP26 or in general is that we give too much power and credence to the United Nations, a highly politicised group that is slow to move and even slower to take action. But if not them, who else can influence large companies and governments to shift away from fossil fuels? How can we connect one-by-one, but as a whole, to make a shift? Do we keep screaming like Greta or do we start taking action in a new way – using old tools like agroecology? 

 

The post Slow Food rallies against fake meat and techno fixes at COP26 appeared first on Green Prophet.

Consumers envision cultivated meat to be a significant part of the meat market; Study reveals compelling support among young Britons and Americans.

The research, published on May 11, 2021 by the journal Foods, affirms that cultivated meat is likely to make up a major part of consumers’ future diets. The study showed patterns of greater openness to trying such products by younger generational groups: 87-89% of Gen Z adults, 84-85% of Millennials, 76-77% of Gen X, and 70-74% of Boomers were at least somewhat open to trying cultivated meat. 

Led by Keri Szejda, the researchers surveyed a large, representative sample of 2,018 US and 2,034 UK consumers, assessing indicators of adoption among the general population, and by generational segments.

The majority of consumers surveyed were not familiar with cultivated meat, yet upon being presented with a description of the innovation, the respondents, on average, imagined that cultivated meat could make up about 40% of their future meat intake, with conventional meat constituting around 60%. 

Lab-grown meat on the market includes companies like Memphis Meats, Mosa Meat and Aleph Farms. They differ from meat alternative companies such as and which use plant proteins such as peas, to make vegetable-based meats that taste like meat. 

Honing in on the findings of the survey, which segmented the participants by age and by degree of enthusiasm, 40% of consumers were “very” or “extremely likely” to try cultivated meat in both the US and the UK. This group of enthusiastic triers was categorized as the “early majority” group. Of the early majority group, an overwhelming 98-99% of them said they would consider welcoming it as a regular item in their shopping basket.

The vast majority of the early majority are omnivores (94-95%) who consume meat 2-3 times per day in a typical week.

“In order to turn this expected acceptance into actual consumption patterns over time, it is critical to develop the right products, based on the right solutions,” says Didier Toubia, Co-Founder and CEO of Aleph Farms, which commissioned the research.

“In the long term, Aleph Farms‘ vision is to provide a better alternative to industrial livestock farming, which represents approximately 70% of global meat production today.”

Younger generations — the early adopters

“The results suggest that cultivated meat is likely to be widely accepted by the general public, especially the younger generations and an eager group of early adopters who appreciate its benefits across a wide range of social issues.

These groups tend to embrace change and need little encouragement to try new food innovations,” notes Szejda, Ph.D., Founder and Principal Research Scientist of North Mountain Consulting Group. “Additionally, we observed an increase in support for the technology once consumers had access to additional information, underscoring the importance of effective science communication for consumer adoption.” 

Sociodemographic analyses comparing the early majority groups to the general population suggest that the early majority are more often younger (Gen Z or Millennials), male, more liberal, and more educated. In the US and the UK, an average of 77% of Gen X and 74% of Boomers were open to trying it, in comparison to 85% of Millennials, and 89% of Gen Z.

“In contrast to the younger eager adopters, the older generations are more wary of change,” explains Toubia. “Social proof is important to them and they want to be assured that a product is safe, functional, and beneficial before they adopt it. This is why transparency and trust are cornerstones of our company,” concludes Toubia.

There are also great ways to substitute fruit and vegetables for meat while bypassing the laboratories. 

The post Cultivated Meat Likely to Make Up 40% of Future Meat Intake, say Americans polled appeared first on Green Prophet.

Aleph Farms and its research partner at the Technion – Israel Institute of Technology, have successfully cultivated the world’s first slaughter-free ribeye steak, using three-dimensional (3D) bioprinting technology and natural building blocks of meat – real cow cells, without genetic engineering and immortalization.

Aleph now has the ability to produce any type of steak and plans to expand its portfolio of quality meat products.

Unlike 3D printing technology, Aleph Farms’ 3D bioprinting technology is the printing of actual living cells that are then incubated to grow, differentiate, and interact, in order to acquire the texture and qualities of a real steak.

A proprietary system, similar to the vascularization that occurs naturally in tissues, enables the perfusion of nutrients across the thicker tissue and grants the steak with the similar shape and structure of its native form as found in livestock before and during cooking.

Are steak growers on Mars out to lunch?

“This breakthrough reflects an artistic expression of the scientific expertise of our team,” said Didier Toubia, Co-Founder and CEO of Aleph Farms. “Additional meat designs will drive a larger impact in the mid and long term. This milestone for me marks a major leap in fulfilling our vision of leading a global food system transition toward a more sustainable, equitable and secure world.”

The cultivated ribeye steak is a thicker cut than the company’s first product – a thin-cut steak. It incorporates muscle and fat similar to its slaughtered counterpart and boasts the same organoleptic attributes of a delicious tender, juicy ribeye steak you’d buy from the butcher.

“With the realization of this milestone, we have broken the barriers to introducing new levels of variety into the cultivated meat cuts we can now produce.

“As we look into the future of 3D bioprinting, the opportunities are endless,” says Technion Professor Shulamit Levenberg, Aleph’s Co-Founder, Chief Scientific Advisor and a major brainpower behind the company’s IP. Levenberg is considered a global leader in tissue engineering and has amassed over two decades of research in the field at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), in the United States and at the Technion, in Israel. Levenberg is also the former Dean of the Biomedical Engineering Faculty at the Technion.

Aleph Farms’ zealous plans to diversify its offering align with its mission to create a global platform for local production, leveraging a highly scalable technology to create culinary experiences that can be adapted for the different food cultures around the world.

With the advent of synthetic milk or meat- or animal-free products cultivated in the lab, or alternatives to honey grown in an engineered bee stomach (another Israeli invention) –– some people think all this “progress” in the lab is really people out to lunch. Read our story about engineered honey for some alternative points of view to animal substitutes and our farming story on high tech hydroponic solutions that also may be out to lunch. The big solution may be simpler – regenerative agriculture. That what Woody Harrelson says, cow farts and all. 

The post Slaughter free ribeye steak meat grown in a lab appeared first on Green Prophet.

Aleph Farms creates non-GMO, slaughter-free steak by cultivating and replicating bovine cells in the lab. The company has started building its BioFarm and blueprints for a farm on Mars.

Aleph Farms, a company that really has nothing to do with farms, is heading towards selling thin steaks made in a lab. The company based in Israel has started to build facilities called the BioFarm to mass produce steak made from cow cells. The idea is to create meat that is exactly like cow flesh, without causing additional animal suffering. And greenhouse gases. 

Taking a cue from my startup flux that launched a sneaky plan to grow cannabis in space (one of Aleph’s investors from Strauss was at my event a few years ago), Aleph also plans to create a meat lab for Mars. Cute renderings below.

(Sidenote: if you are interested in Mars contact my buddy Vera in California). 

Not sure how vegans will react to this development of meat in the lab and on space when we have so much to deal with at home on Earth but one vegan dog- and chicken-sitter we had agreed to eat our chickens eggs because of how they were raised. Freely and in the sunshine. So there are exceptions and concessions to be made among vegans. 

According to Aleph the steaks are grown from non-GMO cells of a living cow, and they taste, look and smell like meat. The company wants to create a terroir experience, eventually. 

The prototype of its commercial product was shown in Singapore this weekend as part of a virtual cooking demonstration. The company “beefed-up” its proof-of-concept from 2018, increased the size of its slaughter-free product, and adapted it to fit controlled, automated machines to fit large scale production and economics.

“One of the big challenges of cultivated meat is the ability to produce large quantities efficiently at a cost that can compete with conventional meat industry pricing, without compromising on quality,” says Didier Toubia, Co-Founder and CEO of Aleph Farms.

How to do meat cultivation in the lab?

Aleph Farms mirrors the natural process of tissue regeneration processes that occur in the cow’s body, but outside of it and under controlled conditions. The process is designed to use a fraction of the resources required for raising an entire animal for meat, and without antibiotics.

To successfully grow whole pieces of meat, compared to minced meat, Aleph mimics the extra-cellular matrix found in animals with a plant-based matrix that enables the cells to grow and form structured tissues of meat.

These ‘cell-banks’ as they call them yield an unlimited source of pluripotent, non-GMO cow cells’ for growing large quantities of meat without the dependency on living animals.

Aleph Farms has designed comfy lab conditions to simulate the biological process occurring in vivo (in the body of a cow), providing the warmth and basic animal-free elements needed to build tissue in nature.

This includes water, proteins, carbohydrates, fats, vitamins, and minerals.

“It’s delicious and guilt-free, I can’t taste the difference,” declares Benjamin Netanyahu, Prime Minister of Israel at a recent tasting. “I have directed the State Secretary Tzahi Braverman to appoint a body to serve these
industries in order to connect and oversee all the stakeholders operating in this field. Israel will become a powerhouse for alternative meat and alternative protein.”

The next step seems to be recreating the terroir of single cows, and I think the Jewish grandmother I never had would say oy ve: “Meat can be cultivated from cells isolated from different animal breeds, have different cuts, and it elicits different emotions.

“We see Aleph Farms as crafters of experiences.” Toubia notes in a company press release. 

But we need real animals

When it comes to lab-grown meat, plant-grown meat like Impossible Foods, or just any old lab meat (meat glue?) environmentalists will raise eyebrows. The general feeling is that if you want meat, eat organic, or responsibly, hunt your own meat if you live in Canada (and have tags to do so), and eat simply. Eat whole foods. The less a product is processed or manipulated it’s likely better off for you. And for the planet. 

We got to a bad place fast because of fast food. Slow Food and fresh food can help us rewind. Growing meat in a lab is much like growing food using hydroponics (see Infarm). It’s a good solution for the interim (as we flail and people starve in some parts of the world) but where we need to go fast is to regenerative agriculture, biodynamic agriculture where all the parts feed into the whole. Mars is a nice story but I will stay on Earth, thank you. 

Also adherents to regenerative agriculture like Woody Harrelson and Kiss the Ground are pretty certain about the importance of farm animals in the food chain for helping steward sensibly-sized farms into being sustainable and successful. Grazing animals fertilize the land faster and better than a plant-based compost. Because no one wants to use Miracle Gro, sourced from the chemical industry, on the garden unless they have no choice.

Have you thought about composting on Mars?

Tim Anderson, a technologist who may have spent some years “sleeping at MIT” and who may have been a founder at Z Corp believes that animals are an important part of our human story. And how we protect not only our own internal biome but the landscape and culture. He popped up on my Facebook feed as a possible friend. I liked the picture of a chicken on his head. I too have taken pictures of myself with chickens, although much more coercively. 

I saw pictures of his farm and he didn’t look like a typical farmer, so I asked about any ideas he might have worth sharing about the process, the mission. 

Consider the constant wildfires in California, he said.

“Help California bring back the grazing animals. Those plants evolved to be eaten not just burned!” he wrote to me. 

I’d heard that message before. That wildfires are more frequent and intense because land stewardship has changed radically in the last 100 years. Read this block of “why”  information from University of California if it interests you. 

Livestock grazing reduces fire fuels more effectively than most mechanical methods. Grassland not grazed creates high levels of fine fire fuels which can pose fire hazards.  In addition, the invasion of ungrazed lands by shrubs also creates long-term fire fuel issues. 

 

Increased shrub cover from removal of grazing has caused “a general increase in fire hazard within the open spaces of the San Francisco Bay Area” and in the context of the landscape matrix as a whole, this increased hazard indicates a greater possibility of fire being spread into adjacent forested areas and residential communities.

 

Using livestock to treat fuels has significant potential for managing combustible vegetation.

Anderson tells me to take a look at pictures of his pigs in California and how they live for more insight into my questions.

“Most of what humans do is ridiculous to everyone but them,” Anderson writes. “Tunnel vision makes many odd thoughts and behaviors possible. Presumably on Mars there would be nutrient cycling just like on Earth, but much more obvious.

“We Turn Sewage into Meat in a Lab” would be an exciting slogan for many people, but many more would find it disturbing. There would be a compost pile on Mars. Maybe with worms and bugs in it. Mice and rats would get there of course, maybe on the first ships. So the vegan factory would be full of mouse traps and a compost tumbler that kill mice and worms as part of making meat that doesn’t kill cows,” Anderson offers as strange, but 100% sensible food for thought. 

Our great “elder” commenter, Pablo Solomon, environmental activist and artist always weighs in with a dose of much needed sensibility. From his ranch in Texas, Solomon writes:

“Okay, I admit I love beef. My mother’s side of the family have been ranchers for over 170 years here in Texas. I own a ranch now and once owned another. A well managed ranch is great for protein production, fibers for cloth, milk, cheeses, leathers and numerous other natural, sustainable products,” Solomon explains.

(We’ve been enjoying a weekly exchange where he picks a story from my newsletter and then provides some nuggets of wisdom on the story.)

He continues: “In my part of Texas, ranchers rotate cattle, sheep and goats in the pastures as each animal group tends to enjoy different plants. So we are keeping the pastures cleaner and less susceptible to wildfires. The animals naturally fertilize the soil. And the green plants absorb the CO2 released by the animals and use it in photosynthesis.

“The alleged dangers to the atmosphere from methane are so overblown as to be comical. In fact, were vegans and vegetarians so concerned about animal produced methane they would kill fluffy and fido and all other non productive feel good pets before killing off wonderfully productive livestock. And, the vegans eating so much vegetable matter to get enough nourishment creates relatively more human methane. Many ranch operators collect methane and use it to generate electricity. Many prominent vegans only use electricity.

“And of course, I have preached for decades about the “sin” of wasting our research minds and money on nerd toy crap like trips to Mars and driverless cars when immediate problems like providing clean water for humans and fresh water for agriculture remain unsolved.

“As far as “terrified” cows being killed, what a joke. Cows are killed so fast they literally do not know what hit them–yes hit them. Goats and sheep do die terrifying and painful deaths from being killed by coyotes, wolves and other predators which are often protected by insanely broad laws. We use sheep dogs and burros to protect the animals, but the coyotes can often elude them. ( A few years ago, before we could eliminate one particularly vicious pack of coyotes they killed  over 50 young lambs in less than a week.)

“The terror these meat haters should care about is that of human parents watching their children die slow horrible deaths from diseases carried in dirty water and/or starving to death due to lack of water for agriculture.

“If you wish to avoid meat in your diet that is your choice. Do not try to forbid the rest of us from enjoying what we want to eat.( what is that mantra?–my body my choice ).  I could give a list of things some of the most prominent anti meat people should give up in their lives before meat.”

The post Are steak growers on Mars out to lunch? appeared first on Green Prophet.

Israel’s dubious meat industry gets more sickening: we’ve already covered exposes of poultry fed with feces and pumped with toxic contaminants. Now it’s all about beef and how it’s frozen, treated laundry style and then resold as fresh.

The consumer watchdog TV show, Kolbotek, also exposed extreme cruelty toward cattle and sheep brought for slaughter in one of Israel’s prime slaughterhouses, Adom Adom.

Kolbotek has sent in undercover agents in the meat processing industry.  The meat and poultry in fact is “treated” with water and phosphate additives to make it appear to be fresh cut meat, in  order to sell it at higher prices.

Israeli Consumer Products Law restricts the amount of water that is added to meat to  no more than 5 percnt of the meat’s total weight. The actual amount of water, however is much more; often exceeding 15% or more.

Even if the actual water content is indicated on packages of frozen meat, high water content result in the meat being considered as  “fake” or not of a quality suitable to be marketed as fresh meat.

Due to the high prices of beef and other meat sold to Israeli consumers, the average citizen eats less beef and other high priced meat (only 15 kg  per person a year) than people living in meat consuming countries like Argentina, Australia, the US and the UK.

Israeli consumers interviewed by Kolbotek said that when it came to eating certain cuts of meat, like entricote steak for example,  they know that cuts coming from frozen meat are less attractive and do not taste the same as fresh cuts.

Water being added to both meat and fish products has been an issue that has previously been covered by Kolbotek; as well  as by Green Prophet, especially in regards to imported frozen fish products from China that are said to be  pumped full of water and chemical additives.

According to Kolbotek’s narrator, Rafi Ginat, it now appears that literally thousands of tons of frozen meat, imported from countries like Argentina, Uruguay and Australia are treated with a solution  of water and sodium triposphate, also known by the code name of STPP M212.

Sodium Triphosphate, the same additive used to improve the  appearance and taste of frozen fish, is also used in a variety of other products, including tooth paste and cleaning compounds. The meat in  question is often sold in local supermarkets as entricot steak and other higher priced “fresh” meat. This also includes higher priced poultry like pullets or “Spring Chicken”.

How the “meat laundering” process works is something that might be compared with washing clothes in a front loading washing machine.

The thawed frozen meat is put into a large revolving drum and treated in a “bath” of  water and STPP solution that gives the meat a more desirable color as well as adding weight to it. The treated meat is then packaged and sold as fresh meat at a much higher price than the frozen variety.

Kolbotek sent its investigators  to several large Israeli supermarket chain stores, including Shufersol Deal, Rami Levi; and Baladi, a large wholesale meat supply company. Meat samples were tested  for concentrations of water and chemical additives like STPP.

Meat samples were tested in local laboratories, as well as being sent  for testing in a large European laboratory for comparison with meat sold there, according to European standards.

It was found that many of the Israeli meat samples  were considerably lower in quality than those found in most European countries, which have strict laws dealing with meat cuts that are sold as fresh and not frozen.

This was particularly so for meat samples sold in the Rami Levi supermarket chain, which were found to be high in phosphates and other chemical additives.

Kolbotek interiewed Ms. Angie Gaon Eidelberg,  a former engineer with the Israeli Health Ministry’s food quality division, who told them that “fresh” meat sold in Rami Levi’s Ashdod branch was “full of water and chemicals; and was not fresh meat at all but “fake” meat being represented as fresh.

The meat also contained high levels of vitamin C additives that make the meat look more attractive. Some meat samples from sources like the Baladi meat company and from the previously mentioned Adom Adom
meat processing company were found to be acceptable but much higher in price than the “fake” samples.

In fact, cuts like entrecote steak from these acceptable sources sell for much higher prices; up to NIS 150 per kg. Rami Levi’s spokesperson told Kolbotek that they sell meat from Baladi that is of high quality; but Kolbotek’s investigation appears to prove otherwise.

The entire “meat laundering” scandal, as exposed by Kolbotek, can be seen here (in Hebrew):

The bottom line of findings by Kolbotek indicates that “there is no fresh quality meat like entrecote steaks that sell for  NIS 70 a kilogram.”

Rafi Ginat, Kolbotek’s long time narrator, ended the program by saying that ” we cannot trust even the health ministry to tell us what is fresh and what is not; we can only trust ourselves to find good quality meat.”

The fresh meat test:

He added that one of the most simple tests is to insert your finger into the muscle of a piece of meat being sold as fresh; and if the depression created in the muscle stays there afterward, the meat is thawed out and not fresh.

Read more on issues surrounding Israel’s meat industry:

Israel’s Cruel Meat Industry Exposed by Watchdog TV Show

Israeli Meat Fed With Feces and Pumped With Toxic Contaminants

The Meat You Eat May Not be What You Think

The post Meat laundering, Middle East style appeared first on Green Prophet.

Last week police arrested ten 269life activists in connection with these rather visual public protests, which included dyeing the water of fountains red to resemble blood. Today 300 animal rights activists descended on Tel Aviv in a show of solidarity eclipsed only by the tent social protest movement.

A founding member of 269life, 27 year old Sasha Bojoor issued the following statement upon his arrest last week:

Got arrested today, along with 9 more activists. For suspicion of doing illegal 269life activities. Seemed like a whole police station, was dealing with only us. They been raiding and ransacking activists houses since about 6am today.Considering how much money and man power they are wasting to try and silence us, i think its safe to say. We’re hitting some sort of nerve…

The Yarkon police district carried out a “covert investigation,” according to Ha’aretz, and discovered 269 life materials at the activists’ homes upon raiding them.

Ranging in ages from 25 to 65, according to the paper, and from various parts of the country, none of the activists have a prior criminal record.

Albeit very active in Israel, which has a growing and vocal vegan movement, 269life was founded to draw attention to the plight of animals raised and slaughtered for human consumption.

269 is the number given to a white calf, who will be slaughtered this year.

The group has garnered international momentum in recent months with supporters from all reaches of the planet  either branding or tattooing the number 269 on different body parts – sometimes in public.

In so doing, the activists hope to create a personal and visual connection with animals that are treated cruelly in large feed lots that are typically shielded from public view.

But many people claim that the group’s rather aggressive tactics alienate would-be sympathizers. Bojoor addresses just this question in an interview with Negotiation is Over:

I can surely understand where they are coming from. In my early days of activism, I held such views myself. The thing is with time I saw how deeply entrenched speciesism is in our culture and how absolutely essential it is to forcefully engage people on a more complex and visceral level. Instead of just presenting them with facts and figures. Often it is much more effective to use more forceful tactics.

Let us know what you think: are 269life’s tactics effective at engaging the public to pay closer attention to animal cruelty wrought by the burgeoning food industry?  

All images via 269life Facebook page

The post Israel Arrests Ten 269life Animal Rights Activists, 300 Protest in Tel Aviv appeared first on Green Prophet.

An Israel TV commercial about the Adom Adom (Red Red) meat packing company’s products seems pleasant enough.  A smiling butcher shows a well dressed matron the wonderful meat cuts being offered by this company which claims to sell “real red meat” and not meat that is loaded up with chemicals and other additives. The issue of meat additives is a concern in Israel and covered in a Green Prophet article dealing with Israeli meat being “fed with feces and pumped with toxic contaminants.” Now we go back to the commercial: At the end of it the butcher pleasantly sends the lady on her way saying “Adom Adom – Shalom Shalom” , which roughly translated means: “Thanks for buying our real red meat products”.

Real meat indeed. Although the processing of meat products at this company appears to be of fairly high standards, what happens physically to the animals brought to what is advertised as being Israel’s best meat packing company, was revealed December 6 on Channel 2 TV by the well known Kolbotek investigative program.

Kolbotek is the same program which also revealed recently the possible dangers of cooking foods with some brands of ceramic coated cooking ware. Rafi Ginat, Kolbotek’s popular host, pulled out all the stops this time when hidden cameras were installed in an Adom Adom slaughter house located in Israel’s northern Galilee region.

Although the actual processing of the meat itself was portrayed by Kolbotek to be relatively clean and sanitary, what happens to the animals who “contribute” their bodies for the epicurean enjoyment of the general public is something out of the worst nightmare or horror story. Don’t read on if you are queasy.

Scenes of cows being prodded by poles and electronic “shockers” to get them to move along to where they would be slaughtered were very disturbing to say the least. With the cameras being audio equipped, the sounds of the cursing plant employees and screaming animals where quite shocking.

What I saw was that some cattle could not stand up and were literally crawling on their knees or being dragged along by straps (one cow actually had its legs broken, and had to be dragged accordingly). Sheep, being smaller animals than cattle, were somewhat more “manageable” although their panicky attempts to escape were graphic; and many of them were literally picked up alive and thrown towards the slaughter bins by the plant workers.

Hagai Almagor, a spokesperson for Israel’s Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, made this comment when interviewed by Kolbotek: “I can’t understand why these poor animals are being abused too much when they arrive at the slaughter house. After all, they really don’t have any place to run to.”

Indeed they don’t! Several Adom Adom professional staff members were interviewed by Kolbotek, including two veterinarians who for various reasons will remain nameless in this article. Both of them claimed they know nothing about the severe mistreatment the animals have been receiving; especially by the electric shocking devices.

Adom Adom Plant Manager, Moshe Ben Shushan, flatly denied that animals brought to be slaughtered are being abused. “It’s not correct” he says.

Erez Wolf, Managing Director of Adom Adom, told Kolbotek that “these things don’t happen here at our slaughterhouse. If we find out that there are employees causing undue pain and suffering to animals, they will be released from their positions.”

It was also mentioned on the program that Adom Adom purchases live baby calves from Australia and ships them to Israel in special livestock vessels in a voyage that takes more than two weeks, even via the Suez Canal. One of the conditions set forth by Australia’s RSCPA is that the livestock will not be abused – especially by electronic shocking devices. “The Australians probably want to make sure that animals being shipped to the Holy Land are not abused. But the obvious reality shows this does happen, day by day, and hour by hour, once the animals reach their final destination,” says Rafi Ginat.

The above animal abuse issues could be compared to an earlier Green Prophet article dealing with animals being ritually slaughtered by amateur slaughterers during Muslim festivals like Eid al Atah. One incident resulted in causing one angry cow to murder its Gazan slaughterer.  

A professionally run slaughterhouse like Adom Adom should be dealing better with the animals brought to it. The findings by Kolbotek seem to indicate that in regards to the treatment of animals moments before their death, this company’s “professionalism” needs a severe looking into or more people will turn vegan.

READ this Dec 19 update article on the meat story here.

More on abuse in animal slaughtering and on meat processing issues:
Israeli Meat Fed With Feces and Pumped With Toxic Contaminants
Angry Cow Murders Its Gazan Slaughterer During Muslim Eid Festival
Holland’s Proposed Ban on Ritual Slaughtering Affects Jews and Muslims

Stock image of Cow_on_Knees via  Shutterstock

The post Israel’s Cruel Meat Industry Exposed by Watchdog TV Show appeared first on Green Prophet.