Cow De-construction.

Vegetarian warning: Meaty (and overly long) posting

I wrote this a couple months ago and never posted it but with this in the news; well here goes...

The last two days were more eventful then I care to have any time soon. I had to make a last minute business trip to Colorado on Thursday, booking the flight on Wednesday close to quitting time.
Trip prep consisted of dumping a bunch of past presentation, video and pictures on my hard drive printing out a few things before running out the door.
I arrive at home to see that my son has a little blood drool running out of his mouth. Peered in the best I could but did not see any cuts or anything. He also apparently had to be separated from the other children at daycare earlier as he was hitting and kicking them (he is a 22 month old) throwing tantrums in the process. C later discovered the problem. One of his front teeth was missing. While C called the dentist I looked through some recent photos to verify in fact it was missing from his smile. The tooth was not actually missing as we could see a little tooth between adjacent teeth.

The next morning C stayed home with him while I went to work for awhile before my flight left. Got a call at work that Eli’s face was swollen and red around the eye and they were off to the dentist. Not knowing how serious it was I went home to pack, and then met them at the dentist. They gave him a prescription and to bring down the swelling. He seemed no worse for the wear so I headed off to the airport. Running tight on time I parked in short term parking and huffed it through security with barely enough time to grab a sandwich before boarding. The flight was uneventful with just a minor hassle with Fastbreak car rental as my reservation didn’t show up in their system. With that resolved I was offered the choice of three American made crappy cars. How do you choose between a PT cruiser, HHR and a Dodge product? Are you kidding me? Behind the wheel of said crappy dodge and sat nav dialed in to my destination I was off to wonderful Greeley, CO.

I called my contact when I got into town and he offered to take me to dinner. He picked me up and took me to a Mexican restaurant. Since I was going to a beef plant I ordered the steak fajitas while Mohammed had the shrimp fajitas and he discussed the project to me while I pondered what a guy from India is doing working in cattle processing industry. After our meals arrived I asked him if he ate cow. He said that he was Hindu and could eat cow but not pork or drink alcohol. He said his family was still a little freaked out about as it is one thing to eat cow but quite another to be a little responsible for thousands of cattle being killed a day.

Midway through dinner I got several frantic calls from C so I excused myself and learned that Eli was not getting any better and was taking him to the ER. Trying to stay engaged with my Indian buddy through the rest of dinner while thinking about how I can cancel my trip and go to the hospital.

Back at the hotel after looking at my options of catching an earlier flight home C informed me that Eli seemed to be doing ok so I decided to stay and I left to go find an open hardware store to pick up a tape measure as in the rush leaving I managed to forget my tape and my camera. I managed to score one at a grocery store of all places and picked up some juice and a banana for in the morning. By now it was after 10:00 and I still needed to finish my presentation and iron my shirt and trousers. I got out the iron and started going to town on my trousers which were wrinkled beyond belief before I even left home. Admitting defeat I threw them back in my bag and decided to wear the same jeans I left in. I finished my presentation around midnight and tried to go to sleep.

After a night of not sleeping over being worried about Eli and getting updates from the hospital from time to time I got up and started my day. Mohammed picked me up and took me to the plant. We had to park across the street with all the other workers. It was just now 8:00 AM and the parking lot was already full. This was a huge parking lot reminding me of a shopping mall during xmas circling for a place to park. After driving around for what seemed like an hour we scored a spot and went up to the guard shack where everyone entering the plant is required to go through. After signing a bunch of crap I was giving a visitor sticker to wear… Then things got weird. From the guard shack we went underground which passed underneath the street above and came out to what reminded me of a prison during the one hour of being outside or something. Mostly Hispanic workers were standing around outside talking and smoking or whatever which I thought was a break but turned out to be an unscheduled downtime from a blown transformer, which turned out to be the main transformer coming into the plant. Inside the plant was a lobby area where more workers were standing around spreading the latest gossip or something. I later learned that downtime was costing them company $300 a minute. Power was restored in about three hours but they were required to wash-down the whole plant so it was more like 5 hours so that was costing them a measly $90,000. The workers were union and getting paid whether they were working or not. Some actually seemed anxious to get back to the cow killin’.

After getting dressed in rubber boots (to keep blood off my loafers I guessed) frock, hair net, beard net, ear plugs, safety glasses and hard hat I was ready to see some serious cow killin’. But that had to wait as while they were washing down no one was admitted onto the kill floor. My presentation wasn’t until 1:00 so I had 5 hours to kill with Mohammed. We headed to the cafeteria where there were hundreds of people sitting around just like being in a high school cafeteria only almost everyone was wearing metal mesh clothing, knives in scabbards and thick coats and rubber boots. We grabbed some coffee and talked about the project some more, learned how he got the job and had to work in each dept. kill floor through fab etc. He told me they kill 5,000 cattle a day at this plant and world wide they kill 65,000 animals a day. A DAY!

The main area I needed to see for this project was finally cleared for us to access. I verified some measurements talked some more about our requirements and went back to the conference room to set-up my presentation. Presentation went all right I would say considering I was still wearing rubber boots and frock.

The plant tour was one of the most bizarre things I have ever seen. Now I have been around butchering animals before. Growing up on the farm we killed a cow about ever year for food; where we called the local butcher who came out shot the cow, hung the beast and cleaned out the guts and stuff and he left to custom cut your order for amount of roasts, steaks, percentage of fat for hamburger etc. The whole process took probably a couple hours and he left us with a nice pile of the contents of the cows stomachs and other remnants. Sounds very organic right? I calculated this place was killing a cow every 5 seconds. WTF?!

Shift change was happening so there was a flurry of activity near the walls in long sinks that resembled a trough with hose sprayers for cleaning yourself and equipment. Workers were busy spraying there boots and steel mesh etc. From there we went pretty close to the start of the line. This was right after being rendered unconscious via stunning them with a captive bolt, from there they are hung upside down by one of their hind legs as they enter the processing line. The carotid artery and jugular vein are severed with a knife, causing death through exsanguination. The hooves are removed prior to entering hide removal. I was led to another area having to pass between the conveyor line of dead cows. I waited for one to pass and quickly ducked through between them as another one bumped me from behind. The carcass then enters the hide removal area; head twisted sideways tongue dragging across the conveyor line. A petite Hispanic woman using a pole pushes an area of hanging hide toward powered rollers that pull the whole hide off the body right over the head just like taking off a sweater only your face goes with it. The 400+ pound carcass thrusts into the air as the skin is torn off the head. Next the internal organs are removed and inspected for signs of disease. The next area I saw was an oval conveyor line of what look like a large dog or lamb carcass. I finally saw some molars and realized this was the head minus the lower jaw and eye balls. This was the “head rack” where heads are hung to remove tongue, eyeballs etc. I think about the source of high school biology eyeball dissection comes from as one head still has one of the eye balls attached (though hanging a little to the right). The carcass still hanging upside down is sent to a cooler for I think 16 hours before going into the Fab.

The fabrication department is by far the busiest area. A guy using a big ass saw (highest paid guy on the line I might ad) cuts the carcass into two sides from there goes in a variety of directions to be cut up into boxed meats. The noise from the saws, blood on the floor, and humidity from the hot water spray nearby answer why I was wearing all this personal protection equipment. A hierarchy of workers working at super fast pace cutting meat while supervisors are watching the workers while QC people watch both of them while inspectors hopefully are watching the meat. (that is my take on it anyway)

Next was the trim department and near as I can tell is where the remaining carcass is further processed to remove any residual traces of meat. Nearby are 40 x 48 boxes filled with fat and stuff presumably waiting to be mixed into the meat for making hamburger or sent off to the renderer. A huge freezer freezes the hamburger within seconds as it is formed into tubes then put in a box for palletizing.

After the tour Mohammed and I go back to the conference room to take off my gear and reclaim my shoes and head back under the street and to the car. Since it was recently shift change it takes almost 30 minutes to get out of the parking lot. I couldn’t imagine having to go through parking hell everyday just to cut up some cow. He dropped me off back at my hotel to fetch my car and I race back to DEN cutting it ever so close. I manage to have just enough spare time to order some Quiznos (vegetarian) and tank two beers before hopping on the plane.

Back at home Eli was doing much better. Swelling had gone down and redness was less obvious. Exhausted I went to bed right after Eli did and pondered if I could/should eat cow again.

I was back on the cow within a week or so and have to admit I enjoy a good burger now and then and also love a thick tenderloin cooked to a nice medium rare perfection. Other then the workers working at a super fast pace I saw nothing wrong with the operation from a safety stand point. They are just fulfilling the demand for beef. However I think everyone who eats animals should see where there food comes from. Me thinks many would stop eating it if they saw what I saw and that is why they try to keep it all contained as a cow going in and box going out.