[BLANK_AUDIO] Hello friends and welcome back to The Meat We Eat here in this second week as we continue to discuss more about the conversions of muscle to meat. In this particular lecture, we're going to talk about the principles associated with humane slaughter and per, and, and slaughter for red meat species, predominately beef, cattle and hogs. And as we think about in developed countries, some of the reasons why consumers choose not to consume animal protein products that the, things that we see in terms of social sides. One of the things that we get feedback for is that some consumers, they feel that, animals are treated poorly prior to slaughter or during the slaughter process, and that they've not been humanely treated. And, and certainly by no stretch of the imagination am I telling you that our industry's perfect, because that's not true. Our industry is ran by people. Those people can make mistakes. But as a whole, I, I do think I can speak with a lot of confidence in saying that we work hard, both our industry and the USDA-FSIS, all parties involved, really, to ensure that this animal is treated humanely prior to being converted from a live animal into a carcass. And so, as we think about why this is of consequence, and we've got several sides to kind of hit at this some. But, essentially, just like it states there, to sell to all major processors in this country, essentially, everyone associated with the production chain, they must be quality assurance and welfare trained. And if we want to sell pigs to Tyson. If we would like to sell cattle to Cargill. If we want to sell, if we're a contract grower for sure, let's say for JBS Pilgrim's Pride in the chicken business. All of those folks that we would have that would be associated with the husbandry of livestock and transportation of them. All the folks who work in those facilities, they've been animal welfare and quality assurance trained. The other thing is just like it says there, in order for us to export products and to sell to major food service and or retail certainly those animals have been slaughtered under USDA-FSIS inspection and humane handling is a huge component now in terms of modern slaughter inspection. We'll talk some about slaughter inspection a little bit next week and like it states here, that really to sell to all of our domestic suppliers. The, the, the top 100 retail and food service suppliers in this country. Essentially all of them now require that you would have third party animal welfare testing. We see the picture of Dr Grandin there in the corner. And we'll talk more about her in just a second. So, if you think about, why this is important? Okay. If we think, and this is predominantly a developed country issue. It really is. If we think about, why this is important? Well, one thing is it's the right thing to do. It's the ethical thing to treat these animals with respect, prior to, them being converted from a live animal into a carcass. Okay? The other thing is that, and we use the picture of the guy down here with the big ears, that over time we have had to listen to our consumers and consumers have told us that ensuring animal welfare is very important to them. And it, it's an important trait. And so our industry has lessened. We've done what we, not only is it the right thing to do, we've had to listen to our publics, and then the other thing is, this is a business obviously. And so, what we have learned with time is that animals that we, when we minimize stress throughout the production system, we maximize profitability and this certainly is a business and so it all comes full circle as to why this is important. Okay. This slide right here is a we see a picture of Dr. Temple Grandin and Dr. Grandin, she certainly is the international animal science rock star, I think. And she is the world-renowned expert in animal welfare, humane handling and slaughter. And and she's developed facilities all over the country just, or all over the world, just like it says in that bottom slide, or bottom portion of the slide there. In terms of ensuring proper handling and humane slaughter. And so the middle of the last century, the American Meat Institute, which is our country's predominant red meat and poultry lobbying entity. They established this they worked with Dr Grandin to establish this third party auditing assessment, which is the standard which is used for, like I talked about those top retailers and food service folks. If we want to be able as a packer, if we want to market products to these large customers. Then we utilize the, the standards, the third-party audit guide that Dr. Grandin has provided. Now, that's voluntary stuff but it's almost been an industry mandate, honestly. Okay. So, as we go forward here, that we got this disclaimer that's came up, and just like we talked about in our introduction to this class, The Meat We Eat As we take and we, and we, and we consume animal products, there's no question that an animal will be slaughtered and die in order for us to provide those products. And so, there's some folks that that, they just don't want to think about that, and so that's, that's a real issue. I mean, they, you, that's something that you, as a meat consumer that you have to come to grips with. So that's a real deal. And the other thing is that, that's really important in our industry is that we'd like to be as, we've taken some heat, and we would like to be as transparent as we can. To bring back the curtain and to show what goes on in our industry, and so this subsequent slide here this is some video that was taken here at the University of Florida. It's awesome video, and we'll talk about the steps associated with taking a live animal and converting it into a carcass. But if you don't want to watch this, then that's certainly at your discretion. Okay? So, what we do at the University Meat Lab that's what we're showing here and we take the render pig insensible to pain via electrical stunning it causes a, a grand mal seizure and there's the electrical stunning wand, pig rolls out. This time this pig is certainly rendered insensible to pain. Being shackled here. So, honestly, we'll talk about this a little bit more later. But when the head, there is no sign of sensibility there. When the head is dead, we're going to have some nervous activity. They took and let the blood out just a second ago. In the next step, something that pretty different with pig slaughter and poultry slaughter, lets say. As compared to beef cattle or lamb slaughter is that we keep the skin on, okay. And so we scald pigs commercially. And that's what that hot water bath there provided. And then the pig rolls over here. This is certainly not what would happen in a commercial system. This is going to happen inline in an automated deal. But here in our little batch system like we have at the university meat lab, we use a tub and then that goes to a dehairing machine where the pig rolls around. Dehairing certainly is a food safety need obviously. It's something that's going to be required and the USDA holds us accountable for the efficacy as to which we do that. And now they're taking and preparing the pig and now we've already got it hung here. So here we are singeing the remaining bit of hair. Which, is lagged behind in the commercial system. That's going to be happening on a continuous line. As compared to what we do here at the university meat lab. This step right here is called bunging. Where we take the knife and we've went around. This was a gilt tier. And we went around the, the anus, and the vagina there. Made that wrap around and so that when we take and eviscerate or gut the animal that, so that would be the penis. And making that cut and then coming around, so that all can come out when we make the visceration cut. Here we're just breaking the sternum, to allow us to get the, the pluck out. And here we're coming and, and taking off the, the head here at the atlas and axis joint. Okay, so here at this step is gutting or evisceration. And so if you saw there, there was some care taken to ensure they turn the knife around to when the knife comes down to ensure that you do not pierce the viscera or the gut. Instances of busted guts are very, very small in commercial industry, really are. And you can see Byron, our meat lab manager here. He has a protective glove on his left hand he's right handed, he cuts with his right hand. And so he wants, has a plastic on there and a, and a protective glove there to ensure that he doesn't cut himself. So all of that, the liver and lungs, and the head that we had off just a little bit ago. That goes forward and the USDA inspector will scope out a set of lymph glands there. We'll talk about inspection on a subsequent week. [BLANK_AUDIO] This is our final wash. This is our antimicrobial intervention that we utilize. We use lactic acid spray at the University of Florida meat laboratory. That's a critical control point and an intervention step that's required by the government. And putting the stamp of inspection on this pork, pork carcass prior to it being rolled into the hotbox cooler. 'Kay? So, commercially, we've already talked about this some you know, over the past ten years, there's been a lot of transition in this country from electrical stunning, this is, picture shows a slide from Dr. Grandin showing head to heart stunning. And there's been conversion from electrical stunning to several folks who are now using a CO2 elevator type system. Which you to see the diagram that we see there below. A group of pigs would go in to a kind of an elevator. And they would ri, in groups of, you know, two to six potentially, and they would ride down below the surface, in which that would be exclusively CO2. Those pigs would be rendered insensible to pain, they'd fall asleep, and then they would come out the other side, roll out, and then be exsanguinated and hung. 'Kay? Same deal goes here. We're going to show you a little bit about beef cattle slaughter and how it is different. 'Kay? And so, again, we have this warning here that if you wouldn't, if you don't want to watch this, then you can just read the, the, the text on the slides. 'Kay? Beef cattle in this country are predominantly rendered insensible to pain with captive bolt. Captive bolt either with using, in this case, a 22 blank, or it can be pneumatic. Calf is being shackled here. We want to let the blood out, because it certainly improves the eating quality and keeping properties of the product. But we take and we cut this hide there and then we will come in and we will sever the carotid artery, the anterior vena cava to, to allow the blood to let out, that's called exsanguination. Okay, so, we've gotten over to the stage in which we've this carcass has we're securing it there. Here at our university meat laboratory, we have a, a hide puller. And this honestly, is not indicative of a modern commercial high puller, we have an old up puller, but the premise is the same, but it certainly helps reduce labor and then we have a antimicrobial spray prior to the evisceration stage. Commercially, if we think about in large scale beef processing facility in the U.S. we see the, the diagram at the bottom which comes from Dr. Grandin's website. But you know, at the university meat lab, we're just got a batch system. We're running one at a time. And then there's not much stress in terms of from a timeliness perspective. But in a commercial system, to maintain and maximize and insure animal welfare, but still to work at a, at a pace indicative of what we need to do in a commercial system. We see the picture there at the bottom, in which animals will come up and there will be a false floor. We see the picture of this red/white faced steer. This false floor, and this is called a V-Boss Restrainer, and then ultimately, he'll be comforted and he will ride on this V, V-Boss Restrainer for a period of time, kind of like a moving escalator. Then he looks up, and he sees this light. And he's rendered insensible to pain. So this, in many commercial systems we would use the exact same system as to what we use at the meat laboratory, instead of using a, a 22 charge there, we use air to push our that bolt. We've already mentioned some of this, and this is certainly not a physiology class here, but there's absolutely no tolerance within USDA food safety inspection service for instances of animals that have been improperly stung. And have any sign of returning to sensibility. So any of these things right here, if we have instances after they've been stunned of rhythmic breathing, vocalization on the bleed rail like it states eye blinking when at, from a, when they've been touched or certainly a righting reflex where we're hanging upside down and trying to right ourselves. Those are certainly an absolute failure and and that's, that's very, real ramification relative to, to government inspection in the future. So and we've already talked some about insensibility on account of what's going on there. But the head is certainly the, the critical component to determining that. And again, you know, if we have one that their, their leg is flopping, largely just a nervous impulse, because the head has been rendered unconscious. Okay? So, it's pretty heavy stuff but we did want to kind of cover some about how this works in our system here in the U.S. and it's comparable to how it works in many other developed countries as well. So, join us next time. Thank you.
