The Omnivore's Dilemma

by Michael Pollan

  Here’s how Grandin described what happened to steer 534 after he passed through the blue door:

  “The animal goes into the chute single file. The sides are high enough so all he sees is the butt of the animal in front of him. As he walks through the chute, he passes over a metal bar, with his feet on either side. While he’s straddling the bar, the ramp begins to decline at a twenty-degree angle, and before he knows it, his feet are off the ground, and he’s being carried along on a conveyor belt. We put in a false floor so he can’t look down and see he’s off the ground. That would panic him.”

  I had been wondering what 534 would be feeling as he neared his end. Would he have any hint—a scent of blood, a sound of terror from up the line—that this was no ordinary day? Would he, in other words, suffer? Grandin answered me before I had time to ask.

  “Does the animal know it’s going to get slaughtered? I used to wonder that. So I watched them going into the squeeze chutes on the feedlot, getting their shots, and going up the ramp at a slaughter plant. No difference. If they knew they were going to die you’d see much more agitated behavior.

  Information and diagram courtesy of Dr. Temple Grandin, Professor, Department of Animal Sciences, Colorado State University.

  “Anyway, the conveyor is moving along at roughly the speed of a moving sidewalk. On a catwalk above stands the stunner. The stunner has a pneumatic-powered ‘gun’ that fires a steel bolt about seven inches long and the diameter of a fat pencil. He leans over and puts it smack in the middle of the forehead. When it’s done correctly it will kill the animal on the first shot.

  “After the animal is shot, while he’s riding along a worker wraps one of his feet and hooks it to an overhead trolley. Hanging upside down by one leg, he’s carried by the trolley into the bleeding area, where the bleeder cuts his throat. Animal rights people say they’re cutting live animals, but that’s because there’s a lot of reflex kicking. What I look for is, is the head dead? It should be flopping like a rag, with the tongue hanging out. He’d better not be trying to hold it up—then you’ve got a live one on the rail. Just in case, they have another stunner in the bleed area.”

  DON’T LOOK AWAY

  Temple Grandin’s account answered some of my questions but raised others. After all, she designed the system, so of course she would describe it in the best possible light. I couldn’t help thinking about all those times “you’ve got a live one on the rail.” At National Beef they slaughter four hundred head of cattle every hour. McDonald’s says it’s okay if they have a 5 percent “error rate.” That could mean twenty cows an hour suffer a painful death. Is that okay? Is it moral to eat meat from a slaughterhouse like National Beef? In the end we all have to decide for ourselves.

  I believe the best solution is really Joel Salatin’s. The killing at his farm is done out in the open, where anyone can see. After watching (and taking part) I decided I was all right with what had happened. No doubt some of us will decide we can’t accept any killing of animals, no matter how it is done. But we can only decide if we know the truth—if we look.

  I remember a story Joel told me about a man who showed up at the farm one morning. When Joel noticed a People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) bumper sticker on the man’s car, he figured he was in for an angry argument. But the man had a different reason to be there. He explained that he had been a vegetarian for sixteen years. He was thinking about eating meat again but felt the only way he could do it was if he killed the animal himself. So Joel grabbed a chicken and took the man into the processing shed.

  “He slit the bird’s throat and watched it die,” Joel recalled. “He saw that the animal did not look at him accusingly. He saw that the animal had been treated with respect while it was alive and that it could have a respectful death.” The man realized that the animals on Salatin’s farm were not being treated like unfeeling raw material, but like living creatures. I realized I’d seen this too, which explains why I was able to kill a chicken one day and eat it the next.

  The brutality of the industrial food system in America is something that is pretty recent. No other country raises and slaughters its food animals quite as cruelly as we do. This crime of cruelty is only possible because we do not ask and we are not allowed to see what is going on in the meat industry. We need public information about what is happening every day to our farm animals. Imagine if there was a law that the walls of America’s slaughter houses had to be made of glass. If Americans could see what was happening behind those walls, they would not allow it to continue. Tail docking and beak clipping would disappear overnight. Slaughtering four hundred head of cattle an hour would promptly come to an end—for who could stand the sight?

  20

  Hunting

  A WALK IN THE WOODS

  Hunting is exciting. It embarrasses me to write that, but it’s true. I discovered this the first time I went into a forest with a loaded rifle. Hunting makes everything sharper, more vivid. It made me pay attention like nothing else I have ever done.

  As I walk out on my hunt, I notice how the breezes move the pine needles. Their shadows wave on the tree trunks and the forest floor. I notice the way the air feels. My eyes search deep into thickets, looking for the slightest hint of movement. I listen carefully to every little noise, the cracking of a branch or . . . wait: What was that? Just a bird.

  Angelo, my hunting tutor, has taught me how to read the ground for signs of pig. Notice the freshly dug soil at the base of that oak tree? It’s still wet—the sun hasn’t dried it out yet. This means pigs have been rooting here overnight. See that smoothly scooped-out puddle of water? That’s a wallow, but notice how the water is perfectly clear. Pigs haven’t disturbed it yet today. We could wait here for them.

  After hunting here for years, Angelo knows there are three groups of pigs sharing the oak forest in northern California where he took me hunting. Each group visits a slightly different set of good pig places. This grove of oaks is where they dig for acorns, roots, and grubs. In the afternoon heat they snooze in the dusty dirt beneath that tangle of manzanita trees. They cool off in those muddy wallows, leaving the marks of their hoofprints. Then they scrape the mud from their backs on that pine tree there, the one where the lower bark is rubbed smooth and tan.

  THE WILD PIG

  Part of me did not want to go hunting. The night before, I had nightmares. In one dream I was on a bobbing boat trying shoot a destroyer that was firing its cannons at me. In another, the woods were crawling with Angelo’s Sicilian relatives. In that dream I couldn’t remember how my gun worked, if the safety was on or off.

  I had tried out my rifle only once before taking it to the woods, at a firing range in the Oakland hills. By the end of the morning my paper target didn’t show much damage. But my left shoulder ached for a week. I wasn’t ready to buy a gun of my own, so Angelo had borrowed a fairly basic pump-action rifle, a .270 Winchester. I had been worried that I wouldn’t have the nerve to fire at an animal. And after my session at the range, I began to worry that if I did fire, I would miss completely.

  The plan was to hunt boar in the countryside north of San Francisco. A friend of Angelo’s has a thousand-acre property up there and Angelo has permission to hunt on it. We could have hunted for deer or turkey or duck, but I felt more comfortable going for wild pig. The animal is not native, and is regarded as a pest in many parts of California. That made it easier for me. Wild pigs can be pretty nasty. One of their nicknames in California is “dog ripper.” They destroy farmland and forest by ripping up the ground with their digging (or “rooting,” as it is called).

  This is the paper target I used at the firing range in the Oakland hills. Each hole is one shot. Some of my shots didn’t even hit to paper target.

  So I had a good excuse for hunting pigs. But I also had another reason—I like pork, and since moving to California I’d often heard how tasty wild pigs are. When I asked Angelo why he hunted wild pig he didn’t hesitate. He just kissed the tips of his fingers an
d said, “Because it is the most delicious meat. And there is nothing that tastes so good as boar prosciutto.” (Prosciutto is a kind of ham.) “You’ll see. You shoot a big one and we’ll make some.”

  HAM HUNTING

  In a sense, that’s what Angelo was really hunting, not pigs so much as prosciutto. Maybe because he’s been hunting his whole life, he doesn’t talk about the thrill of it all. “For me it is all about the eating. Not the ‘sport,’” he told me. “I am not what you call a trophy hunter. I take what I need, enough to make a nice dinner for me and my friends, maybe some salami, a prosciutto, but then: That’s it, I go home.”

  On my first hunt with Angelo we were joined by Richard, the owner of the property, and Angelo’s friend Jean-Pierre. Jean-Pierre hadn’t hunted in years, though he had grown up hunting boar with his relatives in northern France. He had on one of those green felt Alpine hats with the feather and a pair of tall black riding boots. Richard had on a full orange hunter’s outfit and I was wearing my brightest orange sweater. (Hunters wear bright clothing so other hunters won’t mistake them for a wild pig or a deer.)

  We divided into pairs, me with Angelo. Our plan was to meet back at the cars for lunch around noon. Jean-Pierre and Richard walked off into the lower forest. Angelo and I rode up to the top of a grassy ridge on his four-wheel-drive ATV. The bike made a racket, but Angelo claimed it didn’t bother the pigs and would allow us to cover a lot more ground than we could on foot.

  Jean-Pierre grew up hunting boar in northern France.

  “You are going to kill your first pig today,” Angelo shouted over the roar of the engine. Given the nature of hunting, not to mention me, I understood this as less a prediction than a prayer.

  After a while we parked the bike and set out on foot. Angelo told me to head for a wallow in a grassy opening at the bottom of a ravine. When I got close I was to find a tree with a good view of it and wait there, perfectly still, for twenty minutes until I heard him whistle. He would make his way toward the same spot from another direction, in the hopes of driving some pigs toward me.

  HUNTER’S EYE

  When I was alone, and could hear Angelo’s footsteps no more, I fell into that state of extreme alertness I described earlier. It was as if I’d dialed up the volume on all my senses. I heard every little sound. I could see farther into the woods than I ever had before, picking out the tiniest movements. It was as if I had put on a new, strong pair of glasses for the first time. “Hunter’s eye,” Angelo called it when I told him about it later.

  It was a completely different feeling than I get from just walking through the woods on a hike. It was the difference between being a spectator at a ball game and one of the players. It was the difference between being a tourist and belonging to a place. I felt part of the forest, instead of just a visitor.

  We saw no pigs that morning, and around noon, we met back at the cars as planned. Jean-Pierre had shot a small boar and Angelo hung it from a nearby branch. Then we turned to eating. Being Europeans, Angelo and Jean-Pierre take lunch very seriously, even when out in the woods. “So I brought with me a few little things to nibble on,” Jean-Pierre mumbled. “Me too,” chimed Angelo. And out of their packs came course after course of the most astonishing picnic. They laid the feast on the hood of Angelo’s SUV. There was:GELLED LOBSTER AND HALIBUT

  HOMEMADE SALAMI, PROSCIUTTO, AND MORTADELLA

  HOMEMADE PȂTÉ OF BOAR

  HOME-CURED OLIVES

  CHICKEN SALAD

  A GENEROUS SELECTION OF CHEESES AND BREADS

  FRESH STRAWBERRIES

  PASTRIES

  And naturally, a bottle each of red and white wine.

  It was a delicious lunch, but it took off some of my hunter’s edge. After lunch Angelo stayed behind to dress the small pig and Jean-Pierre lay down in the grass for a nap. I was feeling pretty relaxed when Richard and I set off to look for another pig. Our rifles slung over our shoulders, we strolled down a shady trail and chatted as we walked. My attention floated away from the woods and the hunt.

  READY. OR NOT.

  Until I happened to glance up and saw directly in front of us, not thirty yards away, four large black shapes in the shadows. There they were, four pigs milling beneath an oak tree, eating acorns off the forest floor. They gave no sign that they’d spotted us or heard our yammering.

  I grabbed Richard by the shoulder, put my finger to my lips, and pointed ahead. He stopped. “It’s your shot,” he whispered. “Go ahead. Take it.” It’s the custom when hunting that the first shot belongs to the person who spotted the animal. These pigs were mine.

  One little problem. I had neglected to pump my rifle before we set out on the trail. There was no bullet in the chamber, and to cock my gun now would make a loud noise. The pigs would be on the run by the time I was ready to shoot. I explained all this in a whisper to Richard, who, unlike me, was ready. I gave him my shot.

  Richard got down on one knee and slowly raised his rifle to his shoulder. I braced for the explosion, preparing to pump my gun the moment it came. Richard took his time, aiming carefully. The pigs had their heads down, eating acorns. Then the woods exploded. I saw a pig stagger and fall, then struggle drunkenly to its feet. I pumped my rifle, but it was already too late: The other pigs were gone. Richard fired again at the wounded pig and it fell. By the time we ran up to it, it was already dead. I felt a rush that made me light-headed and shaky.

  The pig was a sow weighing perhaps a hundred pounds. She was too heavy to carry, so we took turns dragging her by her rear legs back toward the cars. Holding the pig by the ankle, I could still feel her warmth beneath the bristly skin.

  When we got to the cars, Angelo trotted over to see the animal, excited and eager to hear our story. As we told him what had happened I could see the disappointment on his face. It had been my shot, my pig, but I hadn’t taken it.

  “You weren’t ready,” Angelo said in a level voice. “In hunting you always need to be ready. So, okay, you learned something today. Next time you will be ready and you will take your shot.” He was trying hard not to sound like the disappointed father. I couldn’t help feeling like the disappointing son.

  I spent the rest of the afternoon hunting alone, walking the ridge, searching the shadows for signs of pig, looking and listening as hard as I could to will another animal out of the woods. When Angelo announced it was time to go home, I felt deflated.

  A SECOND TRY

  Well, I had gone hunting. Plus, Jean-Pierre offered me some cuts from his pig, so I had some meat for my meal. But I hadn’t done what I’d set out to do—kill my own food. So I asked Angelo if I could go out with him again. He called me about a month later, said to meet him on a Monday morning, six o’clock sharp. We would be going back to Richard’s property again and this time it would be just the two of us.

  We spent the first part of the morning going to all of Angelo’s pig spots. (Believe me, I made sure I had a round in my chamber.) It was hotter than last time, so Angelo felt the pigs would be keeping to the shadier parts of the property. We staked out a wallow deep in the woods, and then a clearing of ferns, but saw no signs of pig.

  A little after nine in the morning we were walking together down a logging road cut into a steep hillside. Then we heard it. We were stopped in our tracks by a grunt so loud and deep that it seemed to be coming from the bowels of the earth. A very big pig was very close by. But where? What direction to look? We crouched down low, and I listened as hard as I’ve ever listened for anything before.

  The next sound we heard was the sharp, clean crack of a branch coming from above us to our right. I looked up to the top of the thickly wooded hillside and that’s when I saw it: a rounded black form, coming over the top of the hill. Then another shape, and another, a total of five or six, I couldn’t be sure.

  I touched Angelo on the shoulder and pointed toward the pigs. What should I do? Should I shoot? No, you wait, Angelo said. See—they’re coming down the hill now. I followed the pigs with the barrel
of my gun, trying to get one of them in my sight. I didn’t have a clear shot—too many trees stood in the way. Take your time, Angelo whispered. They will come to us. And so they did, right down to the road directly in front of us.

  MY PIG

  I have no idea how long it took the pigs to pick their way down the steep hill, whether it was minutes or just seconds. At last the first animal, a big black one, stepped out into the clearing of the dirt road, followed by another that was just as big but much lighter in color. The second pig turned, giving me a shot at its flank. Now! Angelo whispered. This is your shot!

  We were both down on one knee. I braced the rifle against my shoulder and lined up my sight. I felt calmer and clearer than I expected to as I took aim at the shoulder of the grayish pig. I held my breath, resisted a sudden urge to clamp my eyes shut, and gently squeezed.

  The crystal stillness of the scene exploded. The pigs ran in panic, moving every which way at once, and then the blam! of Angelo’s shot directly behind made me jump. One pig was down; another seemed to stagger. I pumped my gun to fire again, but I was so excited that I pulled the trigger before I could lower my gun. The shot went wild, far over the heads of the rioting pigs. Angelo fired again and so did I. Then they were gone.

  I DID IT—OR DID I?

  We ran forward to the downed animal, a very large grayish sow sprawled on her side across the dirt road. A glossy bubble of blood grew directly beneath her ear. The pig thrashed briefly, attempting to lift her head, then gave it up. Death was quickly overtaking her. I was relieved she wouldn’t need a second shot. We ran past her, looking for the others. Angelo said he thought he had grazed another one. I climbed down the embankment looking for it, but the hill was too steep and Angelo called me back up to the road.