AR-News: (US MO) Eat Me

[Animalara2003 at aol.com]

Riverfront Times
June 9, 2004 

The only thing keeping the Japanese from buying the Midwest's finest beef is 
the USDA 
BY MALCOLM GAY
Malcolm.Gay at riverfronttimes.com 



Some calves kick. Some calves low. Some rear up on their hindquarters and try 
to escape. But when they meet the rabbi's blade, they all die the same. 
Spurred on by the electric prick of a cattle prod, each animal in turn bucks 
and heels its way along a dung-encrusted incline to Gateway Beef Cooperative's 
red-walled restraining pen. The calf's 1,200 pounds are maneuvered into 
position. The rear door shuts, and the pen's floor rises, lifting the calf off its 
hooves. A powerful harness then rumbles to life. Its coarse jaws clamp down on 
the calf's head, pulling it upward. The lowing stops. The calf's gaze is 
forced skyward, its neck exposed, a pulsing, docile arc. 
Raised on small farms throughout Missouri and Illinois, this calf and its 
brethren have been brought here to Granite City, Illinois, to be transformed into 
some of the best beef available in the United States. Gateway Beef, a small 
plant cooperatively owned by 58 ranchers and one kosher grocer in New York, 
deals exclusively in Angus cattle, a sort of aristocracy of the ruminant world. 
The plant specializes in top-quality beef, and a full 60 percent of its product 
is graded "prime" by the U.S. Department of Agriculture -- the highest grade 
the USDA awards. 



full story:
 
 http://www.riverfronttimes.com/issues/2004-06-09/feature.html 

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"But for the sake of some little mouthful of flesh, we deprive a soul of the 
sun and light and of that proportion of life and time it had been born into 
the world to enjoy." -Plutarch

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