From my last post:
https://steemit.com/steemstem/@a-condor/how-effective-is-stunning
Critically looking at the two methods of slaughtering animals:
Is stunning truly more effective in reducing pain during death of animals?
Is the consumption of animal products processed from slaughtering after stunning safe for the health?
Is stunning more effective in reducing the stress and pain of an animal about to be slaughtered?
Researches have discovered that in percussive stunning, the success rate is about 80% with the remaining owing to improper stunning. In the fails, animals especially Bulls and Calves fall in this category. In this case, stunning is carried out twice or thrice as the animal struggles with its life.
Even if the stunning is successful, little do we know about the greater pain the animal passes through during a repeated percussive stunning, electrocution while tied upside down or forceful inhalation of carbon dioxide before becoming unconscious.
Slitting the throat may be regarded as a cruel way of slaughtering the animals. However, when done properly with a sharp knife, the carotoid artery, jugular vein and the windpipe can be cut in a single swipe. And of course, blood loss occurs at large till the heart stops pumping blood leading to death almost immediately.
If eventually stunning is agreed upon as the most effective means for slaughtering, is the healthiness of using the dead animal as food in check?
Is the consumption of animal products processed from slaughtering after stunning safe for the health?
First, we look at the state of the animals slaughtered by slitting the throat and by stunning.
The brain is known to function as the coordinator of every action taking place the body. In this case, controlling heartbeat and pumping of blood. A brain that has been electrocuted, mutilated or stressed out of forcing it to inhale CO2 (gas stunning) will definitely not function normally or any more or may lead to cardiac arrest from the shock. However, the brain of a slaughtered animal is still in shape.
In essence, during slaughtering of a stunned animal, blood circulation seize to occur since there is nothing coordinating it. So, only little volume of blood would flow out on slitting it through. This means the rest of the blood volume clots in the body and there is no other way of getting the remaining blood out of the body.
In slaughtering by slitting the throat, blood circulation still occur as the brain is undamaged and connection to heart is still intact. So, most of the blood are let out of the cut, since the heart is still pumping blood towards the area of cut letting out large volume of the blood from the severed arteries and veins.
Normally, the blood is meant to be sterile.
However, its should be known that the blood houses a lot of microbes including dormant ones, chronic ones that have formed biofilms and acute ones that are actively causing infection in the animal with or without our knowledge.
This means if the animal has septicemia, the consumer may become infected with a pathogen even if the meat, pork or chicken is carefully processed.
