My Year of Meats (25 page)
Journal: September 1
Ueno wants beef, and beef he shall have. Went to the library and found more books on the meat industry. The DES stuff was only the tip of the iceberg. Why didn’t I pursue this? I call myself a documentarian, but I’ve learned almost nothing about the industry that’s paid for these shows. Paid me for these shows.
So here we go. I will probe its stinking heart and rub Ueno’s nose in its offal. No more fudge. I’m thinking slaughterhouses for the next show. A meat-packin’ mama in Chicago, perhaps? Or a feedlot family?
FAX
TO: Lara and Dyann
FROM: Jane Takagi-Little
DATE: September 2
RE: Wives, Meat, etc.
Dear Lara and Dyann:
I hope this finds you all well. I write it with some trepidation.... Did you get the copy of
My American Wife!
that I sent you? I haven’t heard back from you and I’m worried that you didn’t like the show. I hope this isn’t the case, but if it is, I also hope you will let me know.
My American Wife!
that I sent you? I haven’t heard back from you and I’m worried that you didn’t like the show. I hope this isn’t the case, but if it is, I also hope you will let me know.
I am writing to ask for some advice. I am researching my next
My American Wife!
This time I happen to be featuring a wife whose family is involved in the Livestock, specifically beef, industry. I started to research the topic and I’m finding it very disturbing.
My American Wife!
This time I happen to be featuring a wife whose family is involved in the Livestock, specifically beef, industry. I started to research the topic and I’m finding it very disturbing.
I remember that during the cooking scene you both talked a Little about being vegetarians by default because of the practices of factory farming meat. I wasn’t able to use it in the final program, but could you tell me more about this? I have read quite a bit, but I want to hear what you have to say.
If this is presumptuous of me and you don’t have time, or you hated the show and don’t want to have anything else to do with me, I understand and apologize. I hope I will hear back from you.
Sincerely,
Jane Takagi-Little
FAX
TO: “John” Ueno
FROM: Jane Takagi-Little
DATE: 9/3/91
RE: Blatszik & Dunn
Dear Mr. “John” Ueno:
As per your instructions, I am attaching a copy of our research thus far for the next
My
American
Wife!
program. As you will see, we have found two promising candidates, Mrs. Anna Blatszik, the wife of a meatpacker in Chicago, and Mrs. “Bunny” Dunn, the wife with a Colorado cattle ranch. I have asked each of the Ladies to tell us her best beef recipe to share with the Japanese audience.
My
American
Wife!
program. As you will see, we have found two promising candidates, Mrs. Anna Blatszik, the wife of a meatpacker in Chicago, and Mrs. “Bunny” Dunn, the wife with a Colorado cattle ranch. I have asked each of the Ladies to tell us her best beef recipe to share with the Japanese audience.
Sincerely,
Jane Takagi-Little
FAX
September 3
Takagi,
You won’t return my calls so I have to resort to faxes. I don’t know whether you’ve gone and had the abortion already, but I have to see you regardless.
I reacted very badly to your phone call from the Montana jail. I’m sorry. Collect calls from prisons make me nervous. But you did sort of railroad me, you know. Anyway, can we please talk? I need to know what’s going on.
Please, call me.
Sloan
FAX
September 4
Dear Jane,
Thanks for your fax. Don’t worry. The show is a hoot and the girls in particular loved it. They think it is hysterical that they are on TV, talking in Japanese. They took it to school for show-and-tell, and now they prance around acting like goddamn movie stars. Actually, they can’t decide between being stars or directors. Any suggestions?
When we were trying to get pregnant, I started getting interested in fertility rates and I ended up writing a series of articles (which I will send you) for a Local ecology magazine, surveying recent studies of natural and synthetic hormones in the environment and their impact on human reproduction. Do you know that some studies show that sperm counts have dropped globally in the past fifty years by about fifty percent? This coincides with the start of factory farming and the heavy use of estrogens and other hormones in meat production. Granted there were a lot of other chemicals and pharmaceuticals just starting to saturate the environment around that time too, and the research is disputed, but my feeling is how could it not take its toll?
Anyway, the meat thing in particular interested me, so I pursued it and started to dig up all sorts of nasty information about the industry, which I am sending to you. That’s when Lara and I became vegetarians. Basically, at first we didn’t believe that there was anything inherently wrong with eating meat. We simply decided to try not to eat contaminated foods when we were pregnant, or to feed them to our daughters. But then we started to feel that eating meat was, not wrong exactly, but not the best of all ethical choices, either, you know? So that’s where we stand.
Best of Luck on your show.
Fond regards,
Dyann
P.S. The girls want me to ask why there are black sections in the tape? Is that where the commercials go?
How do you know when your cows are in the mood for love?
This is a serious question for cattle ranchers, who need to know which of their cows is in estrus and ready for artificial insemination. In the good old days, the rancher relied on a “teaser bull.” He was a bull of inferior stock, who, like any bull released into a herd of cows, promptly found and mounted those in heat. The difference was that the teaser bull had a paint marker around his neck, which left behind an identifying smear of paint on the cows’ rumps.
But that was all he left behind. Naturally you do not want this bull’s lesser sperm weakening your gene pool, so it was important to keep him from actually fulfilling his biological imperative. A simple surgical alteration took care of this problem. A slit in the skin of the bull’s penis rerouted it out the side, so when the bull became aroused and mounted the cow, his skewed erection circled futilely around his target. Accordingly, these bulls were nicknamed “sidewinders.”
The use of sidewinders, however, is old technology. The Upjohn Company now markets a new estrus-synchronizing compound called Lutalyse. Injected into all the cows in a herd, it forces them to come into heat simultaneously, within a matter of hours. Imagine! No more “Not tonight, honey, I’ve got a headache.” This is modern love—efficient, assembly-line artificial insemination and controlled calving. Upjohn’s slogan? “You Call the Shots.”
Lutalyse is a prostaglandin, a chemical that functions similarly to a hormone, affecting almost everything that a body does, including respiration, digestion, nerve response, and reproduction. Prostaglandins work equally on both cows and women, and are being used in human medicine to stimulate menstruation as well as to abort fetuses in the second trimester of pregnancy.
Lutalyse is only one of many “growth-enhancing” drugs, hormones, and other pharmaceuticals used in beef production. In America, 95 percent of cattle routinely receive estradiol, testosterone, progesterone, and anabolic steroids, not to mention the huge doses of antibiotics needed to control disease in feedlots, where cattle are crammed into pens, standing knee-deep in urine, feces, and mud, with no place to move.
Trace residues of these drugs end up in the beef we eat, along with concentrated doses of herbicides used in cattle feed, and pesticides and insecticides needed to control the rampant fly populations in feedlots.
These drugs, hormones, chemicals, and poisons are being blamed for a host of modern human health crises, including dropping sperm counts and fertility rates, cancers, and our rising resistance to antibiotics. In addition, the “diseases of affluence”—the heart attacks, strokes, and stomach cancers caused by too much meat in the diet—are killing Americans, Europeans, and increasingly the Japanese....
Journal: September 4
The creature inside craves meat. This is the month of manic growth, they tell me, when the manikin will double in size, from a puny three inches, crown to rump, to a whopping six. I take out my ruler and stare at it in disbelief. This much baby in my belly!
Meanwhile, a massive rift has occurred between the seat of my so-called intelligence and my dumb, stunned body. With my mind, I am studying meat. I am immersed in ac- . counts of pharmaceutical abuse. I recall Purcell Dawes, the DES, and the cute young doctor in Oklahoma with his warnings about antibiotics. I am reading chilling descriptions of the slaughterhouse, the caked filth, blood coursing down the cement kill floor, the death screams of a slaughtered lamb (exactly like the cry of a human baby) going on and on, long after the lamb’s throat has been cut. And yet ...
And yet my body still craves the taste and texture of animal between my teeth. I read, I shudder, I gnaw a spare rib. How is this possible? I’ve had a long course in psychic numbing, but if this is the outcome of my documentary career, then I’m doubled to a psychotic extreme.
Found a health food store that sells organic beef. I don’t want this child born with two penises or half a brain if I can help it.
Sloan’s been calling. Now he’s faxed, asking to see me. What does he want from me?
FAX
TO: “J.” Ueno
FROM: Jane Takagi-Little
DATE: September 4
RE: Sausages and Prairie Oysters
Dear Mr. “J.” Ueno,
I am delighted that you approve of our researches for
My
American
Wife!
thus far. I spoke to Mrs. Anna Blatszik, who told me that she often makes sausages with the “Leftovers” from the meatpacking plant and she would like to make these for our program. She said she has a dish that she likes to make when her in-laws come for dinner, called “El Quicko Sausage Surprise.” The name sounds fancy, she said, but it’s real simple to make. She cooks the wieners in a sauce made from a can of cherry pie filling and a cup of rose wine (or you can just substitute sugar and orange juice, she assured me, if you don’t have rose wine).
My
American
Wife!
thus far. I spoke to Mrs. Anna Blatszik, who told me that she often makes sausages with the “Leftovers” from the meatpacking plant and she would like to make these for our program. She said she has a dish that she likes to make when her in-laws come for dinner, called “El Quicko Sausage Surprise.” The name sounds fancy, she said, but it’s real simple to make. She cooks the wieners in a sauce made from a can of cherry pie filling and a cup of rose wine (or you can just substitute sugar and orange juice, she assured me, if you don’t have rose wine).
Mrs. “Bunny” Dunn loves variety meats and has suggested her special recipe of Pan-Fried Prairie Oysters. Do you know what a prairie oyster is? It is a bull’s testicle, a traditional delicacy in the American West, which American men eat in order to increase their strength and their manhood. I think this would be a very nice custom to introduce to Japanese families. However, if you think it is too crass a meat for the refined Japanese palate, she also has a very nice recipe for Scrambled Brains ‘n’ Eggs or Simmered Heart.
I will visit Chicago and Colorado and scout both women. I will send you my opinions, but of course, the final decision is yours. You call the shots.
Sincerely,
Jane Takagi-Little
FAX
September 5
Sloan,
I will be in Chicago next Monday for a location scout and I can see you then if you want. However, I will be spending most of the day at Blatszik Meat Fabricators. I haven’t yet aborted, although I did deposit your check.
Sincerely, Takagi
FAX
TO: Mr. “J.” Ueno
FROM: Jane Takagi-Little
DATE: September 5
RE: Wild West
Dear Mr. Ueno,
The more I find out about “Bunny” Dunn, the more I like her. She is a former rodeo queen and everyone says she is physically quite attractive. She was born and bred in Texas, and perhaps you may recall how charming Texas girls can be. In addition she has a warm, outgoing personality. She and her husband, John, have a feedlot, which is different from a ranch and better for the purposes of our program, I think. A cattle ranch may have several hundred or maybe several thousand animals. But at the Dunns’ feedlot there are cattle from ranches all over the country, about 20,000 head in all!
The Dunns feed the cattle special food to fatten them up and give them medicine to make sure they do not get sick. The cattle are kept in one place, so they will be easier for us to film and get all 20,000 into one spectacular shot. Now that’s a lot of beef! In addition there is a meat-processing business nearby owned by good friends of the Dunns who have agreed to allow us to film all the different and interesting steps involved in meat production.
Aside from the attractiveness of Mrs. “Bunny” Dunn, there is much to recommend the rest of the family as well. Mr. Dunn is quite a bit older than “Bunny,” but he is still vigorous, and the two fell in love at first sight. John Dunn has one grown-up son from a previous marriage who works with his father on the farm. John and “Bunny” have a Little daughter as well. John sired the girl at the age of 72 and he says his virility comes from the red meat he’s eaten every day since he first grew teeth. “Bunny” swears it’s her Prairie Oysters. All in all, I feel that the Dunns are a pretty typical American family who would do much to promote an image of the wholesomeness of BEEF-EX.
Sincerely,
J. Takagi-Little
Bunny Dunn was indeed a rodeo queen, in the small town of Fossil, Texas, when she was in high school. Then she took a shot at the state title and ended up as a stripper and an exotic dancer, moving from town to town until she wound up in San Antonio. John Dunn is old enough to be her grandpa. He spotted her at the club where she was working, bought a ring at a pawnshop next door, slipped it on her finger during a lap dance, and took her back to his spread in Colorado.
If the feedlot is anything like the ones I’ve been reading about, there should be plenty of opportunity to shoot some pretty horrifying material. And the slaughterhouse—I have high hopes for that.
What am I hoping to accomplish? Am I trying to sabotage this program?
I need this job. I can’t afford to get fired now. On the other hand, I can’t continue making the kind of programs Ueno wants, either. What am I supposed to do?
FAX
TO: “J.” Ueno
FROM: Jane Takagi-Little
DATE: September 6
RE: Documentary Ethics
Dear Mr. Ueno:
There are a couple of things that have come to light in my researches that I think you should know about. I have inadvertently discovered an unsavory side to the meat industry. I am talking about the use of drugs and hormones in meat production, which are being blamed for rising rates of cancer, sterility, impotence, reproductive disorders, as well as a host of other illnesses and harmful side effects. These drugs are routinely given to the cattle that end up as steak on the plates of the Japanese television viewing audience. I am concerned about the ethics of representing either the Blatsziks or the Dunns in a wholesome manner, knowing what I now know about the health hazards of meat production.
I am sending you a summary of all of my research. Since there is so much technical language, I’ve asked Kenji to translate it into Japanese. Please advise how to proceed.
Sincerely,
J. Takagi-Little
P.S. On a more personal note, while there is still no proven link to meat, did you know that now the average man produces less morphologically sound sperm than an average hamster?
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