Meet Your Meat

Title: “Meet Your Meat”
Author/Producer: People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA)
Suggested Age Range: Ages 13-18 and College adult
Item Type: Video or DVD
Description: 13-minute documentary showing typical factory farming and slaughterhouse practices
Price: Free for TeachKind Network members
Suitable for the Following Subjects: Ethics, health, humane education, language arts, science, social science
Misc:
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How to Order: Available from TeachKind.

Companion Materials: Download a printable PDF of the accompanying lesson plan.

Get information about downloading “Meet Your Meat.”

This documentary shows the routine practices of factory farms and slaughterhouses and explores the conditions endured by animals who are raised for meat, eggs, and milk. All the footage was obtained through investigations at U.S. factory farms and slaughterhouses in recent years.

“Meet Your Meat” makes a compelling case that the factory-farming mindset—producing the most “product” (meat, milk, or eggs) with the smallest investment (time, money, etc.)—is responsible for routine cruelty to animals, such as confining them to spaces that prevent free movement and proper hygiene, inflicting mutilations without the use of painkillers, breeding animals for quick growth or production as opposed to optimal health, prematurely separating mothers and their young, rough handling, and slaughtering fully conscious animals.

This documentary is included on the "Chew on This" DVD as a bonus feature.

TeachKind recommends that educators review all videotapes before showing them to students.

Suggested Uses: Health educators can use the video as a starting point for discussions about how the overcrowded, filthy, and stressful conditions that animals face in factory farms and slaughterhouses promote foodborne illnesses; how drugs and hormones that are given to animals to promote growth affect humans who eat animals; and how keeping tens of thousands of animals in one location creates huge environmental problems.

Science educators can use this video to prompt discussions about issues such as the breeding and genetic engineering of animals to increase “production” or the environmental inefficiency of raising animals as opposed to plants.

Social science and English educators can use this video to study related current events. There has been a lot of recent activity on this issue—Florida passed a law banning the crating of pregnant pigs, and large restaurant chains, like McDonald’s, Burger King, and Wendy’s, forced their suppliers to improve the living and dying conditions of animals raised for their restaurants. This video can be used to introduce a discussion, research paper, writing assignment, or presentation on this important issue. Librarians may want to keep a copy in the library for students.