Our Hen House: Vegan & Animal Rights Movement | Stories from the Frontlines of Animal Liberation

AI, Slaughterhouse Shenanigans, and Legal Victories | Rising Anxieties

Sep 16, 2025

Dive into the absurdities of the meat industry, from ridiculous claims linking AI to protein production to the troubling rollback of slaughterhouse waste regulations by the EPA. Explore how Temple Grandin's mythology serves as a smokescreen for industry practices, and marvel at a significant legal victory that empowers advocates to prosecute animal cruelty. The shocking rise in beef production per cow showcases a grim reality while the notion of AI reshaping livestock practices prompts vital questions about animal welfare.

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INSIGHT

AI Could Favor Cultivated Meat Over Livestock

Matt Graves and others promote AI as likely to optimize livestock production and possibly favor cell-cultivated proteins over traditional systems.
Mariann Sullivan argues this tech-led efficiency still defends ongoing animal exploitation rather than ending it.

INSIGHT

Massive Increase In Beef Per Cow

Beef yield per cow rose from about 217 pounds in 1951 to roughly 700 pounds today, showing huge productivity gains.
Mariann frames these gains as 'sick progress' that reduce animal numbers but not suffering or the system itself.

ANECDOTE

Grandin Helicopter Story As Industry Cover

Mariann recounts Temple Grandin's helicopter story about fixing cattle balking with lighting and cardboard in Ireland.
She criticizes the story as industry-friendly mythology that normalizes and hides systemic cruelty.

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In this episode of Rising Anxieties, we go on a whirlwind tour through the meat industry’s latest absurdities. From a meat industry writer’s hilariously misguided claim about “the first real science fiction movie” to the EPA’s disturbing rollback of slaughterhouse waste regulations (because nothing says “unleashing prosperity” like animal blood in the water supply), Mariann doesn’t hold back. The episode culminates with a genuinely exciting legal victory as Legal Impact for Chickens successfully establishes their right to prosecute animal cruelty at a self-proclaimed “regenerative” dairy farm—proving that sometimes, justice finds a way through the cracks of a broken system.

This episode explores:

The meat industry’s bizarre embrace of AI as a potential savior, even as it might eventually conclude their practices are inefficient
How the Temple Grandin mythology continues to provide convenient cover for the meat industry’s horrible practices
The EPA’s troubling removal of pollution regulations for slaughterhouses under the guise of “defeating the cost of living crisis”
A groundbreaking legal victory allowing animal advocates to directly prosecute cruelty cases against Alexandre Farms dairy
The shocking increase in “beef production per cow” from 217 pounds in 1951 to approximately 700 pounds today

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