Industrializing Beef

After reading Eric Schlosser’s article "Meat and Potatoes" I found myself asking many questions about why such a flawed system for producing cheap meat exists. Schlosser explains that over the last few decades, the meat packing plants in this country have become increasingly industrialized, but the consolidation has had a negative impact on the people these companies employ. A meat packing job used to be a respectable position that could earn someone a middle class wage, but the working conditions decreased drastically as more and more unskilled laborers were hired for this job, which has the highest rate of injury at work. The workers, trying to keep up with the nearly impossible pace of the meat packing plant, neglect some measures of cleanliness. He goes on to gruesomely describe how the cattle are slaughtered and eviscerated. Schlosser witnessed the swinging carcasses being disemboweled by workers who were standing ankle-deep in blood. This system, which is required to feed the demand of consumers, creates a meat product that is much more dangerous because of the higher risk of contaminated meat. Out breaks of E. Coli have become more frequent in recent years, and one has to wonder what the true costs of eating cheap meat are.
I was pretty shocked at some of the information that I learned in this article because it seems that industrializing beef production has negatively impacted both the people who have to work in the plants, but also the consumer. Is there any way to meet the demand for meat without having to exploit workers at a meat packing plant? I was wondering if this article is truly representative of all meat packing plants, and Schlosser found similar conditions in other plants, or if the was chosen only to shock readers. My step dad owns a butcher shop, and what I have seen is not nearly as horrific as what was described in the article. I would like to know where people buy their meat from and what things they take into consideration when they consume it, because even more so after reading this, I think we need to be mindful of what we eat.