In Diet for a New America, John Robbins writes that " �Meat-packing plants,� as slaughterhouses are euphemistically called, are not exactly the most pleasant of working environments. Just being surrounded by death and killing takes an incredible toll on a human being.

"The turnover rate among slaughterhouse workers is the highest of any occupation in the country. The Excel Corporation plant in Dodge City, Kansas, for example, had a turnover rate of 43% per month in 1980 -- the equivalent of a complete turnover of its entire 500 person work force every two and a half months.

"Slaughterhouses are particularly difficult to describe because we have been systematically taught not to think about them at all. You probably don't know where a single one is located, so whitewashed have been our minds to their existence. But I can tell you they are not places Walt Disney would want to make a movie about. One writer called them:

�...infernos of nauseous smells, pools of blood, and screams of terrified animals.�

"Just about everybody finds the atmosphere of the slaughterhouse uncomfortable. Even the meat producers themselves don't exactly want to spend their vacations there...Amidst this carnage, workers in blood-spattered white coats and helmets are in constant motion, removing cattle legs with electric shears, skinning hides with whirring air knives, disemboweling animals with razor-bladed straight knives. The floors are slick with animal grease, and the air is thick with stench.

"It is a terribly difficult atmosphere in which to work. According to U.S. Labor Department statistics, the rate of injury in meat-packing houses is the highest of any occupation in the nation. Every year, over 30% of packinghouse workers suffer on-the-job injuries requiring medical attention.

"It's a few steps removed from anything you'd see at Disneyland."