One hundred and twenty years ago, a novel was published to, among other things, highlight the inhumane conditions in the slaughter of cattle at the Chicago stockyards.
“The Jungle” by Upton Sinclair was a sensation and led to sanitation reforms, including the 1906 Meat Inspection Act, and other product safety legislation.
Today, the organization PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) is playing the role of “The Jungle” in attempting to highlight in a sort of traveling road show the inhumane treatment of chickens in their raising, transport and slaughter en route to your dinner table.
Recently, PETA brought what it calls its “Hell on Wheels” truck not to one of Chattanooga’s chicken processing plants but to the popular downtown chicken restaurant “Champy’s World Famous Fried Chicken,” where it parked with images on its sides of cages stuffed with chickens and then broadcast recorded sounds of chicken cries.