A video from Peru has gone viral, that shows a man dispatching chickens with a sudden karate chop to the back of the neck. The graphic nature of the execution has shocked and alarmed a large number of individuals.

The video was shot at a facility processing chicken to be sold as meat. The man picks a bird up and forces its wings behind its back, as the creature struggles. The man then drives a sharp karate blow to the back of the chicken’s neck, using the blade edge of the hand. The limp carcass is then placed next to others at a work station

Several of the birds can be seen moving, which may indicate death – as indicated by the phrase “running around like a chicken with its head cut off” chickens move after death. Or the chicken may merely be stunned.

The next step is slitting the bird’s throat, after which the bird is placed in boiling water to make removal of the feathers easy.

Many people do not feel that killing another living creature is inherently humane. For those people who believe in relatively humane slaughter, there are currently two systems for killing poultry in wide use, one by small farms, and one by industrial-scale concerns.

Small farmers use a “killing cone,” which is essentially a funnel into which the chicken is placed, upside down, with it’s head protruding from the bottom. The cone keeps the chicken still, and less stressed than some other methods. Then an extremely sharp knife is used to cut the bird’s throat. Under USDA guidelines, you can slaughter up to 1,000 birds using this method.

Industrial-scale slaughterhouses hang the birds upside down, and drag them through a pool of electrified water, that stuns them. The birds then have their throat slit. Under USDA regulations, up to140 birds can be killed per minute using this method. That is some 8,000 chickens per hour, or over 60,000 during a work shift.

Temple Grandin, the world’s preeminent expert on humane, science-based slaughter, has developed a carbon dioxide based method to gently put the birds to sleep before cutting their necks. The bird then is not subject to any pain when it dies.

An age-old alternative is to hold the chicken securely in your arms, and then break its neck. Technique is required, but it is considered relatively human. The karate chop technique used in Peru appears to be a variation of this. The birds are either killed or stunned by the chop, and thus do not feel anything when their throats are cut.

Another alternative is of course to not slaughter animals for food at all.

There are several prominent MMA fighters who are vegetarian, including Nate Diaz, Jake Shields, and Nick Diaz. This shows that you can achieve at the highest levels of human performance, without eating meat, and thus of course without the slaughter of the thousands of animals that are required to keep the average person alive.

For more information on plant-based fight training, please check out Fuel For The Fighter.

WARNING: Many will find this video shocking and disturbing.