A California meatpacker caught torturing cattle and processing the unfit animals for human consumption is provoking calls for reform that could prove hard to ignore.

The Hallmark/Westland Meat Packing Co announced on Sunday it wanted back nearly 143 million pounds (65 million kilograms) of meat -- enough to feed more than 2.2 million Americans for a year -- that it had shipped out since February 2006.

But the wrongdoings at the plant were not exposed under the watchful eye of inspectors from the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Instead, the Humane Society of the United States captured employees in a gruesome, undercover videotape that was made after an apparent random decision to investigate the plant located in Chino, California.

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The Humane Society of the United States sparked an uproar over the meatpacking plant when it released the lurid videotape showing plant workers were gouging, kicking and forcing water into the noses of cattle in order to get the animals upright.

Only cattle that can stand are considered fit to be inspected, a rule considered especially critical in preventing processing of cows infected with mad cow disease.

Source: reuters.com