Grass Fed
Details: Enforcement.
Enforcement is weak. The regulation states that "the addition of the grass fed claim for products formulated with grass fed beef is a type of claim that can be approved through a request for blanket approval." This means that an on-site audit is not required. Instead, the producer must submit documentation to FSIS, the USDA Food Safety and Inspection Service.[1]
Details: Age of Slaughter.
While bovines that finish feeding with grain in a feedlot are slaughtered when about one year old, grass fed animals are allowed to live no longer than two years of their 15-to-20-year life span.[2]
United Egg Producers Certified.
Details: Freedom to Move.
According to Consumer Reports, "the UEP Certified guidelines allow continuous confinement in crowded cages in dimly lit buildings without natural light and fresh air. Hens only have to be given enough space to stand upright, with a minimum space requirement of 8 by 8 inches for white laying hens kept in a cage. Producers keeping their hens in cages do not have to allow the hens to move freely, perch, dust bathe, or forage, and nest boxes are not required. While the label is verified, it is not meaningful as an animal welfare label because certain basic conditions, such as the freedom to move, are not required."[3]
USDA Process Verified.
- According to Consumer Reports, Process Verified claims can be written by the
manufacturers themselves—and the claims do not have to be meaningful to the welfare of the
animals.[4]
- Details: Process Verified.
- Consumer Reports says, "the USDA Process Verified shield means that one or more
of the claims made on the label have been verified by the U.S. Department of
Agriculture. Both the claim and the standard behind the claim can be written by
the company; the USDA only verifies whether the standard has been met, not
whether the claim is a meaningful one. The label adds credibility to meaningful
claims like 'no antibiotics, ever,' but also allows for claims with lower
standards that mostly reflect the existing industry norm and add little value,
such as 'raised without growth-promoting antibiotics.'”[5]
Animal Welfare Approved.
- This is the only certification that Consumer Reports says has strong standards, yet the
standards still allow for mutilations[6] and other
injustices.
- Also, products with this label are challenging to find. A search using their own product finder
reveals that it's unlikely you will find any products with this label at a grocery store near
you.[7]
Certified Sustainable Seafood.
- Sustainability has nothing to do with the treatment of the fish. Fish typically die of
suffocation because they are left in the air, or they die by having their throats slit while
they are alive. Although our concern for fish is typically less than it is for other animals,
research in cognitive ethology and neurobiology reveals that fish show intelligence, feel pain,
display emotions, and have many of the other characteristics of the land animals we use for
food.[8]
- Not only that, but the sustainability claim itself is suspect. In a piece titled "Is
Sustainable-Labeled Seafood Really Sustainable?" NPR reports that scientists and other experts
believe fisheries are being certified that should not be. In addition, fish are being
incorrectly counted, rendering the claims of sustainability doubtful.[9]
Backyard Chickens.
- Although backyard chickens are not associated with a certification or label like the others that
we are covering here, they deserve a closer look. A considerable number of people regard the
practice of keeping chickens in the backyard for food as innocuous. These backyard chickens are
of the same or similar variety as those on industrial farms—the very farms that account for most
of the cruelties outlined below.
- Baby chicks often die in transport. A quick search will find numerous reports of chicks being
shipped alive to backyard hobbyists and dying in transport—and reports of those that make it
being greatly stressed.
- Backyard chickens, like those on industrial farms, have been selectively bred, which stresses
their bodies. Here are just a few examples out of many:
- Laying hens are bred to lay large eggs, which stresses their reproductive systems and
causes such problems as osteoporosis, bone breakage, and uterus prolapse.[10]
- Another stressor for laying hens is the number of their eggs, which is the result of
selective breeding. A laying hen produces more than 300 eggs a year, but the jungle fowl
from which they are bred lay 4 to 6 eggs in a year.[11]</a>
- Chickens used for meat have been bred to grow at an unnaturally fast rate and have large
breasts. This selective breeding comes with serious welfare consequences: leg disorders;
skeletal, developmental, and degenerative diseases; heart and lung problems; respiratory
problems; and premature death.[12]
- In the hatcheries from which backyard chicken hobbyists order baby chicks, the males are either
ground alive in macerators, gassed, or smothered to death soon after they are hatched. This is
because the laying hens are selectively bred for producing eggs, not meat, rendering the males
useless for their intended purpose.[13]
- Backyard hens are likely to be slaughtered when egg production wanes, preventing them from
living out their natural lives. As one hobbyist euphemistically put it, "when the expenses
outweigh the value, then changes have to be made."[14]
Cruelty and suffering are systemic in using animals as commodities for profit.
- The abuses inflicted on farmed animals are many and often severe, and they're part of the normal
operations of exploiting animals for food. These abuses include confinement, crowding, mutilation,
deprivation of natural behaviors, debilitating selective breeding, cruel handling, separation from their
offspring, and, of course, slaughter.
- Because many of the abuses are systemic, they cannot be humanely-labeled away. To be profitable, animal
agriculture depends on animals being mistreated. For any label or certification to omit all animal
abuses would render the products unaffordable by all but the most affluent.
- The cruelty stems in part from the attitudes that surround the commodification of animals, as
exemplified by a piece in Hog Management, which recommends that farmers "forget the pig is an
animal—treat him just like a machine in a factory."[15]
- Here are a few specific examples of cruelty not covered earlier. These are allowed under many, if not
most, labels and certifications.
- The early separation of calves from their mothers, depriving the calves of the love and milk of
their mothers and depriving the grieving cow of her nurturing instinct[16]
- Painful debeaking of chickens, depriving them of their ability to engage in preening and
foraging[17]
- Forcing a hesitant animal to move by any methods necessary, including whipping, prodding,
dragging, and forklifting (the evidence for this can be seen in numerous videos and the several
firsthand accounts in the book Slaughterhouse by Gail A. Eisnitz)
- The dehorning of cows, which one professor of animal science calls "the single most painful
thing we do,"[18]
done via acid, burning, sawing, or cutting with a gigantic clipper[19]
- The clipping of teeth and tails of piglets, a painful procedure usually performed without
medication and which may also result in infections, tumors, and the suppression of natural
behaviors[20]
Humane-sounding labels and certifications may be best thought of as marketing.
- The animal agriculture industry is aware of the growing concern for animals and know that if they appear
to be uncaring, sales and profits will decline. They also know that few will examine these
humane-sounding claims to see if they are true. So these labels and certifications give the appearance
of being humane, assuaging the guilt of compassionate buyers.
- They may also engender higher profits, because the industry also knows that concerned, kindhearted
consumers are willing to pay more for products they perceive to be humanely produced.
You cannot buy products made from animals that have been treated humanely.
- Even if you buy into the idea that it’s OK to eat animal products as long as the animals are treated
well, there is virtually no chance that the animals have, in fact, been treated well, regardless of what
label is on the package. While certain labels may represent less suffering for some of the abuses, other
abuses remain. The mitigation of some of the cruelties does not justify the remaining ones.
- As we have shown and as exposed via Consumer Reports and other sources, the standards for these
humane-sounding labels are weak and they often go unenforced.
- The life of any farmed animal can only be described as one of commodified, abusive servitude ending in
brutal slaughter. When viewed objectively, free from the fog of our cultural norms, their treatment and
slaughter, no matter the label or certification—and by any standard of fairness and justice—cannot be
considered humane.
Meta
- Contributors
- Greg Fuller — Author
- Isaac Nickerson — Copy Editor
- Revisions
- 2018-11-07 Initial post completed —glf
- 2018-11-16 First editing pass completed —isn
- 2018-11-20 Published—glf
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