Our humanely raised beef is more humane than your humanely raised beef.

It all started with people who sought the dual benefit of assuaging their conscience (feeling better about eating flesh from a tortured/slaughtered animal) while at the same time showcasing that refined conscience to others (the vanity boost conferred by the possession of something impressive, similar to driving a luxury automobile). By not only consuming humanely raised meat, but also being willing, even eager, to pay a premium for it, these people of conscience managed to elevate themselves above the uncaring masses who eat meat with complete disregard for the suffering of the animal who provided it.

This dual benefit of an assuaged conscience plus a vanity boost became highly sought after by flesh-eating progressives everywhere. Humanely raised labels and brands proliferated. This posed a problem for the original progressives. They were once again just part of the herd. It was more difficult for others to see and appreciate their refined consciences. So it was only inevitable that they would seek a new way to differentiate/elevate themselves, a way of saying our humanely raised beef is more humane than your humanely raised beef. Soulfood Farm has just what these progressives are looking for. Soulfood Farm turned to the American Welfare Institute to give them a conscience-conferring label that separates them from the other providers of humanely raised animal flesh. From their blog...

To me, the name says it all. It begins with the animals’ welfare, unlike the vague “humanely raised,” that is slowly being eroded…

Now the other “humanely raised” eating progressives are forced to play catch up. Soon they too will seek the more stringent AWI approval and the progressives who want their consciences to stand out will have to find an even more humane form of torture/slaughter and so on and so on, an endless cycle. If these people really want to stand out, wouldn’t it be much easier to just go ahead and splurge on that Lexus?

Cattle Network article on the trendy, youthful phase of veganism

The article talks about Mean Greens in the University of North Texas, the first all-vegan campus cafeteria in the country.

If I were a meat and poultry purveyor, I wouldn’t worry too much about this breaking news … being trendy is what college is all about. Many of the diehard vegetarians roaming the campus will turn much more traditional – in food and politics – once they hit the adult world …

…But just like the massive amounts of information students struggle to absorb in class, then rarely refer to again once college is over, much of passion for the (alleged) value of vegetarianism tends to follow a similar path once the campus rebels of today enter the real world of adulthood tomorrow.

The writer displays admirable journalistic objectivity, just like he was taught at the National Cattleman’s Journalism School.

To summarize the main points of his article:

We should see the University of North Texas students’ temporary experimentation with a vegan diet for what it is: an act of crazy youthful rebellion before they return to the sane world of gestation crates, stun bolt guns, shackle hoists, torture and slaughter. College has always been a time for exploring new boundaries. In the past, kids experienced identity confusion, possibly experimenting with drugs and binge drinking, but they never crossed the dark line and embraced wild ideas like a steer having the right to not feel his flesh ripped from his body while he's still alive. Or the positively anarchic belief that maybe animals shouldn’t spend their brief lives in a dark crate before their skulls are shattered so people can consume their flesh.

It’s hard to know how to account for the inexplicable radicalization of these vegan students. Maybe it’s the fear of entering an uncertain job market. A sense of being cast adrift. How else can we explain them believing hens shouldn’t get de-beaked with a heated blade, sickly piglets shouldn’t get slammed on concrete floors, downed cows shouldn’t be beaten with a metal pole when they can’t stand up?

But we all need to take a deep breath and realize this is just a rite of passage. A mini-bout of temporary insanity. We need to remind ourselves that thinking an animal has the right to not have a bolt driven through her brain is just a nutty phase some college kids go through. These kids will be okay. Soon enough they’ll be ordering up a big juicy sirloin at Applebees, shaking their heads at their wild youthful beliefs. They’ll have entered the sensible world of adulthood, where steers, pigs and chickens only exist so we can enjoy the taste of their seared flesh, just like God and the National Cattleman’s Association intended it.

The rough and final drafts of the KFC statement on animal welfare

The final draft:

KFC is committed to the humane treatment of animals … As a major purchaser of food products, we have the opportunity, and responsibility, to influence the way animals supplied to us are treated. We take that responsibility very seriously. We are monitoring our suppliers on an ongoing basis to determine wither our suppliers are using humane procedures for caring for and handling animals.

The rough draft:

KFC is committed to making people think we care about the humane treatment of animals. We thought there was big money when we came up with dipping sauces. Shit, that’s nothing compared to the PR bonanza of making people think we give two shits about the lives of the little chickies before we off them. It’s a friggin’ gold mine. We’ll kill the buggers any way you want -- gas, knife, metal pole. Just so long as you give us your gold star or your Proggy or whatever you call your animal welfare compliance award. As a major purchaser of food products, we have the opportunity of killing a shitload of these chickens and if one of our suppliers needs to blow off a little steam by stomping on one of them or throwing one against the wall, well, shit, what would you expect? But give us some pub and we’ll pretend we care. It worked for Burger King and McDonald’s and it can work for us too. We take the responsibility of profiting off animal rights concerns very seriously. We’ll write animal welfare statements up the wazoo. We got a whole floor’s worth of PR flaks who can say things like “These actions are completely contrary to all our company’s practices and policies regarding the humane treatment of poultry.” Cha ching! You guys have no idea how much the public concern for animal welfare is gonna make us, cluck, cluck, cluck, here chickie, chickie, let poppa fast food exec kill you kindly so you can make him a rich man, heh heh!

HSUS: Humane Society of the United Egg Producers

Go to the farm animal campaign on the HSUS site and the donation button says “Let’s phase out battery cages!” They could say, "Let’s phase out consumption which results in the slaughter of millions of chicks and laying hens per year. Even free range hens come from hatcheries where half the chicks born are males who, because they're useless to egg producers, are ground up in machines or suffocated in dumpsters. Laying hens undergo forced molting (starvation up to two weeks) and when their egg production becomes commercially unviable, they’re sent to slaughter. Bigger battery cages won’t help. The only way to end this endless suffering is to stop eating eggs."

Why won’t the HSUS say this? Let’s see how it might go…

HSUS: Let’s phase out our consumption of food which results in slaughter of millions of hens each year.

HSUS donors: Let’s phase out donations.

So the biggest animal advocacy organization in the world can’t advocate a behavioral change which will result in preventing the death of millions of the animals they supposedly exist to help. Instead, they put their money into campaigns for bigger cages. They make videos depicting abuses. This means bad PR for the United Egg Producers. They don’t like bad PR. And HSUS donors don’t like feeling bad about eating their eggs. Maybe it’s time for the HSUS to dial back on their bigger cages campaign.

HUSU: Let’s phase out opposition to the United Egg Producers.

HSUS donors: Let’s phase out donations.

HSUS: Okay, let’s eliminate our opposition to the United Egg Producers in one fell swoop. We’ll hold a big press conference touting the new partnership. We’ll toss out phrases like “better way forward” and “historic agreement” We’ll give them fifteen years to implement their changes. How’s that?

HSUS donors: Where’s my checkbook?

More detailed account of lives of laying hens here.

Meet Kristen, the newest California Happy Cow

America viewed the casting videos and selected Kristen as the newest Happy Cow in the California Milk Board advertising campaign. We're told we can follow Kristen's experiences as a Happy Cow at RealCaliforniaMilk.com. Really? The milk board really wants its milk drinkers to follow the life of a dairy cow? In the first commercial, we'll see the farmer remove Kristen's calf when he's only a day old and ship him off to become veal. Kristen will be so traumatized the farmer will have a difficult time strapping her into the milking machine. In the next commercial, he'll shoot Kristen full of hormones to increase her milk output. She'll be forced to produce ten times the amount of milk she normally would. When her milk productions lapses, the farmer will artificially inseminate her, remove her calf and repeat the process. We won't be able to follow Kristen much longer at RealCaliforniaMilk.com. Her life span would normally be around twenty five years, but her milk output will decrease to unacceptable levels after four, so in the final video of Kristen's brief existence, we'll see the farmer apply the stun bolt gun to her head then the commercial will fade to black. It will be time for Real California Milk to audition for a new Happy Cow to replace Kristen. Here's a group shot of all the Happy Cows who produce real California Milk waiting to see who will become the next Happy Cow.

Michael Pollan will be having a carcass signing

Michael Pollan’s website says he’ll be having a book signing October 12 at the Barnes & Noble in Methesda, Maryland. Book signings are so passé. Why doesn’t his publisher organize a publicity event more in keeping with Michael Pollan’s writings and stage a carcass signing instead? It couldn’t take place at a bookstore. They wouldn’t want blood and entrails all over the espresso machine. They could stage it at the farm where Michael Pollan purchased steer 534 so he could witness first hand the raising and slaughter of a steer.

First, he’ll read a quotation from one of his outraged attacks on factory farms..

The lives of billions of animals on American feedlots and factory farms are horrible to contemplate, an affront to our image of ourselves as humane.

Followed by an excerpt from his NYT article on a 36-hour dinner party he hosted...

Mike and I drove to the ranch to choose our animal and watch the itinerant butcher dress and slaughter it.

As he signs copies of the carcasses, he’ll explain how slaughtering animals in factory farms is an "affront to our image of ourselves as humane" while hungrily watching an itinerant butcher slaughter them for a 36 hour dinner party promotes fellowship and goodwill. Is it because the butcher is itinerant while the factory farms exist in a fixed location? Only way to find out is to attend this gala carcass signing for yourself.

But Michael Pollan won't only be signing steer carcasses. No sir. Pick a farm animal, any farm animal, he'll sign them all. He'll sign carcasses of pigs, chickens and goats he consumed at Joel Salatin's Polyface Farm as he reads another excerpt...

In Polyface Farm, chickens live like chickens, his cows like cows, pigs, pigs ... animal happiness is unmistakable. And here I was seeing it in abundance.

He’ll then describe his own unmistakable happiness as he sat back and let his digestive juices go to work on those animals whose happiness he just got through celebrating.

He’ll finish with a final one-two punch of moral outrage and meat-juice-dripping-down-the-chin ecstasy. The outrage...

Broiler chickens spend their lives in cages too small to ever stretch a wing. Every natural instinct is thwarted, leading to a range of behavioral vices that can include canablizing her cage mates and rubbing her body against the mesh until it is featherless and bleeding.

The ecstasy...

Melissa has a sure hand with the hacksaw and the butcher knife; within 20 minutes the goat is transformed into considerably more appetizing cuts of meat ... Mike cuts slivers from the loin and passes them around … the raw meat is surprisingly sweet.

There’s sure to be plenty of talking out of both sides of the mouth for everyone at the Michael Pollan carcass signing. He’ll share some his favorite rationalizations. He'll offer up recipe ideas. He'll explain how condemning the abuse of animals in factory farms while celebrating their slaughter by local farms has made him a best-selling author. So mark your calendar and be sure to bring a knife and fork to the Michael Pollan carcass signing.

Whole Foods must use a really small type size.

The title of the post in the Whole Foods blog says, “Let’s respect farm animals.” But then they switch to a smaller type size for the asterisk that says, “until we kill them and eat them.” So small I can't even see it. But that asterisk has to be there somewhere, doesn't it? Unless Whole Foods is trying to make the point that slaughtering and eating someone is a new way of showing them respect.

Now the type gets nice and big again.

Our meat and poultry standards at Whole Foods ... take into account the comfort, physical safety and health of the animals.

Then the asterisk at the end of the above sentence says, "This may appear at first to be counter-intuitive since shattering skulls with stun bolts, shackle hoisting upside-down, slicing necks, etc. would seem to some to adversely affect the comfort, physical safety and health of animals. But what you’re missing here is our shoppers want to feel good about themselves and their planet citizenship. Nothing ruins a good steak dinner faster than a conscience nagging you about how the animal suffered in order to become the flesh you're so happily chewing. Our shoppers want to delude themselves into thinking the animals they eat lived happy joyful lives right up until the moment they became meat. At first we tried telling them a happy meat fairy waved her wand and turned the animals into meat, but even our shoppers weren’t falling for that one. So we came up with this elaborate fantasy about happy, well cared for animals, grazing in the fields, living in the sunshine, and guess what, our shoppers bought it. If we can help our shoppers accept this wild story by repeating things like 'let's respect farm animals,' and 'we care about the comfort, safety and health of animals,' it means more money for us. Get it? Good. Now get out of our face."

I can't quite make out that asterisk, the type's so small, but it's got to be there somewhere.