If you're like me, you would happily pay a few extra bucks to buy something like "cage free" eggs. You feel good about yourself, buying eggs that were gently harvested from a warm brown hen with shining feathers, clucking around a dirt yard pecking at bits of dried corn.
Weyall ... a while ago I came across this video: http://tinyurl.com/dkmdg7 Okay, so much for my idyllic pastoral fantasies.
Farm Sanctuary is on to the deceptive marketing ploys used by greedy factory farmers eager to cash in on the bleeding hearts like myself, who cluelessly fork over big bucks in an attempt to decrease animal suffering. They've been publishing their “Farm Animal Welfare: An Assessment of Product Labeling Claims, Industry Quality Assurance Guidelines and Third-Party Certification Programs.” since 2005. They've just released this expanded, updated 2009 version: http://tinyurl.com/cea6gy
The Farm Sanctuary report truthfully defines what actions are legally required, before terms like "organic," "cage free," and "pasture fed" products can be slapped on to slabs of meat and cartons of eggs. Sadly, there is often precious little difference between a so-called "humane" food product, and one without the certification. Birds, cows and pigs are still squashed by the hundreds into overcrowded, fetid warehousing. Beaks are still chopped off, tails still docked...in other words, severe suffering is still rampant.
Granted, the fact that the public is demanding more humane regulations and the government is acknowledging a need for them, is encouraging. Some operations have even integrated significant steps toward alleviating animal distress. As Farm Sanctuary's report proves, however, we still have miles to go before we can sleep with clear consciences.
It is our duty as caring consumers to know where our dollars are going, and to demand true value for our patronage. Demanding humane treatment of animals in our food chain is particularly poignant these days (swine flu, avian flu, methane gas/environmental erosion, global warming, mad cow disease, heart disease, gout, endangered health care systems, anyone???).
If we follow up our humane inclinations by putting our dollars into organizations that truly live up to what they market, change can really happen for the better. Thanks to this report from Farm Sanctuary, it just became a lot easier to put our money where our mouths (and hearts) are.
Related causes: Animals, Health
Tags: free range eggs, cage free eggs, free range meat, organic food, pasture fed beef, humane meat, humane slaughter
