{"id":3259,"date":"2008-05-21T22:08:00","date_gmt":"2008-05-22T04:08:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nmpolitics.net\/index\/2008\/05\/eating-not-mistreating\/"},"modified":"2009-08-22T14:09:44","modified_gmt":"2009-08-22T20:09:44","slug":"eating-not-mistreating","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/2008\/05\/eating-not-mistreating\/","title":{"rendered":"Eating, not mistreating"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

By Carter Bundy<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

OK, I swear I\u2019m not stalking Heath\u2019s other columnists. Really. Not that I didn\u2019t love Mike Swickard\u2019s<\/a> last article on no-kill shelters. I did.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

But Heath can tell you I\u2019ve been planning on doing an animal-food article for a few weeks, and hopefully the two complement each other and help raise awareness of the broad variety of animal issues we can do something about.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

Table talk<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

Two dinners in the last year have made me think about animal cruelty in our food chain far more than I ever had before. Just before my 40th birthday, I had dinner with some animal-advocacy friends.<\/p>\n

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As with many 40 year olds — or at least men — I was thinking of some zany way of changing my life, and they nearly had me going vegetarian that night.<\/p>\n

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Then I realized I\u2019d starve to death if my choices were kelp and spinach.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

What I did agree with, though, is that the conditions under which our animals are raised and killed are atrocious. The stories were terrible for cattle, pigs and chicken alike — painfully long killing processes, tiny areas of confinement during their awful lives, mutilation of animals to keep them under greater control in the small areas, high rates of disease from the close proximity, and no time outside to enjoy the sun and grass.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

Here\u2019s one example of the kind of unnecessary, brutal torture of animals that goes on in the chicken industry (from PETA\u2019s Web site<\/a>):<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

\u201cCurrently, chickens killed for O\u2019Charley\u2019s are dumped onto conveyors and hung upside-down by their legs in metal shackles — often causing broken bones — and their heads are run through electrified baths that give them painful shocks without rendering them insensible to pain. The birds are still conscious when their throats are cut, and many are scalded to death in defeathering tanks.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

If there were no alternate ways of killing animals as part of a large-scale food operation, I\u2019d have to weigh the benefits of widely available, inexpensive, nutritious chicken food against the cruelty to chickens. Fortunately, none of us, including O\u2019Charley\u2019s, has to make that decision.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

According to PETA (with whom I otherwise have some significant disagreements), Burger King, Wendy\u2019s and other restaurants now give preference to suppliers who use Controlled Atmosphere Killing (CAK). In CAK, the chickens are \u201cput to sleep\u201d by replacing oxygen with inert and painless gases like argon and nitrogen, and PETA calls the death quick and painless, with lower risk of contamination and disease.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

But how does a casual consumer find out things like this unless you\u2019re doing research for a column? Even my animal-activist friends didn\u2019t tell me that I should go to Wendy\u2019s or Burger King if I\u2019m looking for fast-food chicken.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

Ironically, another dinner<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

Last week, I had dinner in Lexington<\/st1:city> with my cousin, who has worked with animals her whole life and has parlayed her love of horses and other animals into a great position in the University<\/st1:placetype> of Kentucky Ag Department<\/st1:placename><\/st1:place>.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

We had some outstanding organic, local lamb. Of course, it was a great opportunity to follow up on my questions about cruelty-free labeling. She mentioned that an autistic woman had developed an impressive set of standards for care of animals from birth to slaughter.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

The woman was Dr. Temple Grandin<\/a>, who is most famous for writing \u201cAnimals in Translation.\u201d Dr. Grandin is autistic and is also a professor of animal science at Colorado<\/st1:placename> State<\/st1:placetype><\/st1:place>.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

Turns out, she\u2019s become one of the world\u2019s foremost authorities in designing stockyards, corrals, races, chutes, loading ramps, restraining systems and standards for handling, transport and slaughter of animals.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

Her work is so well respected that she has become a consultant for, of all companies, McDonald\u2019s, and according to many has single-handedly caused a significant change in the treatment of animals raised for food all over the world. It\u2019s a testament to the power of large companies to change behavior for the better using market forces.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

But my question remained: Is there any standard I could rely on as a consumer to try to make cruelty-free food a higher percentage of my diet? The short answer: no.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

Where\u2019s the beef?<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

Anti-government folks will argue that the market should be allowed to determine whether the food we eat is killed by cruel and unnecessary torture of animals or by more humane methods.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

That\u2019s a valid political philosophy, and the same people may even have a good, substantive point in that, for the time being, cruelty to animals is not a top priority for most Americans.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

But even anti-regulation free-marketeers have to acknowledge that the market doesn\u2019t work without accurate information. Hopefully they wouldn\u2019t object to simple consumer information.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

A worthy goal for 2009<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

So as a modest first-step proposal, I\u2019d offer this: If you want free markets to be able to balance animal cruelty against inexpensive meats, then at least establish a USDA category for cruelty-free products, similar to \u201corganic\u201d labels the USDA approves.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

The USDA already inspects meat and processing plants anyhow, and private companies list the results of the inspections (including whether the food qualifies as \u201corganic\u201d). So we\u2019re not talking about a significant additional cost to consumers or taxpayers.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

According to New Mexican Heather Ferguson of Animal Protection Voters<\/a>, the USDA actually started a process for labeling foods \u201cAnimal Care.\u201d But the standards were so vague that the program has been shelved by lawsuits for now.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

Our new New Mexico<\/st1:place><\/st1:state> congressional delegation should commit to working with ranchers, dairy farmers, restaurants, retailers and the animal-advocacy community to develop better legal standards of care for animals.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

Good for business<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

The bad publicity from incidents like the downer cows in Clovis<\/st1:place><\/st1:city> alone makes high standards worth the minimal costs of treating animals well.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

Even if efforts to rewrite our laws fall short or take years, our federal legislators ought to quickly embrace some higher voluntary standard that would help consumers and the market choose cruelty-free foods if they want.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

And if Washington<\/st1:state> won\u2019t do it, there\u2019s no reason Gov. Richardson<\/a>, Lt. Gov. Denish<\/a>, and our legislative leaders in Santa Fe<\/st1:place><\/st1:city> — who have already shown courage in supporting animals — couldn\u2019t take the lead in good regulation, enforcement and even higher voluntary standards. <\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

Match those higher voluntary standards with an easy consumer label, and everyone wins — consumers, business and animals. And I won\u2019t need a Corvette.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

Bundy is the political and legislative director for AFSCME<\/a> in New Mexico<\/st1:place><\/st1:state>. The opinions in his column are personal and do not necessarily reflect any official AFSCME position. You can learn more about him by clicking here<\/a>. Contact him at carterbundy@yahoo.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Carter Bundy OK, I swear I\u2019m not stalking Heath\u2019s other columnists. Really. Not that I didn\u2019t love Mike Swickard\u2019s last article on no-kill shelters. I did. But Heath can tell you I\u2019ve been planning on doing an animal-food article for a few weeks, and hopefully the two complement each other and help raise awareness […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3259","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bundy-columns"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3259","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3259"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3259\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3259"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3259"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3259"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}