Humane for the Holidays

Posted by The Editorial Desk / Tuesday, December 22nd, 2009

If you’re considering something special for the holiday table this year, seeking out a “Certified Humane Raised and Handled ®” ham, rib roast or turkey may just fit the bill for the celebratory season.

My own turkey this past Thanksgiving was a heritage breed bird, humanely raised on terra firma with plenty of room to poke around the outdoors, access to drinking water and a smorgasbord of bugs; he was “processed”  a mere two days before we ate him.

Some have come to the certified humane movement simply because the meat they purchase from producers who practice humane farming make a product that is more flavorful.

But increasingly foodie consumers who want to see how local they can go are taking living la vida  locavore with fruits and vegetables to the next level, and finding out where and how their meat is processed as well.

Adele Douglas is chief executive officer of Humane Farm Animal Care, the only farm animal welfare and food labeling program in the United States whose job it is to certify farm practices as “humane” and bestow the trademark “Certified Humane Raised and Handled ®.” She cooks a certified humane turkey every year for the holidays.

“The certified humane turkeys are raised and fed what turkeys are supposed to eat, they exercise… If I ever thought of not buying one for Thanksgiving, my children and grandchildren would rebel,” Douglas suggested.

The certified humane designation specifically means that the producer has given his or her farm animals “ample space, shelter and gentle handling to limit stress; ample fresh water and a healthy diet of feed free from antibiotics or hormones” according to Humane Farm Animal Care’s web site.

Many of the regular trappings of factory farming are forbidden accoutrement of certified humane meat producers such as cages, crates and tie stalls. In other words, animals must be able to enjoy the outdoors and exhibit natural behaviors—pigs must be able to root and play, chickens must be able to roam and spread their wings, and cattle must be able to chew their cud in a pasture all without the hormones or antibiotics that are the staples of a factory-farmed animal’s diet.

Indeed, many consumers come to the certified humane movement not only for a more flavorful food experience, but because they oppose the methods of factory farming. The humane farming movement occupies a strange philosophical intersection at the moment, however. The push towards more responsible farming is bemoaned by hardcore vegetarians as just another psychological device to make ourselves feel less guilty about murdering an animal for meat, while farm animal activists champion the practice of humane farming as an enlightened path to the future of animal husbandry—a guilt-free pass to let us have our cake and eat it too, so to speak.

Certifiable

If you’re considering buying a piece of meat for the holidays from a farm that practices humane farming, like Ayrshire Farm, you might be taken aback by the cost to play food philosopher.

Ayrshire founder Sandy Lerner runs an agricultural operation that is a rare combination of certified organic, humane and predator-friendly farming practices that don’t always necessarily co-exist on the same property. Even the cats at Ayrshire Farm are part and parcel of their “organic” designation, since the felines keep pests like rodents under control without harmful chemicals.

The turkey I purchased from them this past holiday was under 10 pounds and cost $97. I can currently go to Giant’s web site and order a complete turkey dinner for four for $39.99.

Though I utilized my God-given right as an American to vote with my designer knock-off wallet against factory farming, my turkey was about three times what I would pay at a regular grocery store.

Higher prices for humanely raised meat are justified as the “true” cost of what meat should be sold for at your grocery store.

According to Lerner, “There are no other hidden costs such as the environmental clean-up of the air, land, and water, associated human health issues, degradation of antibiotic effectiveness, hormone effects through the food-chain, etc.  I leave the air, land, and water in better shape each year than I found it, and the food is just food—no drugs, chemicals [or] hormones.”

The simplicity of Lerner’s explanation belies a system that actually makes it difficult to operate a for-profit farming operation when raising animals for food. It’s actually much easier to farm in a way that depends on antibiotics, produces harmful environmental byproducts, and considers animals commodities, like widgets.

Large-scale operations such as North Carolina-based Smithfield Foods is the largest hog processing operation on the planet, and produces inordinate amounts of excrement with damaging consequences to the environment. In fact, Smithfield was fined $12.6 million in 1997—the largest fee in Clean Water Act history—for polluting the Pagan River.

In an effort to illustrate the scale of factory farming versus family-owned farming such as Lerner’s, consider that Jonathan Safran Foer pegs Smithfield as processing approximately 31 million pigs annually (up from the 27 million animals per year Jeff Tietz touted in his 2006 Smithfield expose for Rolling Stone) in his new book, “Eating Animals.” This translates to upwards of 500,000 animals per week or roughly 84,000 animals per day. A lot of pig excrement to be sure, but consider that a slaughterweight hog on average is 250 pounds and processing that many animals is surely impossible to do in a healthy, let alone humane manner.

Ayrshire processes a whopping four pigs per week.

For the animals, humane farm practices translate to a much less stressful existence.

Don Schneider of Ayrshire Farm informed journalists during the farm’s Second Annual Beef tasting in October, “I think keeping that stress low gives us a good product.”

Low production does not only equal low stress, it also means that from a food safety perspective, animals on this farm can be more easily tracked. The ability to track an animal is no small achievement in an era of deadly e-coli outbreaks and other illnesses the general public is subjected to due to poor animal processing practices.

“I can tell you when [a specific] cow was born,” Schneider said. “It gives us a lot of control to maintain our quality.”

What does certified humane mean for your holiday table? “This helps farmers create a better product, it benefits consumers,” Douglas said. “We are a food-producing country. We should be producing the Rolls Royce of foods.”

‘Angelic’ Beef

If you’ve sampled one of the heavenly hamburgers from Local SixFortySeven (Derek Luhowiak, Local SixFortySeven’s roving chef, used to cook at Ayrshire), you’re acquainted with Angelic Beef.

Doug Linton said he and wife, Debbie, embraced cattle rearing “because we were disgusted with what we were eating in the grocery store.” And although they lack Ayrshire’s certified humane stamp, Angelic Beef farm does apply humane methods to their stocks:

“They’re may be some folks who think we’re over the top on what we do, but we’ve seen the difference in the animals,” Debbie said of their horses and 1-copy (i.e., one parent) Piedmontese cattle.

While Doug Linton claims the primary motivation for his cattle ranching was to improve the food supply, it’s clear he has a relationship with his cattle a factory farmer never could, or perhaps would want to.  (At one point, he shares a worry about one of his bulls; he thinks the problem could be burrs on the animal’s penis, and he is going to have to figure out a way to pick them off.)

One of the other things that happens on the Linton farm that would never happen in a factory farming environment is the ability of the calves to choose when they are weaned. Linton points out a couple younger cows that actually made their way back to their mothers after he had moved them to a different pasture. Instead of forcibly separating mother and calf for a second time, he let them be.

According to the Lintons, treating the animals emotionally is just as important as treating any physical ailments they might have.

“With homeopathy there is always an emotional piece,” Debbie said. “As far as the cattle, my part is figuring out what we need to give the cow. Even handling them can be stressful [for the animals].”

Debbie is a registered nurse and now currently works as an equine dentist. She often uses flower essences and other homeopathy to treat animals (both cows and horses) on the farm, which Debbie maintains greatly reduces the need for the use of antibiotics (all Angelic-raised animals are hormone-free). While she doesn’t eschew traditional veterinary medicine, Debbie said she has seen the effectiveness of nontraditional medicine on the animals she cares for, and this is why some of the Linton cows and horses are treated by medicinal herbs that many humans have yet to experience.

According to Debbie, homeopathy and flower essences bolster the animals own healing abilities, speeding them back on the path to wellness. She recalls an instance recently of a heifer that had bruised her shoulder and was dragging her arm around. Debbie administered hypericum, or St. John’s Wort as it is commonly known, and the heifer recovered nicely. Cows who experience difficult births also receive a flower essence product called “Rescue Remedy” which is marketed to women for its “calming and centering energy.”

As one last act of compassion, Doug lets his cattle remain in the pasture the night before they are harvested. He can do this because his slaughter facility is only four miles away.

As I leave they tell me they are expecting an acupuncturist around three that afternoon—for one of the horses.

Relationships are the reason we gather at the holidays with family and friends. And as you plan your holiday menu, consider that purchasing a humanely raised animal may be the perfect representation of the farmer-consumer relationship.

“The holidays are traditionally a time to reflect on one’s own blessings and to reach out to those less fortunate,” Sandy Lerner said. “Animals in factory farms are among the most miserable souls on the planet. I see an increased consciousness across-the-board for the welfare of farmed animals. ”

Indeed, I would also include the animal in that relationship.

–Amy Loeffler

Tags: agriculture, Amy Loeffler, Angelic Beef, Ayrshire Farm, farming, Gut Check, Humane Farm Animal Care, humanely raised food, Northern Virginia Magazine