Veal Eaters: Does This Video Bother You?
This undercover video from the Humane Society of the United States (disclaimer: my wife works there and I once did, too) documents the conditions at a Vermont slaughterhouse where veal calves are treated with the kind of respect usually reserved for household intruders.
Today, both the USDA and the Vermont state agriculture agency suspended operations at the plant, pending an investigation. Though, according to this article in the Burlington Free Press, the owner of Bushway Packing doesn’t think his operation has done anything wrong.
Y&H has no interest in being self-righteous or hypocritical here. I eat veal meat — and often enjoy it. But when I watch something like this (and it is exceedingly difficult to watch), I tend to think we have serious problems buried deep within our livestock systems in this country, despite all the efforts to make them more humane.
The timing of this investigation is perfect. The results come two days after Jane Black at the Washington Post wrote about a trend among livestock producers to move toward humanely raised veal, sometimes known as “rose veal” because its flesh isn’t milky white like the other forms of young calf meat. You can find the stuff at Palena, Restaurant Eve, Proof, Marcel’s, and Charlie Palmer Steak, according to Black’s article.
One way, I think, to combat the old system, as represented in this video, is to insist on rose veal — and even grow to prefer it over the soft milky textures of the old stuff. What do you think, Y&H readers? Let’s get into it!
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9:56 am
I have just had to switch my veal producer when a second round of investigation on my part revealed issues with my previous farm. Not only did they misrepresent their practices to their local vendor, but they signed a plea bargain and paid a 6 figure fine for lying about the use of unlableld meds.
My new supplier pledges to use only milk & pasturage and not feed for its animals, group barns or outdoor pasturing of the animals where they can engage in “normal social behavior for calves (I certainly hope that included access to Facebbok and Twitter)” etc. But I have no way of knowing because there are no legal definitions of these terms.
All of this stuff goes on because the farm & labeling regulation system is not set up to let us, the consumer, really know what is going on. Cage Free chickens do not have to have access to the floor or even be cage free. Free range does not mean that an animal is grown out doors.
Until we have a labeling system that requires EVERY statement on the label to be provably true, we are going to keep on having shit like this video happen again and again.
Remember that the meat company that supplied Whole Foods in the Mid Atlantic was sending its cattle to an abbatoir that was repeatedly cited for cruel unsanitary and improper handling of the animals.
7:34 pm
“Until we have a labeling system that requires EVERY statement on the label to be provably true,”
LOL every statement is “provably true”. Doesn’t mean that you’ll agree with either it or the proof.
10:03 am
I misspoke. Until every claim on a label means what it says. What we have now are labeling laws that are laundry lists of the lies that can be told on the label of the product.
2:58 pm
Actually the labels are strictly controlled for claims by FSIS and it is an hard process to get a label approved. Please do not miss-represent things. Stick with the truth.
Beware that the HSUS is not your local humane society. They are not humane at all. Rather they are a big money international lobbying group pushing a vegan agenda , attempting to destroy farms, and prevent people from having pets or any interaction with animals. This is the same as PETA and their more violent terrorist branches like ALF.
While the Bushway plant has serious issues that need addressing it is not nearly as bad as HSUS would like you to believe. HSUS used selective reporting to lie to you and missrepresented Dr. Temple Grandin & Vogel’s letter. Reading the original letter finds a different story.
Remember, HSUS is your enemy and the enemy of all farm animals and farmers. Do not fall for their lies.
7:35 pm
HSUS is an enemy to farm animals? That the biggest crock of shit I’ve ever heard. Are you from a different planet? You must work for the the Center for Consumer Freedom – a front for tabacco companies and agribusiness. How do you suggest that HSUS misrepresented what happened at the Bushway plant? Through photoshop? HSUS does NOT want the world to go vegan. It’s not against pets and it has not connections to ALF. Nor does PETA. Get your facts straight before you start talking about misrepresentations.
10:12 am
Labels are strictly controlled, that is true. But the controls allow for lies. This is true of wine labels, food labels etc. Nutritional claims can be made on foods that boggle the mind. American is in the middle of a diabetes epidemic helped on my corporate food. Wake up and smell the profits to corporate food at the expense of our health and the truth.
Then look at companies who mislabel their product for chemical use and then gets to plead to one misdemeanor. http://groups.google.com/group/ar-news/msg/f85ec7f8686fa281
People legally label their fish as organic. It’s allowed. How can that be? How can a wild fish be certified as having not consumed artificial substances that are known to be in the oceans when they eat what they want. I am not saying that fish is dangerous, but wild caught fish cannot be organic in any sense of the word organic that actually has meaning. Yet label law allows for it to be labeled as such. Label law and the national organic standards have stripped much of the meaning of Organic in favor of allowing profit of big food.
The second biggest lie in the world is Danny Snyder promising Redskin fans a winner. The biggest is our system of food regulation and labeling.