[Ingrid E. Newkirk] In my, and PETA�s , view, there is no such thing as humane meat. Perhaps,
if we were being asked to consider road-kill, which at least wouldn�t be cruel if it was
scraped up off the road and eaten, but that�s not what we�re being asked. Rather, it�s
being suggested that we actually buy and accept it�s somehow alright eating the flesh of
animals who are very much alive. Who have friends and family, or were deprived of them,
and who go through enormous trauma, despite some small courtesies like a little extra
space in their overcrowded prison cells. Yes, kicking the dog six times a week instead of
seven is marginally better, but that doesn�t mean we should go around suggesting that people
kick the dog, just not as often, does it? Calling this sad flesh �humane meat� is
like calling Brittney Spears an opera singer. I could go along with SLCBSUM, or �slightly
less cruel but still unacceptable meat,� but it�s definitely still not �humane
meat� by a long shot. There is nothing humane about the flesh of animals who have had one,
or two, or perhaps three improvements made in their absolutely singularly rotten lives
on today�s farms. Perhaps they are allowed outside. Perhaps they are not kept in �iron
maidens� or sow stalls. Perhaps they�re hens who are allowed a box in which to lay
their eggs. But the rest of their lot in life, and the manner in which they are otherwise
treated outside these reductions in abysmal cruelty, is still an abomination. By being
asked to support meat from marginally less cruelly treated pigs and hens, we are also
being encouraged to support animal breeders, the people who bring our fellow animals into
this world for the sole purpose of putting them through the ringer, of causing them stress,
and trauma, and pain, and then pronouncing, �Off with their heads,� because we want
to eat their body parts. In asking us to endorse �humane meat� we�re also being tacitly
asked to endorse artificial insemination, which is a hideously scary procedure carried
out on what farmers themselves call �rape racks.� And we�re being told to support
mutilations, like castration without pain killers, dewattling, decombing, having hole-punchers
rip bits out of sows� ears. Being asked to support �humane meat� means asking
us to support the suffering of animals in transit, to approve of their saucer-wide-eyed-
body-shaking-palpable fear as they�re slung by their legs into crates that are banged
into the back of a truck � the first and last ride of their lives. And we�re being
asked to find acceptable and humane their experience as they barrel down the highway
freezing cold and burning heat. How can we accept that, any of it, if we are thinking
animals? We can�t. By being asked to endorse this grossly misnamed �humane meat� we
are being asked to endorse the way the animals are killed, the very final moments that culminate
in the fear and the smells of the slaughterhouse, for no meat is obtained without the slaughterhouse,
a place of blood and awful and screams. If that is humane, then take the kids to one
and let them make a day of it. Why not? Because it isn�t humane. That�s why. All of us
in society are supposed to believe it�s a good thing to prevent needless suffering
� all of us. So if that�s true, how can meat ever be acceptable? The pigs� or the
hens� misery, their suffering and their pain, was absolutely needless, because we
know we have no cause to eat meat at all. And given that much of what is bought to eat
in this country, fully half of it, is thrown away for one reason or another, if we support
any meat consumption, we�re supporting animals, hurt and killed, not even for the table, but
for the compost heap. You can�t get much more needless than that. And if we support
any meat consumption, we are supporting not only continued animal slavery, for that�s
honestly the only way to describe how animals are treated when they�re raised for meat,
but to support continued human disease, desertification, agricide, environmental degradation, the depletion
of top soil to raise feed crops for factory-farmed animals, the pollution of rivers and streams
from waste, with its accompanying destruction of wildlife. As for organic and pesticide-free,
I think two of PETA�s campaigners summed it up best. They were standing in a supermarket
and behind them was an unattended cellophane package containing chicken. The label said,
�young chicken,� and �pesticide free.� And one of our campaigners said to the other,
�Look at that, do you think that poor young chicken, lying dead under this plastic wrap,
is pleased or was pleased that she was pesticide-free?� The man buying the chicken came up and heard
her. He said, �Ew I can�t buy that now.� And they took him and they showed him what
to eat, and they gave him a vegan starter kit; now that�s public education. What if
instead our campaigners had suggested that he eat �humane meat?� They would have
kept his taste for meat alive, they would have taught him nothing, and they would have
made it seem as if even animal protectionists believe it is somehow acceptable to eat animals.
Which is the better approach: real education or meat facilitation? Meatification, or Vegefication?
Supporting the fantasy of �human meat� works directly against vegan education and
that can�t be helpful, it can�t be right. As we look around we see society at a turning
point; everyone, from NFL�s Arian Foster, to Bill Clinton, to Anne Hathaway, to Anderson
Cooper, to Martha Stewart, is talking about how going vegan has boosted their energy and
keeps them looking slim and healthy and is environmentally friendly and, yes, animal
friendly. Grocery stores are packed with tasty vegan foods; from faux meats like vegan chicken
and ribs and vegan cheese to you name it. It�s no longer a chore to ask for a vegan
meal in a restaurant, including a steakhouse. And there are vegan options at schools all
across the country. Some universities have all-vegan cafeterias. With so many fantastic
vegan cookbooks and food options, and with programs like the �Physician�s Committee
for Responsible Medicines� 21 Day Vegan Kick Start,� and the wildly popular �Vegan
Starter Kit,� we can help people step away from eating animals and show them they truly
won�t miss a thing, accept ill health. Now more than ever before it�s time to push
that way of thinking forward, not to turn it upside down and try to keep animal farming
alive. Animal farming is not humane in any way, shape, or form. It�s a nightmare for
the animals, for the earth, for human health, and for every living being; it needs to go.
Here�s a little poem to play with: Oh tell me, dear, don�t pigs love their cages, and
farmers pay them tip-top wages? Do they dine on pinecones, nuts, and clover, and go gladly
when it�s over? And tell me, dear, what can I eat, if I don�t eat meat? If I shun
liver, tongue, and ground-up body, will I end up feeling shoddy? What about veal, and
legs of lamb, monkeys� brains and fried up Spam? Will beans and nuts be quite as yummy?
Will greens and grains fill up my tummy? Well yes, they�re good, the answer came, and
eating them involves no shame. Humane meats like unicorns and the Easter bunny, the problem
is, this myth�s not funny. Considering a human is just another animal, if you eat your
fellows you�re actually a cannibal. At PETA we believe animals are not ours to eat, to
pick off a shelf, to consider food at all. They�re us. That means we have to actively
persuade people to reject all meat, to remind them that animals have emotions and needs
just as human beings do. Anyone who asks them instead to support any form of animal farming
is working against a just and compassionate world � the one we�re trying to create.
And we can�t go along with something so needless and wrong. The momentum for vegan
living is on our side and it will take every one of us to bring this change about by being
active advocates for vegan living. And that means rejecting the fallacy of �humane meat.�
So let�s do all we can to push for a vegan world. We don�t need more generations of
meat-eaters, and we don�t need animal protectionists to sell out animals who are seen as worth
only the flesh on their bodies, their hearts and their minds and their feelings forgotten.
There is no such thing as �humane meat.� Thank you.