Jul 08 2010
A Meaty Discussion
Following HSUS’s farm animal push in Ohio and California, it’s worth examining what the group believes about eating—especially since campaign director Paul Shapiro recently claimed HSUS “does not have an ‘anti-meat’ agenda.”
If you don’t read Animal People, the animal rights movement’s unofficial newspaper, you might want to. It provides a lot of “inside baseball” about movers and shakers in the movement—such as this note that Wayne Pacelle “hypothetically proposed a three-way merger of HSUS, the Fund [For Animals], and PETA as long ago as 1988.”
Every year, Animal People publishes a Watchdog Report about various animal rights nonprofits like HSUS. And the 2009 edition includes this interesting little gem. Since 2005 (one year after Wayne Pacelle took over), HSUS has had this official food policy:
At HSUS internal events where food is served and to which staff and/or guests have been invited to participate, HSUS will purchase vegan fare and we will strive to have organic products…External events under the control of HSUS should also provide for the purchase of all non-animal products. If this is not possible, events should be vegetarian—no meat (including fish and shellfish). For events sponsored by HSUS with other organizations, strong efforts should be made to serve all vegan or vegetarian food. Partnering organization are to be informed that vegan options should be available and that they are preferred. Any animal products served at co-sponsored events should be Certified Humane, in keeping with HSUS support for this program.
In other words, slipping in a little bacon into a BLT could be a firing offense in HSUS-land. No wonder the only food HSUS officially endorses is "Tofurky."
This wasn’t always the case. Former HSUS president John Hoyt told the California Farm Bureau back in 1990, “We are not a vegetarian organization, and as a matter of policy do not consider the utilization of animals for food to be either immoral, or inappropriate.” Hoyt himself was not a vegetarian.
But things changed when the vegan Pacelle took over. He brought in Paul Shapiro, Michael Greger, Miyun Park, Josh Balk, and other like-minded vegan activists. (Shapiro's self-admitted goal at HSUS is “promoting vegetarian eating.”) And HSUS vice president Andrew Rowan explained to Animal People in 2007, “HSUS no longer spends its (donated) funds on animal food products … When HSUS employees are eating on expense accounts, they are expected to order vegetarian items.”
So Pacelle and the other HSUS tigers haven’t changed their stripes. They’ve just gotten a little more PR-savvy. Does anyone really believe Shapiro when he says HSUS doesn’t have an anti-meat agenda?
And, for the record, so what if it does?
This is America. You're free to be a vegetarian, a libertarian, a Unitarian, whatever you wish. But if HSUS is secretly flacking for Big Tofu, the group should be honest about it—just so donors know what they're funding.
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Posted on 07/08/2010 at 04:42 PM by the HumaneWatch Team
The Best of HumaneWatch • Dairy • Eggs • Meat • (8) CommentsComments
I’ve been to a number of HSUS events and they have all been vegan. Can’t even get cream for your coffee.
I find it interesting though: If we’re not supposed to be eating chicken, why is so much effort put into creating faux “chicken”? They always make a big deal of what the chefs have created.
Tastes pretty bland - gives me gas. So I pretty much eat the lettuce and fruit and get a burger on the way home.
Two questions.
1. When did the USDA begin Certified Humane? I know there are cuts designated Choice and Prime, but Certified Humane? Certified by whom?
2. Why are only animal food sources to be so certified? Why aren’t the vegans concerned about the care, feeding, watering, and methods of harvesting THEIR diets? I have not seen any underground videos of farmers harvesting their crops who are doing so with disregard to the corn. I see no one jumping to protect dry and baked fields, why not?
Come on, people. As many poor decisions as the HSUS has made, they are not stupid enough to serve meat at events which are supposedly meant to fund the humane treatment of animals. This is not radical thinking. It’s just a way for them to cover their a$$es.
John Galt - Vegans are quite concerned about the sources their food comes from. It’s the reason that many of them maintain organic, fair trade, sustainable, GMO-free diets. Talk to a vegan… they will bore you to tears about responsible harvesting practices. But the reason they are not “in defense of corn,” so to speak, is that corn isn’t capable of suffering.
I do agree that the USDA Humane grade is a joke.
I read a study once that reported plant matter giving off high pitched “screams” undetectable by our range of hearing when picked. There’s information suggesting that they do “suffer”. But none of us, human or animal, are EVER promised a life without pain and suffering. In fact, we are guaranteed to have lots of both.
Danielle, the discussion of plants and suffering has been going on for awhile. A friend of mine is a holistic healer, and she mentions this to me on occasion. We don’t discuss it further - I value her friendship the way it is.
I can’t help but think of a kind of “War of the Worlds” joke that was played on dog tracking folks several years ago. A tracking judge with a true sense of irony wrote an article that detailed a theory of what the dogs were following other than the scent of the track layer. It was called the Screaming Bug theory, and although it has been a very long time since I read the story, I do think there was a kind of sidebar about how it was possible the plants were also sending out death rattles or something like that.
The War of the Worlds analogy comes from the amazing number of tracking folks who believed the theory immediately. I would like to ask my dogs, but they aren’t talking . . . yet.
I do not eat meat. I’m not vegan. I saw a documentary on how farm animals are treated and I just couldn’t stomach the idea of eating something that was #1. alive—I never gave it thought before. Most of all I was so disgusted at how farm animals are treated and how they are slaughtered for food, that I can not look at meat with out remembering that documentary. I was not much to go for meat anyhow.
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People,animals,birds and fish,not to mention all sorts of bacteria and other forms of life have been eating meat and animal proteins for billions of years! That is how we have evolved into the intelligent species we are now! OMG!! Maybe you are all right!! We are killing each other and our environment with our intelligence!