Pet Improvement: Welfare of Food Animals | Community

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There is no doubt that our pets have become stooped members of the family. So many pet parents will do anything to ensure the best quality of life for the pets in the house.

One of the ways we show our love is through food. Yet the food somehow comes to us packaged in a way that most of the time is not reminiscent of the animal it came from or how that animal lived.

There is, and should be, an ongoing ethical challenge to the quality of life of food animals versus companion animals. To think that a cow, lamb, turkey or chicken has never had a life other than a pen or a cage and that they are now food for my super-pampered animals is incongruous and difficult to grasp.

In the previous columns, the discussion of how pets have been fed for several thousand years has been explored. There were dogs that were literally called table dogs, chained under the banquet tables and used to consume the leftovers from the feast. Historically, even until the middle of the last century, the role of dogs was to consume the remains of farm slaughter, cooking and hunting.

In years past, meat foods required a lot of work to be raised and prepared. Dogs would not be given major human servings, such as muscle meat.

The whole reason behind the dry and canned dog food industries was to use the by-products of rendering plants or, in the case of canned food, the excesses of war.

It almost seems that, especially with dogs, we move them from consuming scavengers, table scraps or by-products to primary consumption. Newer diets based on raw meat and bones can contain up to 80% protein as well as liver and other organ meats.

These diets, and others like them, are based on how wolves feed in the wild. But our dogs haven’t been in the wild for thousands of years.

Due to concerns over unhealthy fillers, many commercial pet foods now list meat as the first or second ingredient (s).

The Association of Animal Feed Control Officials (AAFCO) interprets meat on feed labels as follows: what is sometimes seen in raw meat sold for human consumption. This can include the less attractive cuts of meat, including heart muscle and the muscle that separates the heart and lungs from the rest of the internal organs, but it’s still muscle tissue.

Interestingly, in the Bible it is said that man was given “rulership” over all animals. But many researchers believe this word has been misinterpreted. Dominion is not about ultimate domination, domination, mistreatment or abuse, it is about human and humane management. We are the keepers of living creatures on the planet and the planet itself, and we seem to get an F grade.

Because of these issues, we are starting to see ways to assess the humane care of animals raised for food. A non-profit organization, the Global Animal Partnership (GAP), has a five-star rating system and above for the way animals are raised and treated.

There has been some controversy with GAP regarding certification, which is done with independent auditors. One review indicated that most of GAP’s certifications were for one- and two-star level animals, which is basically only a little better than factory farmed animals in pens and cages. It is not known whether this is true or not.

It is only when the farm reaches three stars and above that the animal really begins to have a life with outside access. Four are pasture-raised, five are animal-centric, and more than five means the animals have spent their entire lives on the farm.

The good thing about GAP is that the certification is only valid for 15 months, and the facility and animals must be re-inspected to continue in the program. There is also a complaints process.

There are also different certification standards depending on the type of animal. So, cattle, bison, pigs, laying hens, chickens, turkeys, sheep and goats all have different requirements for each level.

There are standards for what can be done to animals, including movement to slaughter. People don’t realize that many animals are raised in the United States and then shipped overseas for processing and packaging, creating unnecessary stress. Many are often crammed into shipping containers.

China is a place where animals are sent alive for slaughter, and there are surveillance issues there to ensure it is humane. So please remember just because a label says “born in the United States” doesn’t mean he was treated here. The label should say “Born, Raised and Processed in the United States”. It will also need to have certification from an oversight body such as GAP.

We are a carnivorous society, just like our pets, but we can take steps to ensure that food animals are not left behind closed doors or suffer to feed us. For more information on GAP, please visit: www.globalanimalpartnership.org.

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