What ever “humanely” means it is by no means universal. (or is it?)

I guess it is a good thing that agricultural producers not only take seriously the motto you are what you eat and extend it to you are also how you produce what you eat. Therefore I think that Whole Food ought to be commended if it is the case that they are not indifferent to their product but demand a standard and consistently offer that standard to the consumer. Not everyone is a vegetarian nor even a health food freak but buying food where the producer is concerned about what it produces from the stand point that it wants or is concerned with the well being of that which makes them rich and takes the time to make sure that their product is made with care is not really a thing to be cynical about, just so long as that it is the truth of matter and not the marketing of the matter.

Food production can and is on the average turned in a concept similar to that used by the Nazis in their death camps where it simply wasn't enough to exterminate it had to be done cost effectively so as to get the most death per dollar possible. Sill humaneness remains like the term human being as undefinable and consequently an enigma.

What ever humanely means it is in our present age not a universal concept, though it should be noted that those who founded this nation did perceive humaneness from a universal perspective. It is for that reason they defined individual rights outside of the domain of religion. A religion falls only within the framework of humane and therefore “legal” just so long as it lives up to and maintains these principles of humaneness as is defined by the bill of rights. I believe that it was believed we would expand upon this notion and grow in the sense of being and becoming more human but obviously this is not the case.

A view point of life that exists as an alternative morality to the universal rights of the individual is or can be constructed by the so called liberalism found in the market—supply equals demand. Presently in the United States “humane” apparently means execution, torture, no due process, and so on with only a yawn of a negative reaction—revealing that for which we stand!

In agricultural production where such a mentality exists and animals are reduced to mere objects that can yield profits especially if the product is said to be humanely killed then humane means the same thing in all cases, namely a means to maximizing profits—killing humanely can be done with a profit. If this were not the case then the argument would be don't produce that line of goods because it yields no profit.

So there will be kinds of humaneness all based on the principle of supply and demand. This supply and demand mindset finds execution, torture and the like as profitable since it continues to produce that kind of good with what is perceived to be a gain. It therefore sees “humaneness” in terms of a marketing scheme. A selling point of George Bush was 'he's tough on crime and is fond of the death penalty'. That helped get him into the White House. That is death has a profitability per unit factor and is therefore humane because it is profitable.

Apparently Guantanamo prisoners are on par with Whole Food products in that they too are marketed as “humanely” treated. The American public does not, on the whole, take the content seriously, that is they are on the whole indifferent (as in a state of being), thus in the realm of supply equals demand there is no product differentiation between Whole Food, torture, extrajudicial killing, kidnapping or plain old fashion electrocution but by god we will not have stoning—(hence the marketing belief that human is not a universal concept.)

Rest assured that your Whole Food meat product was not stoned to death and was allowed to live out its existence in at least as good a conditions as prisoners on Guantanamo and with equivalent to or perhaps slightly less legal rights. Whole Food animals are also denied the right to attorney client privilege but their crime isn't suspicion of terrorism but rather in having been born and because through the cosmological throw of dice they turned up as animals not humans. Of course a society that has achieved this state of market consciousness is also in a state of total indifference and therefore is one that is equally nihilistic. Meaning it doesn't matter what you do just so long as it spins a buck—what humane means from a marketing perspective.

Bona Petite.

I'm a grass-fed livestock farmer living near Joel Salatin and have visited his farm and bought his products many times. His new book "Everything I Want to Do is Illegal" touches on th issues in your post.

Joel is funny, blunt, knowledgeable (about some topics), charismatic, certainly a pioneer. However, beware of making assumptions about him. The vast majority of his customers and fans are interested in organic foods, have an environmentalist bent, and are politically liberal. They may assume that Joel is like them -- but be assured that he certainly is not. Joel hates all those things. He is a fundamentalist Christian creationist and his politics are somewhere to the right of Dick Cheney.

A few examples: He shoots any non-farm animal that comes on his property (including dogs, rare martens, and birds of prey), and does it with an enthusiasm that is disturbing for a so-called "poster boy for humane agriculture." This "ecological farmer" opposes wilderness areas, endangered species protection, and farmland preservation and would like to see all land privatized to be milked for all its worth in the name of "property rights." He compares animal-rights supporters and vegetarians to abortionists. And that's just a few of the chapters!

While I agree with a number of his points -- for example, that small-scale farmers should be exempt from regulations designed for corporate agribusinesses like Cargill or Tyson -- his simplistic libertarianism is more appropriate for a college sophomore.

Yes, he pioneered pastured poultry and popularized grass-fed farming in general. The number of different profitable enterprises on his farm is remarkable. And anybody who can make a living farming these days should be congratulated. But this book shows him as a generic, naive libertarian wanna-be who has a persecution complex and a far higher opinion of himself than is deserved.

I highly recommend his other, more practical, books -- "Salad Bar Beef" etc -- instead of this angry right-wing rant. Let's hope a more moderate farmer steps up as a spokesman for this critical paradigm shift in agriculture.