Babe here, aka someone’s Christmas lunch, is living on a farm run by a company the RSPCA designates ‘free range’. Pic: Animal Liberation Victoria. Source: NewsComAu
FREE range ham. It sounds so humane, doesn’t it? A cute little piggy running round the paddock having a good old time in the mud before it ends up glazed with honey on your Christmas table.
Sadly, it’s not quite that simple. Animal activists say the classification of so-called “free range” pork products is as good as meaningless.
Three years ago, the RSPCA introduced its “Paw of Approval” stamp. The stylised logo appears on pork products and indicates the meat meets the RSPCA’S stringent standards.
Here’s what the RSPCA said about the paw when it was first launched:
“The RSPCA has farms around Australia that are monitored closely to ensure our high animal welfare standards are maintained and animals on these farms are provided with an environment that meets their behavioural and physiological needs. For example, pigs on RSPCA Approved farms are reared, handled and transported with consideration and care and then slaughtered humanely.”
But animal activists say the system is failing.
Verna Simpson from Humane Society International (HSI) Australia says the RSPCA started with the perfectly sound intention of introducing an animal welfare-friendly label with its Paw Of Approval scheme.
But somewhere along that road paved with good intentions, many pigs still ended up living in hellish conditions.
“Often the labels don’t mean what people think they do,” Simpson explains. “For example ‘bred free range’ means piglets are born outside with their mum, then moved inside at 21 days of age where they stay until they are slaughtered.
“Conditions on some free range farms are terrible. There are stories of piglets drowning in their own poo and even piglets eating dead piglets.”
We thought right about now in the story might be a good time to make you think twice about this. Source: News Limited
The RSPCA did not return calls when asked to comment on the issue of whether some of the farms it endorses are failing to meet standards.
News.com.au rang the RSPCA’s head office multiple times over two days and were told we would be called back. We weren’t.
A MUDDY ISSUE
Even when farms comply with the RSPCA’s Paw of Approval code, the standards of that code are confusing to the consumer in regard to what exactly free range means.
For example, free range farms can earn the RSPCA’s Paw of Approval even when pigs have no access to pasture.
Your RSPCA-approved ham may also not be as healthy as you think. Many shoppers have an underlying assumption that ‘free range’ means the meat will also be free of nasties. But growth additives and antibiotics are just two of the additives allowed in RSPCA-approved products.
To help people make an informed choice about what ‘free range’ really means, Humane Society Australia recently produced a series of tables for each type of meat as well as eggs. Here’s their table for pork products.
You might say there’s more than meats the eye. Source: NewsComAu
As you can see, the RSPCA’s Paw of Approval doesn’t necessarily mean free range – as in free to wander in pastures. And there are no independent auditors employed by the government or any other body to ensure standards are upheld.
Animal Liberation Victoria recently targeted one particular pork supplier whose products are on the shelves at most major supermarkets. It filmed a truly horrific video which revealed squalid, cramped conditions with crippled and dead animals lying untouched among the living animals.
The images were made available to us but were too distressing to reproduce.
The RSPCA is said to have removed its Paw of Approval from that producer’s products with minimal fanfare. Again, they could not be reached for comment.
The major problem with product labelling relating to animal-welfare in the pork industry is there are no legal definitions for production systems. That’s unlikely to change in the near future.
The good news is that the ACCC has made so-called ‘credence claims’ one of its priorities. So it is devoting increasing time and energy to issues like whether a product really is made in Australia, and whether ‘free range pork’ really is free range.
For example, the ACCC recently took on a company marketing organic water. The consumer advocacy body successfully argued that ALL water is, in fact, organic.
Just how much ‘free range’ pork is truly free range is a question no one appears able to answer for now.
Source: http://www.news.com.au/lifestyle/food/misinformation-and-porkies-is-your-christmas-ham-really-free-range/story-fneuz8wn-1226775014656