News: 5-Step Animal Welfare Rating Standards for your meat

winterorchids · February 2011

Whole Foods just sent me this and thought it was verry cool/interesting and thought I'd share. In summary, their meat will now carry a rating that reflects how (humanely) the animal was raised. While I haven't looked into the details of it, I absolutely love the concept.

At Whole Foods Market, we're dedicated to helping you make informed choices about the food you eat. It's often easy to forget that the burger, steak or drumstick on your plate was once an animal. How was that animal raised? How was it treated? Where did it come from? What about added hormones and antibiotics? Was its growth artificially accelerated to get to market sooner and reduce feed cost? We are committed to answering these questions.

Global Animal Partnership is a non-profit organization dedicated to continually improving the lives of farm animals. They have developed the 5-Step Animal Welfare Rating Standards that rate how pigs, chickens and cattle are raised for meat. Standards for other species (turkeys, lambs and others) are in development, so stay tuned and be sure to look for Global Animal Partnership 5-Step ratings the next time you stop by our meat department.

The Standards broken down:

http://www.wholefoodsmarket.com/meat/welfare.php?utm_source=Responsys&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=2011_02_16_Specials

Their blog entry about it:

http://blog.wholefoodsmarket.com/2011/02/5-step-chicken-whats-in-a-number/?utm_source=Responsys&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=2011_02_16_Specials

winterorchids · February 2011

Maybe posting this at the end of the workday was a bad idea

Here are the specifics for each rating for each animal.

http://www.wholefoodsmarket.com/meat/5-StepAnimalWelfareRating.pdf

C'mon ladies! Give me your thoughts...

MadameD517 · February 2011

Interesting.

Missy*K*04 · February 2011

I agree it is a good idea, and I'm hopeful that it will work in favor of both the animals and the consumers. I think consumers become overwhelmed easily with too much information being presented from so many angles when it comes to basic ideas like 'organic' 'humane' 'green', etc. For example, most people don't realize that 'cage free' chickens simply means they are all crowded in one large building, eventhough the phrase brings to mind something more like 'little house on the prarie'. Giving consumers an easier way to identify such practices is a great idea. So I am hopeful that this system WF wants to put in place is just as good in practice as it is on paper.

angelabbf · February 2011

That's awesome. I'm vegetarian and don't eat meat, but have always said if you HAVE to eat meat, at least do it right... Another reason why I love WF!!!

wldktz10 · February 2011

I really like that. We consider ourselves to be vegetarian but eat meat if we know it was ethically raised. You don't always know what to trust when you read things on a package, so this will make it a lot easier.

News: 5-Step Animal Welfare Rating Standards for your meat

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