Interview with Adele Douglass, Executive Director, Humane Farm Animal Care, and Jesse LaFlamme from Pete and Gerry’s Organic Eggs

Dear Lynne:     There isn’t much money in my food budget, but when I spend it I’d like to know I am supporting healthy farming, especially quality treatment of farm animals. My question: When I buy meat, is there a reliable way of knowing if the animal was treated well? — Suspicious of Hype

A newly formed group of family dairy farms in Wisconsin, calling themselves Grass Point Farms, has become the first national dairy to be certified to use the “Certified Humane Raised and Handled” label on its fluid milk, butter and cheese products.

D’Agostino Supermarkets, here is asking all its livestock, poultry, dairy and egg suppliers to earn certification under an animal welfare program.

D’Agostino Supermarkets, based here, yesterday highlighted the certified humane products it carries in its 22 stores–including veal, chicken, eggs, pudding, and pork products–and called on suppliers of livestock, poultry, dairy, and eggs to join the Certified Humane Raised and Handled Certification Program, which promotes standards for the humane treatment of farm animals.

I’ve always had a problem with the lunatic fringe of any sort and the animal welfare movement tends to be a leader in offering safe haven to those dwelling on the outside edge of sanity. The Animal Liberation Front, for instance, has a well-earned position on the FBI’s dubious list of terrorist groups for their long record of violence.

Like heirloom tomatoes, heritage meats appeal to discerning palates. With the ultimate holiday meal in mind Jeffrey Steingarten hunts down the most irresistible and rarefied breeds.

Old MacDonald’s Farm has been looking less like a pleasant green pasture and more like a house of horrors in recent years, but the folks at Humane Farm Animal Care developed a product labeling system to encourage alternatives.

Recently the Graduate and Professional Student Assembly released a position statement asking University Dining Services to switch from caged-poultry eggs to “cage-free” eggs, which are laid by hens not housed in cramped factory-style cages.

Prince Charles visited the Prather Ranch Meat Company in the Ferry Building at the Embarcadero in San Francisco Monday of this week with his wife Camilla.