The Humane Slaughter Myth



Do you believe you are buying `Humane` animal products ? The Giant Food Corporations use a number of misleading terms to keep the public in the dark and to create a false image that they care for animals. Here are just a few of them: “Humane”, “Free Range”, “Organic”, “Cage Free”, “Grass Fed”, “Barn Laid” and “Natural.“ In reality, all of these farming techniques are still cruel and exploit animals. “Humane Slaughter” is an oxymoron, a myth, a marketing gimmick that is contradictory in principle and impossible in practice.


  1. Characterised by tenderness, compassion and sympathy for people and animals, especially for the suffering or distressed.
  2. Acting in a matter that causes the least harm to people or animals.


  1. The killing or butchering of cattle, sheep etc. especially for food.
  2. The brutal or violent killing of person.
  3. The killing of great numbers of people or animals indiscriminately; carnage.

So who is protecting animals?

Like many of us, you may have been under the illusion that the RSPCA protects animals,
but did you know that the RSPCA is partially funded by the government? With a government implementing policies that protect animal agriculture the RSPCA`s lack of independence is a conflict of interest. A further conflict of interest is seen with RSPCA receiving licensing fees from corporations to label their products `RSPCA Approved.` A number of these corporations have been exposed for shocking cruelty to animals. The video below will further expose the truth.

Doesn’t the ‘RSPCA Approved’ sticker on animal products stand for ‘well-treated animal’?

The public’s ignorance is a result of decades of secrecy by the industries that profit from animal agriculture. They are well aware that keeping the public in the dark is the only way that they will continue to profit from misery. The politicians are ensuring that the public remains unaware. The NSW government recently introduced laws that will harshly penalize those who attempt to expose cruelty. These laws are referred to as “Ag-Gag” and are a cynical attempt to silence whistle-blowers and protect industry profits.



  • Noun / ag-gag / Any bill or law that punishes those who expose conditions on factory farms.
  • Verb. The act of silencing opposition to the abuse of farmed animals.

Read more here

What’s wrong with slaughter?

The term “humane slaughter” is an oxymoron; a myth. Every year in Australia, 520-620 million animals are killed at abattoirs. All of these are thinking, feeling, sentient animals, each with their own personality, no different to your pet dog, cat or bird, yet they are treated as nothing more than units of production, or “stock”. In such an environment, where they are viewed as inanimate objects, violence towards them is commonplace and often not even considered to be violence by the perpetrators. When there are several thousand animals being killed at each facility each day, a few “damaged stock” here and there makes little difference to the profit of the slaughterhouses and no difference to the salaries of the workers.

Even if the animals have lived a happy life, the slaughter process will always involve some level of stress, fear or pain, whether it’s when they’re herded and packed onto the transport truck, during transport itself or unloading at the abattoir, when they’re confined to holding pens (often without food or water) or shackled upside-down, forced up the ‘race’ or along the shackle line by kicking, punching, pushing or electric prodder, or when they’re finally killed. With such large numbers of animals being killed, it is impossible for stunning methods to be effective every time.

Above all, though, these animals do not want to die. It is not their choice and is long before the end of their natural life span. Regardless of whether they are unconscious at the time their throat is cut, their death is unjustified and unnecessary, especially when it is so easy to live without consuming their flesh or by-products. Source: AussieAbattoirs

Not a single taste in the world is worth taking someones life for.

So where did the term ‘Humane’ slaughter come from ?

The truth is we have had our minds fed misinformation for a long time. There is an invisible belief system, or ideology, that conditions us to eat certain animals, which is called ‘Carnism’.
Melanie Joy (Ph.D.,Ed.M) says: “When eating animals is not a necessity, which is the case in much of the world today, then it is a choice, and choices always stem from beliefs. Carnism is a dominant ideology. It is so widespread its doctrine is seen as a given, rather than a choice. It is ‘the way things are’. It is a violent ideology. Meat cannot be procured without violence. And egg and dairy production cause extensive harm to animals. An ideology such as carnism runs counter to core human values, values as compassion, justice and authenticity. And so industry needs to use defence mechanisms that distort our thoughts and numb our feelings so that we act against our values without fully realizing what we are doing.”

The main defence of carnism is denial, which is expressed largely through invisibility. The ideology itself is invisible and so are its victims. However, today, the animals in this video are not invisible. We will see what they went through when `humanely` having their lives taken from them.

Free Range Eggs and Dairy

So if `humane` slaughter doesn’t exist in the meat production industry, what about the free range egg and dairy industries. This video explains the myths about organic food, cruelty free & free range farming, which mislead the general public. What do the buzzwords “humane, cruelty free, cage free, free range, organic” actually mean and should we take any comfort in these labels?

No Glass Walls in Slaughter Houses

“What are the consequences of our food choices on ourselves and our world. Imagine being served your favourite meaty dish and asked the chef for the recipe. The chef replies `the secret is in the meat. You need to start out with 1kg of extra lean golden retriever. Chances are what you once thought of as food, you now think of as a dead animal, what you just felt was delicious you now feel is disgusting. Perception is the lens that we look at the world through. When it comes to looking at animals our perception is shaped largely, if not entirely by our culture. In fact, in meat eating countries around the world, people tend to have a tiny handful of animals that they have learned to classify as edible. All the rest we learn to classify as inedible and therefore disgusting.” – Melanie Joy

You cannot regulate violence. You can only abolish it.

Abolish the Unnecessary Killing of Innocent Being

We now put Melanie Joy`s carnism theory into practice, courtesy of Erin Janus, who has a spectacular You Tube channel we highly recommend.

Given that there are 32 farmed animals to every 1 human, why do we rarely or never see these animals ? Where are they ? Given that animal body parts are everywhere we turn, why don’t we ever see them alive ? Concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs), or factory farms, are the most rapidly growing system of farm animal production. 80% of animals eaten are factory farmed, windowless sheds on remote locations, which are virtually impossible for anyone other than industry officials to gain access to [1]. And if you did gain access, expect to wind up in prison, thanks to new Ag-Gag laws introduced by government. These animals are not living on `Happy` farms as industry would have us believe [2].

Factory farming is the number one cause of animal cruelty in the world today. It involves treating animals as if they were machines designed only to produce, and values production and profit over all other aspects of farming. In fact, in factory farms, the only measure of animal welfare considered valid is how much the animals can produce; whether it is meat, milk or eggs. The lived experience or quality of life of factory farmed animals is deemed to be of no consequence.

Factory farming is highly dependent on large quantities of limited resources such as grain-based
feed, water, energy and medication. This type of food production is inherently unsustainable because of its negative impacts on animals, people and the planet.“ With world population climbing at 228 000 per day [3] the death rate of animals is set to increase even more rapidly. After 22 years as working as a factory farmer, Craig Watts shares the truth behind Free-Range. He says `there`s a lot of flaws in the system, the consumers being hoodwinked and the farmers being jerked around.` With Australia eating more meat per capita than America, and with laws in place to charge and imprison animal activists filming the living conditions, how could Australian conditions possibly be any better.



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