"the animals were raised in a humane manner until they were slaughtered." You can say that with a straight face? It's as nonsensical as thinking that drinking horizon milk is much better than drinking bordens. Whole Foods has become completely corporatized and has fully learned the lessons of spin. My local wf now has a a former Harris Teeter manager at its helm and you can tell it on the shelves.

The company's standards may be found here (scroll down.) Any experts on this sort of thing know if this is meaningful, or just a gimmick?

Pacific Waters,

I believe the line you mention is factually correct, although it does sound awkward.

The problem with it is that it would be easy for a person to interchange the two disparate definitions of the word "slaughter"

1 : the act of killing; specifically : the butchering of livestock for market
2 : killing of great numbers of human beings (as in battle or a massacre)

On the "slaughter" line: it's the work of the article's author, not a direct quote from WF. And the line is awkard; I'm sure a hired spinmeister would have chosen the words more carefully.

I think 'slaughter' is the honest word, and it brings to mind 'slaughterhouse' which is even more honest.
The word 'humane' is an interesting one......presumably relating to living conditions, quality of food....? Does it extend to a humane method of slaughter too? Non-Halal, for example?

Over the last 50 years, the meat counter at the local supermarket has become a mystical food source for most americans.

It is a sign of growing wealth in a society that most of us do not have to know anything about the meat we are consuming.

After most have been raised without having to slaughter their own food, they are taken aback by the steps necessary to put meat on the table.

Unfortunately, this can be said about much of our consumption.
-Vegitable and fruit packaging is not required to note that it was picked by exploited illegal aliens.
-Coffee and herbs do not note the wage level of the pickers.
-Cloths and shoe labels are not required to note that children in sweatshops worked 16 hour days making them.
-Cars and transist systems are not required to note that the steel came from devistating strip mines in Korea.
-Jewels and gold are not required to note that the exploited miners that found them died of mercury poisoning shortly thereafter.
-political bumper stickers do not note that trees we're cut down to make them.

If people wanted to know the origin of what they consume in life, maybe this would be a more humaine world. We might have less stuff and what we have may have more meaning to us.

It may be spin. Spinning sometimes takes us in the right direction.

If you go here and register, you can access the documents that give, in grisly detail, the "certified Humane" standards in America.
http://www.certifiedhumane.org/documentation.asp